Pau, France – The Tour de France enters its final week with a familiar scenario: it’s Lance Armstrong’s race to lose. That’s as in completely and uncharacteristically falling apart like a Trek bike getting hit by a Buick.
Cycling experts, and even the veteran, hardened – and very smoky – French journalists can’t recall a cyclist who has blown a 2-minute, 46-second lead with one week left. Can opponents expect that of a man who has won a record six Tours in a row and whose lone misstep the first two weeks was falling out of his pedal at the start of the opening prologue?
The St. Louis Cardinals would be more likely to blow their lead in August.
“The opportunities to put Lance in trouble are gone,” said Johan Bruyneel, race director of the Discovery Channel Team, during a packed news conference on Monday’s rest day. “But the Tour is the Tour, and everyone can have a bad day.”
Of the six stages remaining, Armstrong conceivably could lose ground in only two of them. Today’s 108-mile nearly circular stage from Mourenx to Pau, both in the Pyrenees foothills, features a 5.6-mile Category 1 climb with a 7.7 percent grade up Col de Marie-Blanque and a 10-mile HC climb (the highest category) with a 7 percent grade up Col d’Aubisque.
Expect major attacks on both climbs, but Armstrong survived attacks on five climbs of at least category 1 on Sunday and never was challenged by his chief rivals.
If he stays out of trouble today, he has a flat stage Wednesday and moderate days Thursday and Friday before Saturday’s 33-mile time trial. As arguably the Tour’s best time-trialer, particularly on longer routes, Armstrong probably would need to be behind going into Saturday to lose his chance at pouring champagne in Paris on Sunday.
Bruyneel is trying – without much success – to not appear too optimistic.
“There’s danger always,” Bruyneel said. “There’s danger in not having a bad day. Now to keep the lead, we have to be careful and rely on the team.”
Analysts suspected Armstrong would be hurt this year with the loss of teammates Floyd Landis to Phonak and Viatcheslav Ekimov to injury. However, CSC director Bjarne Riis said Monday, “This is the best team he’s ever had.”
He may be right. Not only did George Hincapie, Armstrong’s longtime lieutenant, win the toughest stage of the Tour on Sunday, but Yaroslav Popovych of Ukraine is wearing the white jersey as the Tour’s top young rider.
Trying to crack this huge barrier is Ivan Basso. The Italian with CSC is the man standing 2:46 behind. However, the likely 2006 Tour de France favorite isn’t ruling out being the 2005 Tour de France champion.
“I’m second now,” Basso said Monday at the CSC hotel. “But we are not in Paris.”
He has a strong team around him, including Glenwood Springs native Bobby Julich, but Basso lost promising American David Zabriskie earlier in the Tour to injury, and this is all new territory for him. Basso, 27, took third a year ago and a question remains whether riding the Tour of Italy in May took too much out of him.
That debate will be batted around in Paris. Right now, CSC and Basso are putting up a brave front.
“I don’t think, I believe,” Riis said of Basso’s chances. “I’ll believe until it’s not possible anymore.”
However, Basso is running out of tricks. He has attacked Armstrong numerous times, including a couple on the monstrous 6-mile final climb to Saint-Lary-Soulan on Sunday. Basso wouldn’t get 20 feet ahead before Armstrong closed the gap.
“After the last two days, I try each climb to put pressure, to attack, to go faster,” Basso said. “Each stage I try and T-Mobile tries and he doesn’t drop. I’m not stupid.”
Basso and the rest of the peloton is running out of time. Mickael Rasmussen of Denmark and Holland-based Rabobank is in third, 3:09 back, but isn’t much of a time-trialer. With only six days left, other riders besides Discovery Channel’s will do a lot of the heavy work up front.
“We can let the race work for us,” Bruyneel said. “There are guys who want to be in the top five and are worried about breakaways. In the last week there are all kinds of factors we should take advantage of.”
John Henderson can be reached at jhenderson@denverpost.com or 303-820-1299.
