Individual time trial, Le Bourg-d’Oisans to Alpe d’Huez, 15.5 km
Mostly English-language commentary with brief German commentary.
well the camper vans are here the tents are here the cars are here the road was completely closed last night to all traffic except official vehicles many people found they couldn’t get up here it was full the only way people are up here is because they have been here for several days prior to the road closure to actually make sure that they pick their spot and as we drove up last night late last yesterday evening I can tell you that we passed every single spot covered with either a vehicle or a tent yes people were actually pitching their tents on the road to wait for this historic occasion the riders set off uh at minute intervals beginning at 2:00 this afternoon Central European time 1:00 in the UK and Lance Armstrong who took the yellow jersey for the second time in this year’s race he’s now of course last man off and he goes off at 458 this afternoon which of course is 3:58 in the UK to give you some idea of just what to expect timewise and well everybody’s been trying to forecast what the finishing time will be for the winner anywhere between 36 and 40 minutes I’ve heard remember that Marco Pantani holds the official record done in 1997 of 37 minutes and 35 seconds although Armstrong himself did 38 minutes and one in the year 2001 at the moment the camera’s concentrating on Filipo Potato of course was a a stage winner a little bit earlier on in this tour the youngest rider in the race riding for Fasa Pollo and the crowds here enjoying the most wonderful wonderful weather conditions uh it’s been glorious ever since first thing this morning here and even at this height and remember that we are well over 6,000 ft above sea level here the weather is still extremely hot and many people are wearing the baseball caps at Leon and others have been giving away uh to help cover them their heads from the sunshine uh having said that though there is a forecast of the possible showers later with the wind maybe getting up a little just to spoil things let’s hope that that does not happen and that the sun continues to shine on this historic day the total distance of the stage 15.5 km well that converts to more or less 9 and 12 miles and when the riders get to the top they’re 6,100 ft above sea level having gone round those 21 numbered hairpins the average gradient given in the book for this race is 7.9% but if you take out the first kilometer and a half or so which is pretty well pan flat and then you’re left with the 14 km of the actual climb itself then that actual climb averages out at 10% and believe me some of the stretches as you see some of them there out of the corners out of the hairpins are far far steeper than that this is a grueling climb in on any occasion but when you’re riding against the clock on your own there’s no hiding place either from the gradient or the toughness of the stage as a whole or indeed from the sunshine which is beating down on the riders at the moment 49 riders already on their way and riders coming through to sign in uh at the just before their allotted time and of course then going on to the start gate as we look at Matio Tato just preparing himself for the off and another Fasa Bollo rider shortly going to begin this epic climb well Sean Kelly has climbed it a number of times in competition himself sean just how hard a climb is La Due well the L is a one which is very hard uh when you said about road stage is always up here i think that’s uh uh that’s a difficult because the road stages to here were always very mountainous ones and uh you always had a long stage of 200 220 km and um number of mountains beforehand very difficult mountains first category climbs during the day so you arrive at the bottom of this climb with 200 kilometers already done after climbing three four climbs and uh you know the body is getting pretty tired uh so that’s the reason the Alps you know really testing one uh but of course it’s you know it is one of the hard clims it’s uh it’s a hard road up here to Alpway is uh there’s not uh there’s not many climb I think as hard as it but it’s not the most difficult climb of the tour i would say you have clients which you do during the early part of stages which are as difficult but because of where it’s lying on the day when you arrive here at the end that makes it really really difficult if you were still a rider would you be would you be happier riding it as a time trial stage like this therefore obviously a very short stage or would you still prefer it to be on line a road race stage green i think if I had to ride it yes uh I had to do my best performance i would rather as a time trial because you arrive at the bottom and uh you know you start off and uh you’re a bit you’re fresher of course which is a big thing and I you know I always had problems in the really big climbs at the end uh was my difficult time and if you’re not a real climber and you’re carrying extra weight uh I mean extra weight you’re heavier than the climbers let’s say because you know the the bigger body you have to carry it up all these hills and you get tired as the day go on where you know starting at the bottom I think you have you know you you have the advantage because you maybe that bit more power than the uh the climber so I think it’s more balanced when you just have to do the time trial you know from the from the bottom here which is just the 14 km there’s a very different mindset needed to ride a classic climb like this in a time trial stage isn’t there you’ve got to try and get all your energy all your ability out in what’s going to be somewhere in the region of the high 30 minutes maybe 39 possibly 40 minutes certainly no more than that and some riders I think will probably have difficulty in doing that in adjusting to this kind of an effort rather than betting themselves down if I can put it that way in a long road race stage well I think in the time trial uh the riders here who are you know up there on the general class who are still in there to make it place in the top 10 at least they’re really going to go for it because they want to defend that place now uh if you’re in the top 10 at this moment you have to come through a lot of mountain stages so you know you can’t stay up there so you have to defend that place here and I think the royals who are really going for the general well they are going to you know naturally have to ride for it and then there’s a number of individuals maybe who are very good climbers will have a go but a lot of the riders here you know they’re going to ride it at 90 95% to just get in today because uh you know they’re not going to get into the top 10 they’re not in the top 10 or 15 in the general so they haven’t a lot to go for we’ve had three riders only finish the course so far in fact that’s just this second gone up to four and uh I was waiting to see what Jimmy Casper’s time was because Jimmy is not one who likes the Hills too much and we were fearful for him as to whether he might be able to get inside the time limit or not which is a fairly generous sounding 33% but when you take that 33% of the eventual winner’s time which we don’t know yet of course um it’s proving to be a fairly formidable target even for Jimmy uh but he’s finished in 49 minutes and 47 seconds the slowest of what is now five riders to finish altogether 4947 uh he may well be inside the time limit eventually we reckon if the winning ride is 39 minutes then everybody’s got to finish within 13 minutes of that that’s the delay if on the other hand the winning time is 36 minutes then the time delay is another 12 which would be 48 minutes so Jimmy’s got to hope that the winning time is around about 37 38 minutes and it’s all a very imponderable situation at the moment isn’t it Sean we won’t know for some considerable time how near uh the top riders the Armstrongs and everybody are going to get to that record of Marco Pantanis in 1997 it’s an unknown quantity because we’ve never had a time trial up here before i don’t think Sean there’s ever been a time trial in any other race a local race a small uh local race maybe even an hour race i’m not sure we’ve ever ever had any kind of a time trial in competition upd uh yes I think they have a yes they have the Monte the Alter race which is a climb of the alter race a race called for amateurs i don’t know what category i think it’s first category amateurs but there definitely is a race uh some years ago i’m not sure if it’s still going on but there were at one time a mont well thank you for correcting me on that one uh it’s uh more likely that we see it’s more usual that we see time trials up the van 2 for instance the giant of province and of course Jean Francois Bernard famously won a time trial stage up there uh in the tour to France back in 1987 and of course he’s currently commentating for uh Eurosport France with us here just a few feet away jean Francois no doubt thinking back to that time trial stage and of course more recently still Iban Mayo won stage up the vaugh a time trial stage in the doofina liber but unfortunately for him and the scal tells he’s now no longer in this tour to France so the crowds thick on the ground both up the climb and particularly here in LA itself the police estimates I’ve heard various estimates of the crowd anything I’ve heard between half a million and 1 million people it’s a lot of people who are here at Alpu and if you stay with us here on Eurosport we’ll be bringing you all the time travel action from this classic Alz time trial stage of the tour to France right until the last man finishes and just a reminder once again Lance Armstrong off at 4:58 which is Central European time 3:58 in the UK so time your afternoon to make sure you don’t miss the biggies we’ll be back with more from Mark after this 00 for an offer [Applause] [Music] then [Applause] here it’s Alexandro [Applause] [Music] [Applause] fore [Applause] market [Music] special uncommon uncommon in Paris [Applause] [Music] presented by Trek Bicycles [Applause] well back live with the time draw stage of the T of to France this classic climb from Bourj Disan to La Dez bourgeois down in the valley as our cameras are still with Potato the youngest rider in the race and stage winner a week or so ago uh the Bourgeois town at the bottom has uh been uh a part of the tour of France for many many years it’s had numerous starts since 1952 15 actually as we see the individual split times on the right hand side of our screen here and that will give you a clue as to just who is leading uh the race has passed through Bourgeois of course 23 times no less since 1952 on its way up to Aldoz as Marta comes to the line to finish with a time of 4352 and that is by some distance the fastest time that we have had so far 4352 for the RA GT rider from France Ludovic Martin and uh that I think uh might last for quite a little while remember that we’ve still got 157 riders remaining in the field there was just one abandoned yesterday that was Paulo Valotti of Dominic Vakansi who climbed off oh by the way I didn’t tell you about the competivity prize did I yesterday’s competivity prize went to Michael Rasmuson the Dane who rides for Rabbank remember that he had a go a couple of times in the Pyrenees didn’t quite come off uh but he had another go uh in one of the breaks yesterday and the comeativity prize yesterday was given to Rasmuson so there we are 157 riders to tackle this climb in front of these quite enormous crowds the traffic jams that we got involved in yesterday were quite enormous there was a certain amount of police cooperation particularly at the bottom of the climb just near Bush Dwis they were stopping yesterday evening any more um unauthorized traffic in other words members of the public if I can put it that way and only race official race vehicles were allowed up but um it still meant that Sha had to do a little bit of fancy driving here and there to get past occasional bushons traffic jams so that we could get here before the light of day this morning we made it what was it about 104 to 11 short when we finally got up here last night it certainly took us time some time but the police cooperation actually on the lower part of the climb uh was quite good they sorted the official traffic from the members of the public quite well and that made things just a little easier going up the climb itself uh yes it was easier than other years and I think the advantage was that people were uh uh you know very much intended getting up earlier on and we helped from people I help from people like 5 days ago you couldn’t get a parking space on the uh slopes of Alto other years with the road stages maybe we had a road stage maybe 150 200 km away and a lot of people you know are coming uh the evening of that race to get up that night before the day of well Robin Robbie Mchuan in his green points jersey here on his way up the climb he won’t like this uh he’s not the best of climbers like Jimmy Casper but he’ll get through I’m sure and well in the past we’ve seen him win the stage the final stage on the Shaz a couple of times despite taking a bit of a battering in the Alps and the Pyrenees so Robin Makuna well he’s obviously just out to make sure he gets inside the time limit uh not exactly enjoying himself but uh because this is really really hard work for everyone but nonetheless he’s still got time there to acknowledge the support of the crowd this is really a festival for cycling followers all over the world many of these people have been here as Sean said for several days they’ve brought their camper vans their tent they’ve picked their spot all the spots taken now and they were determined last night to make it one big party in fact we went past several parties didn’t we Sean as we were coming up the climb there were people letting off fireworks even there was the inevitable painting on the road going on as well the whole of La climb was on fate last night an unbelievable atmosphere now we’ve got our daily quick poll question for you i don’t know what it is here it comes david back in Paris take us through it please yes another stunningly interesting question for you all uh do you think that the person who is in yellow today will at the end of today will be in yellow by the time we get to Paris uh we couldn’t think them up could we like that they just come naturally to us that’s the question today uh do you think the person at the end of today’s uh stage and they’re in yellow will be yellow in Paris uh and I’m sure lots of people have opinions on that uh I’m very pleased to hear from you all today on the internet site www.yurosports.com and a lot of people are writing in to say they’ve climbed this themselves fergs writes in to say 63 minutes is his best time which I think is pretty good actually 63 minutes is his best time but his wife Diana managed to bust her gear select or her derailia and was and was limited to just the three middle cogs on her bike and did it in 1 hour and 45 minutes very pleased to hear from you if you’ve climbed this climb keep them coming in thanks for that David as we see DD Rousio going off for Brios Labula I tell you what David um as we’re watching we’re going back to that young man from Fasa Botto again Pato maybe we can we can probably just squeeze in a couple of quick emails from you on this time trial stage got anything pertinent i’m sure you have well there’s a couple of interesting ones yesterday we had a number of uh emails mainly a lot of them actually coming from Australia unbelievably saying “Why didn’t T-Mobile pick Cattle Evans wouldn’t he have been a better bet to help Yan Oric out yesterday did they get their team choice wrong?” In fact in general did T-Mo shoot themselves in the foot yesterday in terms of team strategy uh putting themselves further behind in the team competition as well that’s one interesting one had some very interesting comments about Lance’s black socks yesterday saying “What terribly bad form don’t you know?” Uh there are times people say we had one uh from Danny here saying “I remember people being thrown out of Time Charles for wearing colored socks.” Uh obviously some comments on that it always used to be white socks didn’t it is it a bad fashion statement or not one thing um lots of people asking are there double points at the top of this climb today well we can answer that one straight away yes there are there are 40 points available at the top of today uh which leads onto the other question do we think that the pola dot jersey competition is now dead and buried or is it still very much alive so there we are there’s a few comments and uh topics for you that’s interesting i like that last one about uh the polka dot jersey is it dead and buried i’m scribbling these down so that we can uh get to them one by one as we have a chance uh but Eric Decker here is the man currently on screen and of course riding in his Dutch champions jersey eric I don’t think Eric will be going flat out for a super time here eric will be conserving himself and hoping for better things in the remaining days of the tour just a reminder that the leading time at the moment at the finish is Ludic Martin’s 43 minutes and 52 seconds eric finishing in 4722 well into sixth place but of course there are lots of riders still to come of course Eric Decka in the early part of the field going in reverse order of general classification so Eric was the 19th rider off uh in today’s classic time trial just looking at my computer uh Martin’s intermediate times you probably saw them on the screen on the right hand side of your screen not long ago uh he’s still leading at all the other intermediate times but Canelara here young Canelara who of course uh won the prologue it seems like a long long time ago now Fabian Canelara made a rapid start uh over the first one and a half kilometers the flat bit out of Bisan and he was actually faster than anybody there in just 2 minutes and 1 second but now that he’s got to the climb he’s actually dropped down a little bit at the uh second no sorry the third intermediate point oh yeah i’m right second point third he’s not quite there yet he’s second behind Martin at the second intermediate time check right back to you David it’s all going to be statistics today isn’t it really there’s a lot of statistics today and look as we look at Fabin Canelara on the left there from one young Italian to another the best place Italians over since 1999 ivan Basso has been the best place Italian at this point since 2002 11th 7th and second today so he’s been gradually getting better so for those people who thought where’s he been that’s where he’s been gartelli was 2001 daniela Nardelloo in 201999 the best placed Italian at this point so Basso best placed Italian for the last 3 years uh Jean Patrick Nazon comes over the line in exactly 50 minutes and I make him la rouge at the moment well that’s an easy time to remember isn’t it 50 minutes exactly for the stage winner remember he’s had a stage to his credit earlier on in the tour jean Patrick Nazon who famously of course won the final stage of last year’s tour on the Shan Elise riding for AEG2R and now depriving uh Jimmy Casper of last place jimmy will be pleased with that Sean uh well I don’t think they’ll be worried about the places on these times or the times they have done i think the uh big concern will be what time Armstrong is going to do here because for those riders as we see John Patrick Nazone there are 50 minutes uh if Armstrong really is on a good day he could make it uh a bad day for Nazone because for the time limit uh I think there’s a lot of sprinters here that are really worried and uh um I think they’re putting in an effort here you know they look like they’re not nearly trying the last bit there but they are after putting in quite a big effort on this line because they’ve got to do it today and they’ve got to really go hard to hang in because it’s a it’s a difficult day for the sprinters it certainly is and 50 minutes well uh that could quite easily be outside the time limit it all depends upon what the winner does uh most journalists Sean are saying that Armstrong will increase his lead today by winning this do you go along with that yes I think he will increase his lead because uh the other riders uh Baso for example I don’t think that he will put in a performance although he will limit his losses on this time trial because he’s a mountain one of course Bazo is you know uh he’s known not to be a great time but uh more on the flash yes he would lose a lot of time but um I think how fast will Lance go that is the question will he beat the time of Pantani and um I think you know that starting a bit further out as well we must forget that he’s a kil and a half longer to the bottom of the climb because they’re starting in Bogon is safe so I think you know it will be maybe difficult for him to beat the time of Pantani filipo Simeone for Domino Vakansi coming to the line in a pretty good time although Martins is exceptional of the earlier starters those who are lower down the classification simeone going into second place with 4616 uh just a reminder of course that the winning time the leading time I should say 4352 from Ludvic Martin who’s not had the best of tours struggled as indeed have most of the RA GT Somance riders but for the moment he stands top of the tree as we go a little bit lower down the climb and we see Danny Loondo who is lying third at the uh second intermediate time check the first intermediate time check I have to say I feel is a little meaningless because it’s just at the bottom of the climb actually after one and a halfk and of course it’s the climb itself which is the really important thing so it could be said that that second time check is the first important one uh of this course so Martin leading 43 minutes and 52 seconds he set the early target we’ll have more after this for me to Fore [Applause] Honda robbie Mun [Applause] forgot [Applause] fore [Music] [Applause] [Applause] he’s had a stage win to his credit and he’s been up there and thereabouts in several of the other sprints as well usoft well on the way now in fact we’ve had over an hour’s worth as it were of the riders set off from the starting eight down in Bjaza and still that time of Ludvik Martin for RAT Samos in the lead here at the finish simeone in second place but some considerable distance behind him and nobody yet subsequent to Martin has gone faster at the two meaningful intermediate time checks we’ve got one time check at 9.5k and another one at 12.5 which is actually as the riders just come into the original village of before they built the outdoor which is slightly higher up the ski resort village itself which is a massive village in fact I think it’s really wrong to call it a village it’s a fairsized town how much has this area around the top of LA grown since you first came up here in your first tour to France rides Well it has grown massively and uh you know the amount of buildings is here now chalets and hotels of course you know it’s just uh grown uh enormously when I came up here the first time I you know it was a you know it’s about a quarter the size of what it is now and uh it’s amazing last night like you know the number of peoples around here and uh I think all year the alto has been you know uh frequent by bikers you know I came over here last year when we did this tour from Ireland with a number of riders in August and the number of people riding the climb you know there was quite a lot of people and the inb was on like the people moving around on bikes it’s uh impressive certainly is impressive the sheer volume of people up here is just quite astonishing as you see I see uh a great tracky expert in his younger days a time trial expert in his middle career a great solo specialist in the late stages of road races throughout his career visav Yakimoff now Yakimoff is the kind of rider who might just give this a fair old go what do you think Sean or will he conserve his energies for the further help that he’s expected to give to Lance Armstrong in the closing days of the tour i was expect to ride up here and not give it 100% uh he has a lot of work to do in the coming days and I don’t think there’s the time trial uh forky it’s a bit you know too hilly and he doesn’t like uh uh the hills really that much you know especially a time of course a flat time is a special so I would say like he just come up here and do an average time to off a little bit higher up the climb now and of course he is his country’s time trial champion but the championship that he rode to get that championship was not a mountain time trial was it Sean and this not quite might not quite to Uzzoff’s kettle of fish either no certainly not he uh you know he’s had a great tour he’s been very active looks very strong but he will need all the strength here today to you know to get that big heavy body of of up here and uh you know the time limit because we’ve seen him on the climbs he is struggling quite early in the race and he will have to make a big effort and that’s the thing for the sprinters today they’re going to have to make you know very close to the 100% effort you know to get inside in a in a fair time not to have problems with the uh time limit the time delay let’s just go to um one of the two of those questions that we got through David as we see uh so it was off going a little bit higher up the climb um first of all that one about T-Mo leaving out Cadel Evans i know you’re a little bit of a Cadel Evans fan you’ve liked what you’ve seen of him in recent years sean was it a mistake for T-Mobile to leave Cadel Evans out well I know Evans had a lot of problems over the last number of years he’s been very unlucky you know crashes breaking collar bones and breaking other bones and I think he uh I if I remember right I think he had a problem sort of earlier on this year so I think that would have been the problem he wasn’t in the best of shape and maybe wasn’t in a in a good enough shape to take part in this tour caren crew meantime coming up to the line he might just hold on to fourth place he by the time he gets to the line this is a pretty good time but this closing straight after that last roundabout that they come around is about 200 250 m and it’s still going uphill quite considerably it might not look it from our camera angle but he has held on to full spot 46 minutes 37 seconds for Caren Cone that’s 46 seems to be about the pile for the course for these earlier riders although just a reminder that Jean Patrick Naz did 50 50 minutes exactly and he will be holding uh his breath I would think when he’s got his breath back that is for the thick end of a couple of hours really before Lance Armstrong comes in and then we can absolutely see what that time delay is uh because only then will some of these sprinters with the slower times know whether they’re still going to be in the race tomorrow um slightly tongue and cheek one from Danny and others uh Sean about the the black socks that Lance was wearing yesterday bad form say a lot of the Durig cyclists what’s your take on black socks well it’s something that you know it’s rare we see the the black socks or you know anything outside the white socks let’s let’s say in in racing in road racing uh surprising to see Lance yesterday with that of course you know it’s came in a little bit more in the mountain bike scene where they use different color socks but it’s not the first time we’ve seen somebody on the road lo using other other than white socks no it’s not the first time it probably won’t be the last but at least it provokes a little bit of uh email flourish as we see Santiago Batero for T-Mobile the Colombian setting on his way remember he is the former world time trial champion uh but as with uh those who are time trial champions of their nation or indeed former world time trial champions those courses are not normally mapped in time trials and mind you Botero in the past has shown just how good a climber he can be so combine his climbing ability with his known time triing ability um what sort of performance would you expect from Botero i think we’ll be seeing a a poor performance from Ber because uh he hasn’t been going well in this tour at all we’ve seen him get into breaks yesterday he was in that break and he disappeared very quickly and at at a moment I thought he might have been waiting back because the tactic with Ulrich h going in the attack i thought he might be do something there but we never even see him on our TV because he came back so quickly and went back through the group um haven’t been performed at all over the last two years uh a long ways off what he was three four five years ago because he did some fabulous performances some fabulous stages in the tour but this year uh you know even the work he’s been doing for the T-Mobile has been very little and he’s been very lift to the four in the mountain stage is where we should be seeing him doing quite a lot of work for T-Mobile colister Cruz on the road he’s a slightly taller rider than Bero and these tall rangy riders if you’re carrying a little bit of extra weight rather than the little whippers snappers uh they’re going to find this a particularly grueling climb and Carlos de Cruz here well he’s not got the best of rhythm on this steep gradient and well this looks a little bit better from Brios La Bulon and this looks like Lauron Lefer who is catching him up lefer went off of course one minute behind Carlos D Cruz and here you see Lefer coming up to him gaining on his minute man Sean uh yes uh well it’s quickly lost the minute and uh we see here the cruise you know he’s not uh he’s not turning it he’s not smooth at all and he needs to get out the saddle a bit more we see him now he’s out of saddle and you have to do that you know keep on uh in and out of the saddle all the time and if you’re not a good uh climber as the cruise is not you have to keep on working on because the time limit is going to be very important here and as we see the fabra he’s a good rhythm and you know uh for like of the cruise you know he has to be careful today because the time ticks away very quickly and he could be in problems later with the time delay well and you may have noticed in the longer shot there that just ahead of the riders as we come back to Robbie Mchuan oh Mchuwan’s coming up tonight so I’ll go back to the point I was just going to raise uh in a moment but this is a very crucial time for Robbie Mchuan and it looks to me Sean as though he’s done a little bit better than he might have expected i was fearful that Mchuan might be outside 50 minutes particularly when I saw Jean Patrick Nazon’s 50 minutes exactly he’s going to be just over the 48 minute mark I think by the time he gets to the line and I think that that might just be good enough 48123 he’s just coming up to the line now and he doesn’t look too perturbed so way celebrations oh that is really something the crowd loved that robbie Mchuan coming to the line and giving us all a really really wheely finish beautiful i hope he’s still Yeah I hope he’s still got the smile on his face when the winner’s time is announced and they work out the time delay well I think by doing that the commerce if there’s a little bit tight in the delay I think they allow a bit more for him because of doing that performance coming over the line for us well 48 minutes and just a handful of seconds anyway for Robin Muan wonderful stuff from Robbie the Aussie ever the Joker and he uh did make a few little gestures of the nicest kind by the way justiculating thanking people up and down the course for all their support so he’s clearly enjoyed himself as much as one can on this gruing class just to get back to the point I was making about just ahead of the riders um each rider is preceded by two policemen on motorbikes and uh that is one way of clearing the way for the riders because of course not all of this course is barriered as we see Lef favorite coming towards the second time check um and there’s a whole army of them literally uh in pairs going up the mountain and then they’re actually going down there is another way down that not many people know it’s a little uh track little more than that and it wends its way down in a series of hairpin bends it’s not the sort of road we could use as an alternative road for climbing up it’s not good enough but it is just about good enough for the motorbike riders to go down and so they’re doing a series of ups and downs and ups and downs a huge army of them and there you see one preceding Lefer there as Rafer is going quite well here and then they go whizzing down well as quickly as they can whiz down and then they pick up another rider to take him up as well as we have a little view of Lance Armstrong with the US Postal Team Helpers and it’s quite some time before Armstrong is due off just a reminder that Armstrong goes off at 4:58 Central European time 3:58 in other words in the UK as we go back to Lefer who looks pretty comfortable the Brios Labalier rider nice easy style and it looks to me as though he’s about to catch uh his second man he’s already caught one remember uh that was Kster Cruz and it looks as though he’s going to catch to Uzoft very very soon as well so Usuzaf could find himself in a little bit of bother come the end of the day these sprinters are going to have a long long worried wait after they’ve recorded their times to see whether it is indeed inside the time delay which is onethird of the winner’s time eddie [Applause] speech for the champion champion team Greg Lement [Music] welcome back to LA as we see Andrea Peron on the start line ready to set off on his 15 1/2 kilometers of sheer agony for many of these riders believe me this is not one that many riders have been looking forward to by the way Michael Bett the former Dutch champion is the next rider off for Rabbank at 27 minutes past the hour meanwhile just to put Lefer’s performance in perspective uh as we see some of the intermediate times coming up on your screen Lefer isn’t on there in fact at the 9 and a halfk check he was fifth fastest behind Martin kristoff Shatto and Canelara were all ahead of him and Canelara incidentally who was very very quick out of the starting gate on the flat bit uh has clocked a second fastest time so far 4535 for Canelara which is not a bad time at all really 4535 put him into second place but I fear that come the end of the day that will be relegated quite considerably well there’s the man I mentioned a moment ago Michael Borgette for Ravvel Bank who uh is a former uh fifth place finisher in the tour to France he was in the top five in 1998 overall when we got to Paris after a somewhat eventful and fraught tour to France that year as we go higher up the climb to uh take a look at one of the scal riders and again a lot of orange t-shirts here on the climb we saw a lot of by the way there are two lots of orange camps here uh we saw the Urskal riders uh supporters in great numbers it’s Icharia that we’re looking at at the moment the man from Venezuela uh but we also saw the Dutch camp and there’s quite a lot of them at one particular point they were having a huge party at one stage of the climb as we came up after darkness had fallen by the way but it was quite light and bright where they were there they they they’ve got all sorts of lights going and uh they’ve got the Barbies going they were really having a party the Dutch always always always come to the tour to France in great numbers as indeed uh do the Basks [Music] well Lauron Duo coming out of the starting gate for Quickstep David lauron’s been round for quite a little while now former teammate of Rishard Ver in the Fina team and uh well Dufo very experienced but he’s not been in the greatest form in this tour to France i’m not sure that we see Dufo too high up the classification come the end of the day however Daniel O’Hondo is coming up to the finish and he’s still in third place at the moment but he’s got a well in fourth place he’s finished now 4536 so Hondo not doing too bad a time 4536 is there or thereabouts but again we’ve seen uh some of the riders of course down at the bottom end of the classification we have yet to see all the riders at the top end of the classification the starting order is very very simple for this time trial and indeed it will be the same the same at Bazans on Saturday the uh flatter time trial uh it’s simply the reverse order of the general classification so your current Lan Rouge goes off first and your current yellow jersey holder goes off last you got Eka Flores one of the Urskels remember they started with only eight riders two and a half weeks ago they’ve lost Zeldia and Mayo their two main men which must have really knocked the heart out of the Urskal team and certainly a lot of their supporters but Gdier Rous is a member of the Brios Labier team who’ve had a marvelous time of it because they’ve been getting a lot of publicity courtesy of Thomas Vla who is riding in the white jersey today by the way for the first time he actually took on leadership of that competition on the same day that he took over leadership of the race overall so he’s been wearing yellow up until yesterday when Armstrong took it off him but now today when you eventually see him Thomas Fler will be in white as leader of the young rider competition a competition which everyone is willing him on to win but there are still some challenges of course notably Sandy Casar and Vladimir Carpets who are both in the sevenminute bracket behind Vookller in that particular classification so it’s not all done and dusted yet there’s still chance for maybe some surprise not just today of course but remember we’ve got a very very big mountain stage in the Alps tomorrow as well ia Flores then forcalt most of the uh the Basque riders are pretty good uh time tri well not time triers but I should say uh hill climbers and in when it comes to a mountain time trial you would expect them to do fairly well a little bit earlier on in the season I did mention earlier in the commentary uh we saw Iban Mayo winning the time trial up Monu in the Dofina Liber putting nearly a couple of minutes into Lance Armstrong on that occasion but of course he’s out of the race Now as we see Kristoff coming up towards the finish line and this looks not too bad a time for the next finisher third place for the AG2R rider is it going to be or is he going to take fourth place can he hang on to third on the line well that’s a very good time 4418 for the AG2R rider from the Ukraine Yuri Krysoff and uh well we’ve got one or two in the 43 44 45 bracket yet but remember even those will pale into insignificance I feel as we get towards the thick end the back end of the general classification lauron Duo coming through these incredible crowds and there you see on the right hand side of your screen that Martin is still leading uh the day for the moment ludic Martin with that 4352 shot just 7 seconds low cliffs off having just gone into third place to relegate Canelara down into fourth the winner of the prologue time trial defo going through these enthusiastic crowds here a long section in the middle of the climb is not barriered so hence the crowds will be very very close to all these riders and that’s going to be quite a a risky sort of thing but as I said each rider is preceded by two uh Jean Doarie motorcyclists you can’t quite see them in front of Defo they’ve gone and the crowd’s closed in again so there’s not much point some might say in having them uh but they have actually barriered off rather more at the top end than I had uh I had expected and Sean that’s not a bad thing you can’t barrier perhaps the whole of the races we see power Bini on the quick for quick quick step David on the line but they have certainly barriered off a lot more than we’ve seen barriered for the road race section uh when we’ve come up here in the road race stage yes they certainly have there’s much more well the last seven K are barrier uh where before that wasn’t the case and it’s it’s a dangerous one for the big favors we see there of course the motorbikes out front but the crowd closed in very quickly we see with four there there’s a for a spectator trying to take a photograph and they stand out too long and when they’re looking through the lens of the camera as well they don’t realize how close the rider is coming and you know we see the just the last moment they just stand out the way so it will be you know difficult for the uh the big favors and especially for Lance coming up here it will be you know a time where he’ll be a little bit concerned in the lower slopes well of course it what you’ve said reminds me of what happened to Jeppeini in 1999 when he broke clear of the lead group of riders including Armstrong and one or two others and a photographer did exactly that stepped out in front didn’t realize how close Garini was bang hit the Garini hit the photographer down they both went uh and Garini had only got about 20 seconds remember on the Armstrong group at that time and incredibly he got back on his bike a spectator giving him a little push off and away he went and he still managed to win the stage what an anxious moment that was uh yes well it was it’s definitely an anxious moment when you’re out there in front and you’re not sure you know your advantage uh you’ve got and uh you know how fast the ones behind you are coming up so when you fall off like that uh it’s you know it’s a difficult time we see with Karini um and luckily like he was on his own because if there had been a group of riders there we could have seen a number of riders fall on that occasion uh but you know it’s difficult on Always what do you do as you know 14 km to climb 7 km of barriers at both sides like it’s amazing like the truckloads of barriers had to be taken up here and will have to be you know dismantled when the race goes away again and of course as you said the police there’s 650 uh police on the roadside alone here coming up this uh uh 14ks and then the motorbike out rididers uh so it’s a it’s a difficult one to control and for the organization you know it’s uh it’s a major problem today and they say anything from 500,000 people to a million uh so it’s uh you know on a section of road of 14 km it’s a huge task to control it’s a massive task to control Sean and I think we have to take our hats off to ASO who organized the tour to France to for them simply taking on this new project of making it a time trial i think they must have known that so many people uh knowing it was a time trial stage and they could pick out their favorite so easily coming up as they do one by one uh surrounded by this wonderful backdrop of magnificent scenery and huge mountain peaks i think they must have known that this would probably be uh a new record for uh crowds drawn to this classic place and yet they nonetheless decided to do it and so far the weather’s also helped so far it seems to have been a massive success we just have to hope that nobody does get involved with a spectator see just I mean we’ve seen this many many times before even in a road race stage like the Garinians when a rider has been on his own and he’s just hoping and hoping and hoping that these spectators will part like the Red Sea and allow them safely through uh yes and when you talk about the number of people and uh I was just reading the paper this morning around Al the bottom of Always B was zone and of course Always the count of there’s 3,000 camping cars um around and there’s 700 on the climb to Always alone so if you just imagine that 700 camping cars with all the people we see in tents and just private cars uh you know it’s it’s it’s just amazing really the TV it gets you know a a picture but you don’t and you you really come up and drive up here that’s when you get the real picture and it is you know it is frightening not only that but another thing which television can’t accurately portray somehow uh is is the steepness of these gradients for some reason television cameras tend in some strange way to to flatten it out to the viewer’s eye but when you’re actually driving up in a car or indeed of course riding up on a bike I wish i wish uh then you realize just how cruel this slope is sean yes uh where you really have to get on your bike and ride get on your bike and ride and uh we had somebody there uh David was saying from Paris uh there was somebody rode up and his wife rode up in 3 hours 40 i was reading the paper this morning and uh Cheryl Crow she actually rode up here in June because Lance was uh uh doing some tests here on Alterays and she got her bike out and she did it in 1 hour and 40 minutes uh so it was you know that’s a nice time because uh to get up this climb uh if you’re not you know a bike for a number of years it is a huge climb to get up well we heard from Cheryl Crow a little earlier on in the tour to France when she was good enough to come in and uh she didn’t let on that she’d been doing some secret cycling that only came out more recently indeed and I tell you what that’s not bad for somebody who is used to standing on a stage and singing her heart out for the benefit of huge audiences to get on a bike i didn’t realize that she had it in her that’s a terrific performance from Cheryl Crow indeed I’m not sure I could get anywhere near that right now as we look at Fedrico coming up to the second time check but I don’t think he’s going to trouble the lead as particularly he’s not quite there yet as we go back to Andrea Pan who we s saw starting earlier one of Ivan Baso’s team baso of course will be the penultimate rider to go off just two minutes in front of the current holder of the yellow jersey Lance Armstrong stand by for more from Aldoz after this [Applause] for [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Topman [Music] for [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] Lance Armstrong fore [Music] basket number two for Armstrong for this moment let’s try [Music] Mart austin [Applause] the best side the start line now Eric Zel of course can climb the hills sometimes towards the end of a road race stage and we’ve often seen him feature in the finishing sprint and of course he’s won many stages of the tour of France but a specific mountain time trial I would suggest not totally Eric Zel’s cup of tea Sean no not his cup of tea but I think he will uh you know defend there pretty well and the time limit I don’t think will be a problem for him as you said Mike we’ve seen him a number of stages he’s getting through uh the mountains pretty well uh so uh I don’t think uh the time delay will be for him a problem uh and but he’s going to have to make an effort here because you know the time limit is so small because of the stage being short it means the time limit is is quite short so you know it will also be a big effort from from him well 4739 for to Uzaf and that’s one that we shall have to watch um it’s a slightly better time than Robbie Mcuan’s 48 so Torzoff may well find himself quite fortunate there that’s not a bad ride indeed for to 4739 he should be okay as we go back to Andrea Parang number 65 a little bit lower down the slopes some considerable way to go and the people here out on the roads they really are enjoying being a part of this this is very different from a road race stage they’re seeing each of their favorites come up they will have the start order they’ll have seen that either on the internet or on the television and so on they’ll know which rider is coming up next for instance like this one Paulo Batini very popular winner of the World Cup for the last two years the statistics keep coming david in Paris has got more for us yeah just a little comparison with those riders who are riding today um and those riders who were in this tour who also rode on the Mono 2 individual time tri time trial in this year’s doof Liber Sevilla was 54 seconds uh down on the winner of that time trial that day micardo 9 seconds down then Armstrong oh this is in relation to Armstrong sorry gutierrez was 46 seconds lifimemer 123 then Mororrow at 239 baso at 445 and Vla at 449 not an awful lot of difference between Vocla and Basso on the Monu in the Doof Liber and a few more for you this is the last uh uphill time trial on the tour at Shamus in 2001 it was 32 km so quite a bit longer armstrong that day we’ll look at the riders in this year’s tour in relation to him olrich was a full minute back from that sevilla 224 Moro at 3 minutes beyond that gutierrez at 351 Andreas Cluden at 428 Manbo at 554 [Applause] and I think Mike if I’m right I think we have young Mr duffield on the other end of the line david can you hear us obviously not well I’ll tell you what Mike we’ll come back to David when we can okay uh I just held my breath there hoping to hear from the big man as I just remind you that Ludic Martin is still the leader so far he went 16th off of the 157 and he’s still out in the lead with 57 exactly having finished so 100 more riders still to complete this great epic time trial so Martin still on top of the pile there but Shatau coming within 3 seconds of him at the 12.7K point which is actually the third time check officially although the first one fairly academic taken only uh after 1 and a half kilometers which is more or less pan flat out of Bourgeois before they actually go through what’s normally considered to be the starting point of the climb right we’re going back to the start again and this time we can take a little look at Manuel Beltron on the start line for US Postal the Spaniard of course having come to USB last year to assist in the continuing quest by Lance Armstrong for Tour to France victory he was highly successful in assisting Lans last year and he certainly played his part again this year belt Trunk we’ve seen him on the climbs at the front doing the donkey work along with many of the others of the US postal climb and I’m sure he will do quite a reasonable ride now Paulini one of the little fellas uh not particularly a time trialist but nonetheless we’ve often seen him perform reasonably well on hills without ever being a star climber we certainly saw him in the early stages of this tour to France nicking little points here and points there on the fourth and third category climbs before eventually giving way in the King of the Mountains competition to his teammate Rishard Veron but I do remember there was one stage in particular last year when we did see him giving uh Veron valuable assistance in a breakaway and because he’s one of the smaller fellas Betini he’s always been able to get up the climbs reasonably well uh going back to Rubber Bank now and Michael Bogette who’s higher up the climb now bulgette of course a former Dutch champion and uh well he’s always been there or thereabouts Michael without ever making the big breakthrough into the top three or four and he’s not had an overly successful tour of to France but you have to remember that very early on he had a rather nasty crash on the run into one of the stages and he fell heavily on his back and that did give him a a bad time for several days didn’t it Sean yes he did he fell heavily and he was suffering for quite a while and uh I think it took quite a bit from the alien part too because he’d be either who we see had seen in some of those alier breaks and so not a good uh not a good show for him at all or for the uh the Rabo Bank team and as we see here Shabaria not a great tour for them a disastrous two really for uh uh that team Escatel because as you said the orange in the Pyrenees they were very disappointed I think the Dutch also here some years back we see the Dutch they had a lot to shout about as we see him coming up new new fastest time 26 minutes and 9 seconds for little David Chabaria he’s the smallest man left in the race now and he’s just gone top of the intermediate time checks but he’s still got some considerable way to go but he’s always been a pretty good climber and I’m not too surprised that he’s got off to a good start but uh he’s only at that time check uh 9.5K up the climb he’s got some way to go as Roose comes over the line with 4439 and he goes into was it fourth or fifth place there Sean uh fifth place he would uh push the Venezuelan down in the top five then Martin still the leader at the finish although he’s just been userked as I said at the 9.5 km point by David Etabaria back to Michael Porett he’s always been a good try he’s always given a lot he’s always put his heart and soul into it but I I do suspect that that crash earlier on did take a bit of the stuffing out of him certainly for the next four or five days there’s the intermediate time check for you on screen david the new leader at that point we’ll have more from him in 3 kilometers uh time so to speak because the next time check at the entrance to oz is at 12.5 km of what is a total race distance today of some 15.5k and there you see on the right hand screen at the top now the new leader at that first point can he continue his progress and relegate Martin at the later time checks all will be revealed if you stay with us here on Euro Sport we’re taking you all the way through right to the finish as ever each and every day lance Armstrong just a reminder in case you’ve just switched on if you’ve heard this before forgive me but for new viewers who’ve just come on to Euro Sport a reminder that Lance Armstrong in yellow goes off last at 458 Central European time which is 3:58 in the UK and we’re expecting a winning time we’re not absolutely sure of course we’re summing 36 37 it could even be 38 minutes we really don’t know uh because various factors come into this uh the start is in Bazon as opposed to what we normally get as the official timed climb uh which is at the start of the climb which is among about a kilometer and a half outside of the town uh so it’s very difficult to gauge just what the eventual time will be of course those records that we’ve quoted the out that out out and out record by Marco Pantani uh is reckoned to be 3735 but uh it’s all it’s it’s everyone believes that will not be beaten because uh we’re going from Bush Dwis and Marco Pantani’s time was taken from the start of the climb 1 and a halfk further up the road so it might well be that Armstrong’s winning time if indeed Armstrong does win and we it’s not a for conclusion could we even be 38 or 39 and if it is then that will greatly assist the sprinters at the other end of the field to get inside the time delay spectators galore here as they give Mcado a shout as he goes up the climb macado has uh well he’s given us some very good performances to look at in the past Macado but at the moment it has to be said he’s not having the greatest of tours he’s currently lying in 54th position in the overall classification some 1 hour 6 minutes and 20 seconds behind Lance Armstrong so it’s not been a particularly good tour for the quick step Davidon Spaniard this of course is teammate Paulo Batini not much surplus weight on him one of the smaller riders betini on the lower slope still some considerable way to go well here’s Macau well there’s a lot of Spaniards not just the Bas we saw a lot of other people from Spain yesterday on the clouds who came up last night waving the Spanish flag as well as Basque flags too and Mardo will not be short of support as he comes up this terrific climb up towards La DuZ it’s a long long climb for these riders to do on this very very hot day as we just take a little look at Lance Armstrong’s bike being checked for weight we’ve talked about this minimum weight thing several times Sean and there you see the official weigh in it’s becoming like jockeyies in horse racing isn’t it i mean to get on the scales yes it certainly is uh and uh a lot of talk about this weight because uh the minimum weight by the UCI is uh 6 kilos 8 6.8 kilos and um a lot of the bikes are coming through I think it’s 6 and 12 so they’ve been having to put on a little bit of extra weight but it’s not a problem when you put on you know the bottle carrier the ring bottle carrier and there you put on you know for the lower tires as of course they put on the special handlebar so you know it comes up to the to the minimum weight very quickly but isn’t it a nonsense that we have reputable bike makers who are producing these super lightweight steeds only to see them having lead weights for goodness sake or what else being put on just so that the UCI could be satisfied that uh bikes are of a certain weight isn’t it a nonsense well uh there was um in the paper this morning I was reading you know since Armstrong knew that there was a time up the way as he was uh you know in contact with Tre who was a bike supplier and they made him up a bike which was a 6.8 a carbon bike and um with handlebars and special very light wheels and that he’s riding the dolphin and he didn’t like that bike so today he said he was going to use the bike which he normally used um on other time trials and uh he was just going to go on that one because he felt more comfortable on it and he said it was just with the uh this the wheels that the special wheels he’s going to use but with the the standard material which he’s been using over I presume the last number of years well we did hear from the track representative who was in yesterday that uh the US Postal riders do in fact ride production bikes not specially made for individuals in the USP team production machines off the shelf uh so that they are riding bikes the likes of which you or I if we want to fork out for the prize can obtain from the local lightweight dealers fedrico coming up with a very good time here martins’s 4352 is just going to go past him but nonetheless this is a very good ride by Fedrico he’ll just be on the 44 I think will he 44 minutes and one for Pieric uh Fedrico well that’s a pretty good ride for the Credit Agrical Frenchman 4401 uh second place then for him uh pretty good ride indeed although remember and I uh do keep repeating it I know we’ve still got all the top men to come a little bit later on but going into second place for the moment at the finish and we’ve had 66 riders through so far martins 4352 still leading paulo Batini a little bit lower down the slopes the little Italian still going quite nicely but I think that he will be bearing in mind that tomorrow’s very very big mountain stage in the Alps and possibly thinking that he may well have to do a little bit of donkey work on behalf of Rishard Viron to maintain the quicksteps hold on the King of the Mountains competition which brings me to a question that we had a little earlier via David in Paris Sean on the pola dot jersey which of course has been in the hands of Rishard Virank for a little while now and somebody asked on the emails is the pola dot competition dead and buried as we see David’s checkpoint 9.3K he being the leader and uh I believe we’ve also got a heart rate monitor coming up so we’ll just hang fire on that for a moment botcher off on 6672 well very low at the moment and that’s because he’s just preparing for the off once of course he gets underway poof that will probably shoot up to around 140 150 at least uh he’s a little anxious at the moment as he gets into the starting gate so the heartbeat beginning to pump but it’s sure to go up a little later back to that question Sean is and Botcher starting any second now uh it will zoom up I’m quite sure is the uh King of the Mountains competition all tied and soldered or is it still open the reason that I think uh somebody asked about that i don’t think we got the name from the person who asked that question is that uh remember there are points available today this is an or category climb which would normally be 20 points for the winner but because of the new rules today it’s 40 points we’ve got a massive mountain stage tomorrow if Virat were to miss any break going he could yet surely find himself usurped how Oh and look how Butcheros has suddenly shot up from 60 off to 117 uh and remember he’s on the flat bit wait till it gets to the steep bit it will get even higher than that what do you think about the king of the mountain competition well it’s definitely not a finish for the rank because as you said you know double points here today 40 points for the taken and it looks like Armstrong you know will take them uh so it puts him back in the position armstrong although he’s not really going for the uh the polka dot jersey is going to make a difficult situation for Varane because with the days uh coming a lot of big climbs and if Varane is you know on a little bit of an off day and he can’t pick up some points he did very well yesterday of course but you know has he left a lot of strength out there yesterday and we have to wait and see because he’s been in a number of these breaks long long breaks out front uh so I would say that you know he’s a little bit conservative rank at this moment because he knows that uh you know Lance is going to very close to taking the top points today and he will be you know move up into a dangerous position for him where do you expect to see Rishard Verank in the final result today i think today Verank is just going to come up here and give it you know 85 90% of an effort and just get in because he know he’s not going to finish up in the top places to pick up any points for the mountain classment and he’s going to just recover after yesterday and get ready for tomorrow’s big stage you’re expecting a big push again from Vir tomorrow yes he definitely had to go for it because uh with you know Lance getting up there in a dangerous position I think he’s going to have to try and get away and pick up some points in the early part of the race and the further he’s down the general the better it is because that way he’ll be allowed to go ahead in the early part of the stage and take some minutes in ahead and pick up some points for the Mountain Prize [Applause] [Music] [Applause] skoda official partner of Tour to France 2004 skoda simply clever [Music] why print at home get real photos from your digital camera with Fujifilm more brilliant longlasting and for less than you think real photos from digital now it’s your Photoshop excala i am ready [Music] king Arthur [Music] Tula discover our world [Music] [Applause] [Music] great performance with Severin for all disciplines in the household welcome back to Alz on this epic day a little bit of history being made here with the first ever time trial up this massive climb and Yakimoff just finishing in a time just inside 46 minutes so not too bad not all that good an average sort of time was that what you more or less expected from Yucky Sean yes certainly as we said you know I don’t think he was going to go for there today too much important days coming for the US postal berry floor and look at Lance I think he just went out there and uh you know made sure that he was well inside the time limit and that’s uh that’s the time that it has gone 4555 then for Vatisf Yakimov as we go out back to Paulo Batini not much of the big ring today from any of these riders most of them on the little chain ring and assortment of sprockets available to them of course these days they both Campanolo and Shimano make 10 speed cassettes we’ve gone up to 10 a long way from when I first started cycling and if you had a three-speed in those days you were the king of the road I can tell you uh we’ve gone from four to five to six 10 speeds at the back to pick uh pick from on the back end of course with a double chain ring you’ve got 20 and of course for a lot of people even triple chain rings and we’ve seen a lot of triple chain rings this tour to France Sean perhaps more than ever before so you’ve got in theory 30 different gears although some of them do overlap a little bit from one chain ring to another nonetheless it’s a lot of large choice and most people are able to climb up uh this mountain one way or another if they get onto the little gears and just twidd it around take the time enjoy the scenery and you too can kind climb up Mount D yes well you have a big selection of gears those guys you know they have a a great selection of gears now but you don’t use many on this climb when you get into the bottom of the climbing always you know you go into this inner ring which I think uh most of the royals will be using 39 maybe some of the ones uh the favors will be using a little bit bigger but you know you just climb on 17 18 19 and you know you walk through the gears quite a lot as we see uh Aston Lo’s time coming through uh quite a good time at the moment 26 is it well he could take the lead i think he’s just about coming up to the line there you go he’s just taken the lead at the 9.5 point aloza who’s a for winner of the tour down under has gone into the lead as we go back up to the top to see Santiago Barero coming to the line well this is not too bad a ride by Bautterero former world time trial champion but we’ve talked about his lack of form but he’s gone into fifth place botto 4429 well not too bad a time indeed for one who’s supposedly out of form so presumably put in a reasonably big effort to make that time the man from Colombia riding for T-Mobile 4429 as we see yet another T-Mobile man down in the start gate here and this is Jeppe Garini the hero of La Dez back in 1999 yes one of the winners here on La Dez and that was despite that remarkable bizarre moment when he collided with the photographer and still managed to win the stage now Garini is a good climber uh we’ve seen him going quite well in the mountains here on this tour of France may could could we see a little bit of a surprise here maybe Sean uh I would be surprised if we see him throwing a you know a big effort here i think again uh he’s going to be under orders from T-Mo for the days to come that he has to be you know ready for uh to open the battle as we see yesterday going for it i think we will see more of that from the T-Mo team and he’s a Gurin is the one who can do it very well because he’s a very good climber so today I think he will ride within himself and I don’t think he will give it 100% okay well there’s a familiar face on the start line i think most people who’ve been following US Postal for a number of years will recognize Big George in Cappy mean sprinter on occasion i remember him winning double game a couple a couple years ago in a two-man sprint uh but his main work here in the tour of France indeed these last six tours now has been as a right-hand man a left tenant for Lance Armstrong he’s been an enormous tower of strength for Lance in the mountains George and I’m sure again he will probably be one of those riders who will keep a little back for tomorrow david yeah very pertinent this as we come towards the sort of last 30 or so riders armstrong Basso 125 back from him cluden 322 back manabo at 539 yan Rick at 654 then there’s a big jump back to Levi Liimer at 1058 roberto Herath at the moment 51 minutes and 22 seconds down on the yellow jersey moro at 1358 quite why he’s in a Seiko jersey there I don’t know but Simone at 1201 and I can’t please to say now Mike we do have David on the line sorry about the technical problems earlier david I’m fine i’ve been watching the pictures and also seeing Gerini go off there because Michael has been talking about when he crashed into that photographer and in fact I’m still earning money from that because um what I said on air has been taken up in America and Australia of the sort of what happened next programs or you know the wastings we have so I’m still getting paid for that well done i wish I could do a few things like that i do remember I do remember Jeani Buno I think being knocked off on an alpine stage once getting up and hitting the bloke with his bike yeah you ain’t commentating so you didn’t get money for it now also bad memories i loved the bit this morning when you were talking about the mountain biking and and people going across there at the top of the Always lovely countryside up there and my men mind went back not just to what we’re seeing here but you’ve been involved in motorsport over these years in ‘ 86 or 87 I was covering the Monte Carlo rally for a television crew and we got stuck in the snow they canled the stage I ended up finding my story through the times from a farm right down the road near Borg Bos and so every time we look at these things outdoors is a mystical climb uh and the question which I would like to pose our viewers David is that I’ve been going back the records and I think the last mountain time trial we had was in 1996 you were having your statistics up to Valdisair when Bersam won the stage i remember Emanuel Flor who was the then man director of Eurosport coming to me at the end of the stage saying David where are you staying tonight i said here Mald he said no it’s going to snow tonight you better go to Seth Pierre so I went out took my stuff out the hotel drove over the top of the uh over the Isaram and there was a snow plow there were the two guys with their galwis puffing away up on the top there were all the m the uh the camper vans there were all the tents of course it snowed and that was the the the day they took them on in the coach and we did the last little bit when um when John Reese won the stage and took over the yellow jersey so memories of mountain climbing and time trials but I think that must be the last one i think actually the the last one I think we had a statistic earlier was Shamuz in 2001 I think was the last one which is was a 32 km time trial won by our Lance Armstrong i think that was the the last one but we’re really seeing history being made here today aren’t we we are and the spectators what I find on this climb um David is I’ve been looking back there’s a lovely book being published we had it a couple of years ago when we were up there um and it’s been published by these people in America the the fellow press uh and we had a couple of years ago Al’s the legend in English version and there’s a picture there in 1952 uh several pages of FTO coffee and looking back down he’s been he’s been tracked by Robick no spectators nobody just come at this wonderful climb uh on their own up there and over the top he went and he was the first man to go over there and of course that year he went on to win the tour to France by 28 minutes and 27 seconds overall so you know this is very historic climb and how things have changed since 1952 and this really is the sort of I don’t know in football we have um Wembley tennis Wimbledon Golf St andrews Formula Monte Carlo um this to me is is one of those epic uh uh routes on the tour of France whether it’s time travel or an individual one they must keep putting it back from time to time it’s a classic place to go up to and the other thing is it’s a wonderful free show i mean they aren’t even paying anything to go up there are they no they’re not they paid a lot to get here but they don’t have to get in and pay to get in obviously no it is the free traveling show that goes around France every summer talking of legends Ivan Basso today in the press in Leip i don’t know if you’ve seen a copy of Leip today whether you can get it on the web or not ivan Baso is being compared to Felicia Mande felicia Jamonde just because of his the way he goes to bed early before everybody else he’s all very wellmannered and lovely as we see Benjamin Naval come over in 4401 fifth place he’s been um compared to Jimundi what did you what do you think of Basso as a rider well I’m very impressed because not so much it battered a rider but how he’s being well managed by Bjon Ree because so many riders have promised a lot and gone to other teams and done little or nothing beyond recent magnitude to get out something extra from his riders and I think he’s done that with Basso because Basso after his you know his under 23 champion he just went on and was there or thereabouts and and and suddenly Bjon Ree is able to get something else out of people and the way he tactically has been um running this race I think is tremendous Bjon Ree has been putting his head to the race so far can I just go back to the race now David and the story about um the problems of uh of Mike and Sean Kelly going up this climb and Sean may remember last year we we took a shortcut because there’s a little shortcut by the way which we don’t tell people and get up there and coming down off the mountain sean may want to tell the story how we got behind an ambulance and we were the first to gap because we came down behind this ambulance and that would take everybody on the way down but it’s an amazing place to be up there uh my mind also goes the time when I got up there too late they they closed the place where you get the keys to the chalet and so I said “Where is the most expensive hotel on the outdoors and they told me I went there I had a presidential suite i blew the whole of Eurosports accommodation budget for the next three days.” Well that’s this is obviously you’re obviously admitting this now because you’re on the end of a phone and out of the arms reach of the bosses uh okay then very quickly then David before we wrap up your prediction for today who’s going to take it well Armstrong has got to do it today because of the prestige attached to it all and I’m just sorry that the race has gone this way in fact uh I’d like to spend more time on the tour this year but as you know things came unstuck at the last minute for various reasons and thanks to the message I’ve had from various people but the bookies must have made a fortune because I didn’t think that Lance would get this far without being challenged so I think at the moment he’s certainly going through that but do remember we still got lots of other things to go on the King of the Mountains competition is not finished the green jersey comedy not not finished it’s like a good book so far from today onwards you know the who done it thing we don’t know we don’t turn to the last page and by the way it’s not over till the fat lady sings david thank you very much for joining us and just before you go I’d like just like you to know you have become part of Aldend because twice now I’ve seen and my German colleague Uli Yanch has come up to me and tapped me on the shoulder we have seen your name painted on the road here at Ald there is a big yellow dufffield across the road here well I sent the whole family out there with the yellow plane it cost me a small fortune well that’s no good i thought somebody actually liked you oh good grief anyway it’s family it’s the family and those five viewers that have watched the program for the last 15 years bye-bye bye-bye David thank you very much bye David then initable character that he is thanks for that David and David and uh since we’ve had a prediction from DD how about before you disappear a prediction from DH david Harmon in Paris uh are you in the Armstrong camp as well yes yes a prediction uh okay well I think Azdo I’d like to see Azdo do well he’s uh he’s done ever so well for Lance Armstrong maybe this is his day to just pick Armstrong to number one ado that’s a nice one okay we’ll stick with that for you then and I’ll ask Sean in a minute just checking on Michael Bogett 4534 for Bogot and still the leader in the clubhouse so to speak Martr of France well Scoponyi of Dublin of Vici the next rider to go and we’re getting almost to the point now where we get to the men who are going off at 2minut intervals kamano Eka Kamano of Escal follows Scar Pony in 1 minute time but thereafter from Oscar Sevilla the next man after Kam Kamano all the top riders thereafter go going off at 2inut intervals right up until the end lance Armstrong at 458 central European 358 of course in the UK just continue very quickly Sean as we just get a little view of Floyd Landis here uh and Etcharia by the way David going into second place 4357 um are you with Armstrong today Sean yes definitely Armstrong i think uh he’s going to you know give us a real uh indicator of you know what shape he’s in um we’ve seen him you know being very impressive but we’ve never seen him really attack up to now and I think uh he will put in a a performance here and I think he will want to prove to Baso as well that you know in the time trial he is the best because Baso this time it’s a chance he has you know to u to try and limit his losses against Armstrong and I think Lance will be able to prove a lot here well I too have written down Armstrong against my own name so we’ve got three for Armstrong here in the Eurosport camp and one for Azedo we shall see how it all pans out uh just a reminder that the leader is still the 4359 of Anthony Chatau for Brios Labul 40 excuse me 4352 I should say 4352 and uh we’ve got one two more rides inside 40 44 minutes edgear is 4357 shartau’s 4359 so it’s a little bit tight there but I feel certain we’re going to get faster times than that towards the end of this uh time sean you picked up something um I think from race radio a few minutes ago about Lance Armstrong’s bike we saw it on the scales a little earlier didn’t we and it turned out quite interesting uh yes that’s true armsson’s bike was just a little bit under the weight a fraction under it so they’ve had to put some uh weight onto this bike to bring it up to the 6 uh uh 6.8 kg it was just a fraction under that can you tell us exactly how much of a fraction just for the record uh 6.78 uh which you know was you know a tiny fraction so we’ve seen them in the past where uh with the Royals they put this piece of lead where they you know they stick it on or they strap it onto a part of the bike to bring it up to the uh the minimum weight by which is required by the UCI is that with or without the bottle full of orange aid or whatever that is without the bottle yeah of course okay oscar Sevilla they used to call him the choir boy well he’s still very babyfaced looking isn’t he uh a little about a little bit in a way like Thomas Vogler who also looked a little bit younger than he really is and this is the fellow who’s finished second in the tour of Spain and promised so much uh in two or three years ago but for me he’s not quite made the continued progress which he himself would have hoped for nonetheless Sevilla is on his way the first of the two-minute interval men and so from here on in we’ve just got another 20 odd riders to go off sevilla will be followed in 2 minutes time by Stefan Juber and then we’ve got all the big names coming carpets Casar Brashard in this order by the way rubira Viron Mororrow Rasmmanson Pierro Simony Sastra Leheimr Cioli Vaughler the former yellow jersey Toshnik Avedo Urish Manbo Lenen Basso and Armstrong rick Vugruger big lad Rick and of course he still holds the outright record for average record average speed for a prologue time trial which he did in the tour of Italy 3 years ago but this is not quite Rick Vugger’s cup of tea going up a steep hill like this one and Rick Manfully plowing along but I don’t think we’ll see him on the leaderboard no we’ll certainly not it’s not his cup of tea the big climbs like that the uh the flatter time race he can limit his losses and we see him doing some good prologus as in the Jirro some time ago as we go back here to Lance as he’s preparing for the off um he’s just warming up on the rollers here and uh of course it’s difficult today you cannot ride up the climb because you’re not allowed to come back down of course so the riders don’t get the opportunity to ride a bit on the climb to get warmed up so they have to use the rollers there’s so much people in the bottom it’s the only way to do it really palatini not far short now of coming over the finish line and what sort of time are we going to see from the little fella well not too bad i suppose it’s going to be in the 44minute bracket for the double World Cup winner Paulo Batini 4450 he’ll scrape inside 45 I’m sure 44 and 55 seconds into 12th place for the moment so I think he’ll be reasonably happy with that his work is done for the day and no doubt we’ll see him assisting Rishard Vir tomorrow in the big alpine mountain stage that goes over the third and the last of this year’s all category climbs of which today remember is one well still Martin leading at the finish uh but lower down the climb macado is the leader at the 9.5 km mark he’s overtaken everyone and the uh next significant point 12.5 km Alozza is the leading rider and talking of which here comes Atolo now now then is he going to take the lead and I rather suspect he is Sean look at this aloza is way ahead of Martin and we’re going to see a new leader martin’s led now for some considerable time but Michael Asta for AG2R is going to easily take the lead here it’s going to be a very short 43 in time trials speak as he comes up to the finishing line with one last desperate effort stopping the clock at 436 and Aela is the new leader here in LaZ 43 minutes and 6 seconds and a very good effort from the Spaniard yes that’s a good a good ride and uh it gets it’s starting to give us an indication of what sort of times you know the real big ride those big favors will start throwing in here so you know that’s uh that’s is quite a fast time and uh I think uh he will you know stay up on that leaderboard for a little bit of time it’s well as you see David Monkier a stage winner of course ready this year it’s still though Sean in my view still very very difficult for us to actually predict what the winning time is going to be isn’t it yeah it is very difficult because when we look at you know the time of Pantani it was a stage which was a pretty flat stage I think they had 120 km and they got to the bottom and he attacked immediately so uh it’s difficult to see to know what they’re going to do when they have to stop at the bottom monkier doing a great ride he’s actually taken the lead at the uh 9.5 km point by some distance he’s relocated Maccado by some 20 seconds and Astloza who is the leader in the clubhouse in golf speak is 38 or was 38 seconds slower than Monutier at that particular time so uh Monutier at the moment is heading for a very very good time indeed there you see on the right hand side of the screen uh we’re putting it all into perspective at 9.5K and remember that the total distance is 15.5K so a very good performance from the earlier stage winner uh can he sustain it though that’s the question can he sustain it for the whole of the distance ago Martinez number 37 is the rider you’re looking at the moment for Erskal mayo is the leader at the second time check but uh remember Monuier has got some distance to go before he gets there but wait for it because uh looks like Monujier is on a ride yes uh it looks like he’s you know throwing a good ride but uh you have to wait and see as they get further up because you know to uh to calculate your effort here is very important and uh of course it’s a new one the time as we said here on Alpas uh so it’s hard to know you know how uh how to do effort you know with your hold out to the end and that is a very important uh to know how to do that very difficult thing to do indeed as we look at Michael Scarpony for Domino Vansi and going past these tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands actually if you take the whole of this area uh into account uh it’s just quite quite unbelievable you’ve really got to be here to appreciate just how crowded BJ was on was last night when we came through and indeed how crowded Luz here is at the summit of the climb it’s really amazing kim Kishan who’s got a bunny of supporters just down from the finishing line by the way i had a little chat with them earlier on today kim Kishan 4408 seventh place for the Luxembourg champion not too bad a time indeed [Applause] stuart O’Grady 4519 well not too bad for Stewie he’ll be happy to get up there he’s certainly way inside the time limit that’s for sure well there’s one of the many hairpin bends one of the 21 hairpin bends on this course as Miki Scarpony goes round and you know I I was quite surprised at just how severe Sean the gradient is just coming out of the hairpins the hair pins themselves on the outside anyway not the inside on the outside as you see Armstrong really warming up it seems like if you go around the outside it’s almost level but then when you come out of each of these bends the road really seems to just go very very viciously up yes uh it is and there is uh you know there’s a lot of different uh sections and the percentage change quite a lot as you said in the corners is a little bit easier but when you turn around the corner it goes up very steep again so uh the gear uh the gear to use will be very important to keep on changing your gears and of course in the saddle is very important you have to be able to do that and I think you know Lance is a rider who can do that very well he can you know accelerate out of the corners uh so I think it will be a climb that will suit him very well one of the interesting questions about hill climbing uh and the time traveling scene in Britain has a hill climbing season uh in in October leading up to the hill climb championship as uh uh our next rider on the line Lauren Brashard is preparing to go is is it better to take the short route round a corner i.e up the steepest part or is it better to take the slightly longer route which has of course a much more gentle gradient well normally it’s uh it’s better when you’re in the race in a road race to take you know the easier gradient and take it wide but here I think uh you know the road is quite large and you know the riders will not cut really tight but they will keep you know a pretty middle of the road uh um around the corners and I think that has the best way to do it okay well we’ve not had too many views of the riders doing exactly that uh we’ve seen them more or less on the straight so it’s been difficult for us to form any sort of clear idea uh as to just uh what they are doing as you see Rishard Vira uh just waiting for his turn remember that he’s one of the later runners of course he goes off uh let me see 28 minutes past the hour for Vir so if you’ve got your clock set to either central European time or indeed British summertime time it doesn’t matter if I just give you the minutes 28 minutes pass now then Botcher off 90% of maximum not too surprised to see that on a hill like this you would expect it to be in the 90s beating away at 160 170 oh he’s nearly blown a fuse he’s gone over 90 odd% now sean Botcher is where you expect to be in a race of this kind yes well I think uh on the climb like this you have to uh you have to put in a fair effort and depending on where is in the climb as well uh but you know most of the time they will be close uh you know to the 95% 90% and uh if the guys the guys are really going for it of course they will be touching the 100% all the time would you expect to see a 100% yes I think some of the ones that will be really going for it especially in the last number of kilometers maybe not in the area of slopes and they get settled in but the ones who are really going for the general class of the last five eight riders they will be you know very close to the 100% in the last five or six km of the climb look at me he was best before Monutier came lower down the slopes and he’s got a chance to just take the lead here might just do it coming up to the 43 minute mark as low 436 2 3 4 5 has he done it well on fractions he has 436 for Mac he just goes into the lead on that fraction well well well it may well not end up the winning ride at the end of the day but for the moment uh Juan Miguel Meano for Quickstep David has just taken the lead and of course we’re getting down to the slightly better riders now remember that the riders going off in reverse order of the general classification last man off of course Lance Armstrong who is now back in yellow lower down the slopes plenty of riders doing good rides in fact Srano has taken the lead at the 12.5k mark uh just usering Moano’s time at that point well Mo just seen finish we’ll have to wait a few minutes before Serrano comes in in the meantime [Music] Gonzalez coming in with a time well we didn’t quite see that as we go but oh it’s come up on the computer at the second uh intermediate mark he’s taken the lead gonzalez for Fak 25 minutes and 5 seconds as opposed to Montier’s 25 26 so we are getting a lot of really really good times here as Lance Armstrong continues his warm up and Sean I must say it’s unusual to see him relaxed enough to turn around and talk to people normally he’s very very concentrated uh yes he looks to be quite quite uh relaxed there sorry of course he has a bit of time before he get off and uh I think this year we’ve seen him a number of times in the interviews he seems to be a bit more relaxed um and of course because of the results the last number of days I think he can afford to be relaxed rishad Virank polka dot jersey winner on no fewer than six occasions attempting to make it seven just a reminder that this time trial does count for the King of the Mountains competition it’s an all category climb which would normally be 20 points but remember the new rule uh in the competition this year if it’s a mountain top finish which obviously this is then those points are doubled so the winner of today’s time trial stage will also get 40 points and the points go way down of course to the rest of the riders uh towards the general classification as we go back to a former winner here on Luz Jeppe Garini and this is going to be good you thought he might conserve himself Sean but this is a very good time for Jeppe Gerini well he’s not quite at the checkpoint now he’s not quite on Godzal’s side but do you remember we mentioned this 1999 situation this in fact was what happened back in 1999 he was on his own ahead of the Lance Armstrong group there’s the photographer he doesn’t get out of the way down goes Garini and remember at this stage he only had about 20 seconds lead on the chasing group very quickly back on his bike a good push from a spectator and Garini was off and away incredibly quickly and fortunately he continued on and he still won the stage well we’ve got a time 436 but Belron is way outside that 4420 it’s going to be 4430 odd by the time uh we see him cross the line so he’s not going to trouble the leader board which means I’ve got time very quickly uh because things are happening so quickly to bring in Christie who’s just come through the door with her usual copious note christie can you interpret all these for me yes I can as you know Mike I um I walked down the course this morning to the start so I I did Yeah the full 15 and 12 kilometers and just to check out the 4250 i’m sorry this is this is what I was afraid of Christie because we’re getting so much thing happen many things happening serrano 4250 is the new leader sorry to have to interrupt you Christie but you do understand that such a lot’s happening here as Kristoff Maro sets off you walked all the way down yes I did and I had a nice chat with Kristoff Maro this morning before the uh time trial started and it was really um he he’s looking to uh just really conserve himself today well a lot of people are concerned themselves because they know there’s a big mountain stage tomorrow right and that’s what we were talking about we were talking about the fact that tomorrow is a real leg snapper and if he wants to do anything in the polka dot competition or even on general classification that that tomorrow could be Kristoff Maro’s opportunity to get away that is if Lance Armstrong would like to let anyone else win a stage but um mo mostly the um the chitchat at the start has to do with not who’s going to win this time trial it has to do with by how much of a margin is this time trial going to be won and the general feeling is that Lance is going to do no more than he has to to take you know a minute out of Baso forgetting every everyone else’s results that’s going to be his objective and that’ll be his sole objective very very good observation that you’ve made so by the way uh just before you came in we had our round robin i wasn’t sure whether you were going to get here in time but you’re not too late to be added to the list you’re going for Armstrong i’m going for Armstrong but let’s add a little something else to that round Robin i’m going for Armstrong by a minute 30 whoa you really are nailing your colors to the mast um Mrs anderson 1 minute and 30 seconds yes wow i had a nice chat with Cheryl Crowe at the start and uh according to Cheryl he is unbeatable and probably won’t even be able to hold himself back you don’t think he’s just She’s just a touch bias hey come No but I think she’s I think the fact that she’s here the fact that you saw him there speaking to Pierre Gibborel the John Dam who is a good friend of his i mean and also Robin Williams is here he has all the support he could possibly muster and you know he’s looking relaxed she said he got up this morning and he was saying “I’ve got great legs.” So u I don’t think he meant how they look either i think he meant how they felt you know what you mean so uh she was she was pretty pretty much uh waving the flag now here’s the man who won the competivity award yesterday Michael Rasmmanson he’s had a pretty good mountain phase of the tour of France Sean Rasmmanson on this hill today no I don’t think Rasmuson is going to really go for today i think he’s you know going to think about the stages coming up and trying his stage victory because uh if he if he give it 100% today he might finish between eth and 12th place on the stage uh you know it’s nothing uh nothing for him really and I think uh the days a day where he can get away uh you know maybe still a bit further down the general and try and win a stage monutier still leading second checkpoint now remember he went into the lead at the first one before Gonzalez got there but Monoutier on the road is the leader as we go back to Rishard Von the darling of the French and there are so many hundreds of thousands of people here a vast majority of French people they will be shouting Vir up the hill all the way talking of crowds Christie you went down to the bottom in Bjazon what was it like in Bush Dwaz this morning well I mean you see the people on the course you can see it from the helicopter shots it it’s it’s amazing i would say well over a million people on the course alone but then at the start it’s also packed in the last 5 km on the descent so the first 5 km of the race it is probably 30 deep there’s not a seat in a restaurant this my uh my friend was trying to buy a disposable camera and there isn’t one to be found on this entire mountain people are out in full force guier is coming to the line he’s not going to take the lead from Gonzalez at that point in the intermediate time check just to remind you have Gonzalez for Fonak in the lead at 9.5 but Monoutier is still the leader he went off a little earlier at the Due checkpoint at 12.5 on the line though Serrano is still the leader with that great 4250 which we saw the first man inside the 43 minute mark and we go back now to see the Dominican rider Scarony one of the younger riders in the Dominican team uh not noted many of them for their climbing i don’t think they’ll finish too high up but did you manage to uh have a word in the Dominican camp at all yes I did actually i spoke to one of the swaners and I’ve spoken to Scarpone as well um Scarpone is doing very well in this tour on his own now that Mario Chipolini has left they’ve kind of changed their tack to what they’re looking to achieve from this and um he was always going to be he and Simeone their uh GC riders and he the other day I think it was the second day in the mountains he was there with Lance and and Olish I think he finished with on his own absolutely no team support because obviously none of them were there um a bit like Touchning and and a few of the others and even Michael Rogers here now I spoke to Michael two days ago and he said he was looking to do something in this time trial he was basically going to look after himself in the mountains but he wants to do something here so well he’s doing something we hope he will he is doing something because he’s not going to be far off Gonzalez’s time gonzalez is the current leader at 9.5 uh and Rogers well he’s just gone over that now but he may still stop the clock at second place let’s see in a moment as he comes to that intermediate time check 9.5 km of the 15.5 well the clock’s still ticking on 2518 that’s not too bad there are many many riders who are slower than Rogers at that point well I I came up in the Fosa Borlo car as you might have guessed um behind Kim Ken and um I I saw him pass Stuart O’Grady who then looked at him of course David Monutier is now well he’s going to take the lead by some margin look at this he’s going to take the lead by a big margin david Monoutier a stage winner already for the coffis team and Monoutier is going to be the first I suspect in the low 42s i don’t think he’ll quite beat 42 minutes it’s longer than you think to the finish line it’s going to tick over 42 but Srano’s 4250 is clearly going to be beaten by some way here by David Davin Monutier 4204 and the French have realized just how good a ride that is 42 minutes and 4 seconds we have yet another new leader but remember that there are still another 42 riders to finish now as I was saying I was in the FAA car following Kim Kurchin who has a a million supporters out there it was unbelievable how many people are here from Luxembourg really good to see and big support for Kim he had a great ride he passed Stuart Ogre but Stuart looked at him and he said “You know what i’m not letting this go he’s not going to get far from me.” And kept coming back and coming back so Stuart fought back quite a bit he also uh He ended up with quite a good time at 44 minutes and 8 seconds kim Kurchin but uh he passed Gisha Nearman at the end and I’ll tell you he accelerated away from him as though he were fresh that last little dip where they come down he was doing 60 62 km an hour in that little dip in the last few me no well no it’s not he just he had the ability to accelerate it was incredible well that’s a very good performance indeed just a reminder Monutier is our new leader in the clubhouse there we’ve got confirmation srano at 46 seconds aston Loza an earlier leader at 1 minute and two and we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty of this epic stage here up loud due to this marvelous mountain top scene here this huge town that’s been built up here over the last 20 30 years or more uh to provide winter sports and when you look at the mountains outside they are absolutely spectacular the place is riddled with ski lifts which take you right the way up to the top of the mountains and there are so many pists that you can ski down in the winter there’s a lot of snow still around here much of which of course will stay throughout the summer months it just won’t go and it will be of course augmented by many many feet of snow come next winter roberto Eas former winner of the tour of Spain of course and a former henchman of Lance Armstrong now one of Armstrong’s adversaries but it’s not been a good tour for Roberto Eras no it certainly hasn’t been and it’s not going to be a great day for him as we see him here like he’s a long ways off the time of Monk uh something that you know he’s be really special for this thing and if it was a top shape I think he would be you know much further up and maybe going uh with a possibility of you know contesting this state victory with a long ways out you know 24 to 459 a long long ways off the pace that’s very disappointing I I kind of wonder about riders like Harris if he’s going to go tomorrow and try to do something um he has had such a shocker of a tour I I see him Simony they’re all kind of in that same boat where they’ve got to they’re going to have to make their move in the big mounds where they are specialists and he may just have have eased off a little bit and done a you know a 95% time trial here so that he does have good legs for that killer stage tomorrow but even a stage win surely is little compensation for poor overall form Oh absolutely I mean but you glean what you can at this point is coming in we had him wired for the heartbeat yesterday do you remember he was in that break in the closing stages and he was knocking on us around the 98 99% of maximum for ages and ages he was so near that threshold wasn’t and he hung on in there so bravely yesterday and he’s not too bad a ride a 44 4414 for Sabalowskis well we’re getting ever closer now within 20 minutes now of Lance Armstrong the last man to start getting into the starting gate as we look at Jeppa Girini’s 12.7K mark and he’s actually taken the lead the 1999 winner and Sean you thought that maybe he would be soft pedaling a little leave Levi Light i’m the next man off but he’s gone into the lead at the first checkpoint yes yes and I think the reason he’s doing the ride is for the uh team class because T-Mo are in second position at the moment at 55 seconds so they must be going to take that seriously that’s the only reason I see him riding for you today for the to keep up in the classment because uh the next couple of days will be you know very important for that well as we see Levi Liheimimer on his way one of the men who attacked Armstrong yesterday um surely that is not an objective for the big teams uh it tends to be surely uh a prize that comes your way more by default than by particular reference to its importance after all most important thing is to see just how well up the classification they can get their main men well I don’t see the reason for greedy riding except just for the team specimen because with the days coming important days and very important I would think for T-Mo to you know to try and do something in this race and uh you know riding you know the way he’s going he’s definitely going to you know to get the 100% out of himself and I think he’s just for the team price so they must have decided to keep keep up in that class oscar Sevilla going up the climb and well is he labored or is he just on a big journey he’s going very well difficult to say at the moment sevilla of course is another one who’s not had a particularly good uh tour by his own recent standards as we see for the first time in this tour to France Thomas Bookler actually in the young riders jersey i said earlier in the commentary when he first took over leadership of this competition it was the day that he took over the leadership of the whole race so we’ve seen him in yellow and I think it’s been Sally Kasar hasn’t it who’s been wearing the jersey on his behalf but since he lost the yellow jersey to Armstrong yesterday we’re seeing him for the first time today in white yes and of course he’s got uh he’s got to keep on pushing here for the white jersey because that competition is still you know uh still on there although Casar is you know 7 minutes 40 down and Cap is 754 but Kappas you know he’s coming up that slowly we see him yesterday doing quite a good ride so for uh Vler I think he’s got to you know throw in a a big effort here today uh because if you if you’re a bit of an off day you know you’d lose a couple of minutes very easy to those riders like Kalpets and Kasar and not just today of course tomorrow’s stage big mountain stage tomorrow you could easily lose 10 minutes tomorrow definitely yes uh if you have a bad day tomorrow of course you know the minutes can tick away so much and you know this 8 10 minutes will be you know lost very very quickly yay petro for Seikko coming to the line as we go back to Botcher’s heartbeat and Botcher just coming up to the finish himself now for Cisagrical they just spotted the green and white botcher on 163 beats 88% there he is in green and white botcher just coming to the line and he’s been caught by Bulli and Petro bulli’s beaten him by a minute petro by two petro in fact catching Bully well Bari looks quite comfortable here he doesn’t look like he’s was going 100% at all for sure he’s he’s his objective in this is to look after Ivan Baso he said that from the very start he had a little trouble in the team because he was dedicating himself so strongly to Ivon Baso and now you see it here he’s uh he’s not looking for a personal result today well David Monoutier the current leader in the clubhouse and uh let’s just remind ourselves of his time 42 minutes and 4 seconds for the Frenchman that’s a very good time indeed although we say this but as as Sean and I’ve been saying Christie we’ve still really no idea as we see Gonzalez de Galdiano come to the line we’ve still no idea yet of just what that winning time is going to turn out to be that’s the big imponderable and it’s one which the sprinters who are down in the 47 48 49 minute mark and in Nazon’s case exactly 50 minutes are really concerned about oh I think rightly they should be i I spoke to um Juan Antonio Flecker yesterday at the finish of the stage and he said he he was budgeting about a minute a kilometer to lose to Armstrong which uh he just wasn’t feeling good he’s got a cold so does Yorg Ludwig there there’s a lot of people right now with sore throats and running noses and they’re having a lot of trouble and here we see of course Thomas Fogler another thing about that young riders jersey this man has put out such great efforts to keep the yellow jersey that that’s going to be a little You just wonder how much of a toll it will have taken on him and I think we’re going to see it tomorrow not so much today but we’re going to see it tomorrow when he tries to stay up um on General Clasmo yeah I think you’re absolutely right because today obviously is only 38 39 40 minutes or whatever tomorrow is five or six hours for goodness sake but Garini meantime Jeppe Garini who has tasted victory here on La DeZ is coming into the home straight now i’m not sure that he’s going to quite beat Gonzalez this time at the finish because uh he’s got a little bit of a way to go yet gonzalez is in fact 414 52 which we didn’t actually make a note of before because he because it gave him the lead and I don’t think Garini can make it or can he it’s going to be close it’s going to be close it’s going to be close oh 4152 is 5/10 of a second slower but it’s a very good time indeed just after Gonzalez had taken the lead they didn’t actually put Gonzalez’s time up for a little while 4152 for Gonzalez 4152 to Garini we’re beginning to get down to these better times now as Gonzalez’s time is confirmed 4152 that’s actually a replay of something that happened just a little bit earlier as we now gone lower down the climb uh to pick up well changing shots very very quickly and I’m just hearing that Vladimir Carpets who we talked about as being one of the danger men uh toleration carpets would you believe has taken the lead at the first checkpoint at 9.5 km carpets 24 uh 444 he’s coming up now to it in fact this is a replay he’s just gone through it in 2458 the computer is saying uh we’re just showing you this once again well on the clock there it says 2456 in fact it’s me misreading it it is 2456 so there’s a little action replay of carpets just a moment ago going through that point and taking the lead but here is the man he’s aiming for in the young rider competition the man in the white jersey Thomas Vogler who’s given the French such things to shout about these last what 10 11 days it seems like forever now since Chartra where he took the lead and in that fiveman break but back to the start now and Yan Orish well this was the man who decided to take it on on the road to VR Delans and really gave the Armstrong camp a little bit to do at one stage on that stage uh when Uris took off and went on the attack and he actually got a lead of just over a minute at one stage before eventually it began to come down again what Sean can he do today well that is the uh that is the question and I think yesterday you know it gave us uh it gave us a bit more hope for because he was having bad performances and uh I think the way he went off there yesterday he must be getting better as this race go on uh interesting thing to see with his bike there he had uh the the special bars on where you get down uh we haven’t seen any riders really uh with that sort so he must be going to get down on down low on the bike but I don’t know on the bars i don’t know where he’s going to do that 1.5 kilometers out of Bed was on yes and the last the last bit of running when you come through the kilometer to go actually there’s a little bit of a downhill into the last corner where you told them with the number of 100 meters before the finish just look at these crowds just look at just soak in the atmosphere here folks this is the tour to France it’s a little bit of history in this race which began 101 years ago the very first time that we’ve had a time trail up here this race first came up here as you heard David Duffield reminiscing a little earlier in the program in 1952 when the great FTO copy was the first winner and there were hardly any people out there to see him do it at all here we have crowds the likes of which you couldn’t begin to imagine in those days back in the 1950s capacity crowd here as Azdo David Harmon’s pick by the way Armstrong’s teammate goes off and after Azdo let me just remind you the only riders still to go 2-minute intervals remember Yanish Francisco Mando Andreas Cluden Ivan Baso and Lance Armstrong those are the only riders who remain to go into the starting gate as we go back to Michael Rasmmanson who picked up yesterday’s competivity award and has had good climbing legs yeah Rasmus has featured quite strongly in this race so far and surprisingly so because he wasn’t one of the favorites of course going into it but he seems to be a very smart rider and he seems to be able to find his own find you know find his own position within uh the top 10 well this really is a special day for lovers of the tour to France and I think this year maybe this particular occasion might set the set the benchmark for future editions of the tour uh from time to time we get mountain time trials in the tour to France uh not every year of course but I think in the future this could well become another one that appears regularly on the scene so Gutierz coming up to the line well he’s already down in fourth place gonzalez is 4153 having been 52 I should say being matched barring half a second by Jeppe Geredi gutierrez already well over the 42 minute mark but nonetheless not a bad time for Gutierrez coming up to the line jose Enrique Gutierrez for Fak will stop the clock well inside 43 minutes 4245 well now look at the focus on the face of Yan Orish he made a big effort yesterday it didn’t come off he didn’t win the stage armstrong had all that much in reserve to go on and even win that stage himself yesterday here we go then the German on his way and straight into the triar position there you are Sean uh yes he’s you know one of the one of the few royals we have seen with these trib bars and uh you know I asked I asked the question for the the kilometer and a half that we’re going to do before we get onto the the slopes of the bottom of the outs is there an advantage by having them because of course you you’ve got to carry them up there for that uh that number of kilm up the climb so I would ask the question is there any advantage having the tri bar well you will get the question answered in approximately 2 minutes because um for a long long time now uh the fastest time for the first 1 and a half kilometers which personally I’ve been uh ignoring because I feel it’s rather academic but for the sake of this particular rider Urish I’ll point it out canelara has had the lead there for a long long time he took 2 minutes and 1 second to get to that first time check so uh you’ll get the answer to the question fairly soon when he goes through that point meanwhile Axel Merks coming to the line well he’s over the 43 mark and not far short of catching Patrice Along who started some let me see one two three minutes in front of him along losing three minutes to Axel Merx’s 4321 just just a little bit of a note i don’t know if people are aware of this but the riders actually do about 45 minutes on the rollers before they take off and then having this this 1.5 kilometer flat fast bit it really gets the legs hot and going so they they they’re actually in the block sweating already they’re they’re very warmed up like I said 45 minutes minimum on the rollers they’re uh Oh here comes Michael Rogers well now this is not a bad ride either you said Christie that you thought he’d do a good one well he’s not going to win it but look at Gonzalez’s time on the bottom 4152 michael Rogers he’s not going to be a million miles away from this you know he’s doing a pretty good effort here the man from Australia coming to the line for quick start David in is it going to be fourth it is fourth fastest so far 4215 getting even nearer now to the last man off Lance Armstrong at 58 minutes past the hour or 2 minutes to the next hour if you prefer not a bad ride by Rogers no it’s fantastic and um his wife is here as well and and he’s um he’s he’s really looking good i mean he he was focused on this he hasn’t had a great tour so far um he’s been a little bit disappointed himself with his results and and this he aimed at and I think he’s hit it pretty well mano on the flat stretch from the start gate as we go to Yan Orish and now then here’s the answer to your question Sean yes we see that he’s at the uh the 1.5 he’s 1 second down on the best time so uh you know not uh not anything to worry about really because uh you know the first the first kilometers you don’t have to go at 100% you know you have to know yourself some riders like to start really fast they can do that and other riders need a little bit more to get h get into the rhythm so you have to you know you have to know that and they all know that because they have from past experience but Sean he’s on the climb look and he’s still on the tri bars look yes uh he’s on the lower SL of climb now and uh he’s just getting he’s coming into the steeper part but uh still it’s you know amazing to see him on that lower uh on that time tri position and we we see that he was touched by a spectator he had a little job in controlling his bike actually because you know when you’re down there on the uh on the bars like that it’s hard to control your bike when especially when somebody give you a touch like we see with and that will be the one anxiety I think that Lance Armstrong here has as he goes up the climb people are going to be so keen to get a piece of the action they’re going to be so tempted to let that enthusiasm of the moment run away with them that was one of the first questions Cheryl Crowe asked me when she realized that I had walked down the course she said “What’s it like are there barriers?” I said “Well there’s barriers in the last 8 kilometers.” Um but in in in between that and right from the very start there are no barriers and uh it is I mean you see it in the first kilometers in the fast pit but soon as you get to the to the mountain it is open slather and uh she was very concerned about that and wanted to know if it was under control at all now then Vladimir Carpets remember we said that he was leading at 9.5 km well we’ve got the darling of the French here Rishard Ver well there’s two darlings really voc and Virro the two V’s and Virro is doing a very good time 2540 oh no way hey that’s not all that good sorry I’ve got the minutes long i was looking at the seconds he’s a minute down yes he’s quite a bit of time down i don’t think you know as as we were saying I think he is well calculated he knows that he’s not going to get into the top places to take some points for the mountain climate and he’s just going to get up this climb and you know conserve his energy for tomorrow after the ride he had yesterday of course you know an easy a bit of an easier day would suit him quite well george Toshnney little fella nice little mountain climber what chances for him very quickly Sean uh yes well we’ve seen him you know doing good performance although yesterday he was in a bit of problems he was able to follow when there was attack from he lost contact and he was getting very close to getting back into that leading group but never managed actually to to make contact well we’ll see what the Gsteiner rider does remember that Gonzalez Safonic is the current leader here at the finish 41 minutes and 52 seconds uh but we’ve got almost all the riders now on their way roughly two and a half minutes before Lance Armstrong gets on his way ivan Basso as I speak is in the starting gate and about to go off and there he is basso the man who attempted to get his second stage win up to VR Dance but Lance Armstrong got past him in the closing yards took his second victory his third if you count the team time trial remember US Postal won the team time trial basso is away two more minutes and Armstrong will be also on his way ivon Basso spent quite a bit of time in America this year working with wind tunnel tests and whatnot to improve his time triing because it’s been his only undoing in other tours and uh here still in those bars as you said um but he’s such a good bike handler Yan Olri that that that position might bode very well for him and I you see You see a lot of people um staying in that as long as possible he’s obviously comfortable down low and uh I mean they would have done every test known to man uh to determine the best way to ride this hill sean I’m curious myself that I mean the time trial is in 10 m 25 mile time trials in Britain and the longer distances too they use the bars but on steep hills is it that much of an advantage well I I from my experience I found it you know difficult on the climbs to use uh uh to use that position you have to be you know uh use the tops of the bars more and be able to get in and out of the saddle but of course he’s the one who sits in the saddle most of the time and per gear so he is the royal maybe can stay in that time position that’s a little bit better but for most of the royals as we’ve seen here I think the normal position the normal climbing position on the tops of the bars is the way to do it well you mentioned uh the gear that Urish uses and from time to time as we see Lance Armstrong just collecting his concentration now uh we normally see Urish riding a higher gear than most but when we last saw him still on the trip bars on the climb to me it appeared as if his cadence was a little faster than that which we normally see from him now then this fell of course in the last two or three years we have seen an excellent rate of cadence and this is why many people feel that he’s managed to get up the hills so well watched by Cheryl Crows who’s looking I have to say just a little bit anxious right now why shouldn’t she be but Armstrong right now will be concentrating very much on the next 38 39 40 minutes or whatever it’s going to be yes he certainly will yeah this is you know uh probably the most important time of the race because when we get to Saturday’s time trial um it will be a bit more clear of what’s happening in the race and also it will be the safety of the time trial as well I think is a little bit concerning for everybody here especially for ls coming through this uh thousands upon thousands of people well now look look look oh well we’ve gone back to Armstrong but did you notice there that for my money anyway Urish still on the triar position seem to be riding with a better cadence than we’ve normally seen from him but look at this fast pedaling rate from Lance Armstrong and even here on the flat stretch the supporters coming right out into the road it’s a bit better here but you notice there just back there it was quite narrow and this is the one thing which of course Armstrong will be concerned about that the parting of the waves will be sufficient for him to get to the top and indeed all the riders to get to the top without any problems from these very enthusiastic spectators they’ve come here to see this great race to see their heroes to see this particularly epic climb ridden in time trial form for the very first time as we go back to Ibano and here you see this familiar site of the spectators barely leaving any room it seems at all for the riders to get through yes well it’s uh that is a danger one as we’ve mentioned many times today and the interesting one about Paso as well since he have changed teams of course he’s you know moved from Paso last year to CSC he’s also worked on his his pedal uh um the way he pedals actually he improved on that during the winter with Ree of course who you know is a very good team manager and uh the suplex as they call the supplace of his pedals and strokes and he’s actually gained uh uh 10 tons of the pedals every it compared to what he was doing previous years and I think that’s he said has improved his climbing a lot as he proved in this tour well Juber coming up towards the finish area now he’s not going to beat Gonzalez this time it’s going to be over the 42minute mark by the time the Frenchman gets through to the finish line for AG2R it’s going to be a shortish 42 this last 200 m or so from that last quarter seems never ending through this uh alongside these huge crowds here in Aldoz as we see Sevilla behind him he’s caught Sevilla for 2 minutes now that is incredible now who would have thought that somebody like Zuber could have taken two minutes and a bit out of such a rider a as Sevilla that’s incredible is it that Jouer has done such a great ride or Sevilla a very disappointing one oh I clearly Sevilla is a disappointing ride i mean he’s just had a disappointing tour from the from the first pedal stroke he uh just hasn’t had the form that he’s had in years past and uh you know sometimes you have an off year unlike Lance Armstrong who doesn’t seem to have an an off year yet i mean this is the sixth one in a row where he is just stomping strong and it just seems to be getting stronger and stronger but you know they haven’t shown much of Cloen and I’m I really want to see Cludin on this on this climb because he is a fantastic time traveler he can climb he’s got all the energy going in his direction and they just haven’t been focusing much on him and I’d like to see how he’s going yeah you’re absolutely right our cameras don’t seem to have picked up Andres Cluden who is 4 minutes up the road from Armstrong and meantime Canelara’s time is going to stay as the fastest uh because Armstrong has gone through that very very early time trick which personally I don’t think is relevant at all armstrong has gone through 4 seconds down so Canelara has won that particular part but let’s remember that is the the flat part and for Armstrong it’s irrelevant it’s what happens on the climb which is really important as we go to Vladimir Kovitz now he was an early leader at 9.5 but he’d slipped down to third place behind Gerin and Gonzalez by the time he got to 12.5 here he comes to the line and as you can see the time of Gonzalez and indeed that of Gerini as well is going to slip away from him in just a moment he may just get inside till 42 minutes carpets but he’s just lost a little bit there 4156 for Vladimir Carpets the interesting thing for that of course will be what Vogler can do in comparison to Carpets because we’ve got that young rider competition very much in our minds sean yes well that will be the interesting thing to see if um Vla can limit his losses here and I think he is going to lose a bit of time against Kas but how much is the question and uh that’s the thing he will be very concerned about and and as we see Armstrong still going very nicely he’s now on the climb proper of course and spectators I trust will not impede his progress um but also 2 minutes after Carpets comes Sandy Casar who is in second place in the young rider competition between Twix Bookler and Carpets so we’ve got to watch for Kasar’s finishing time as well but Armstrong now is really giving this full bore he really is going for it you can see that as we go back to Carlos Sastri who has been featuring well in the climbing stages of the tour to France sastri coming up to the 9.5K mark the first of the relevant time checks he’s just going to be outside carpets his time over the 25m minute mark but into second place he’ll hang on to second place sri meantime going quite well interesting to see Sasha just taking a little drink there i wouldn’t have thought that that was necessary uh in a in a ride of this nature john uh yes it would be uh you know it’s quite warm out there and uh certainly like over a 40 bit over 40minute effort the effort that putting in that they would need a drink and as we see everybody I think they started with a bottle here it’s definitely a necessity actually uh what what I noticed was that they were all having a drink one or two drinks and then at the 2 kilometers to go they throw the bottle so they’re all losing they all get rid of that right before that last little dip so that they have as you know as light as possible and there’s Yan Oric you know Yan Oric is still very much in a low position and uh looking he just rides like Miguel and Duran he reminds me so much of Miguel and Duran he’s got a big engine and he just sits there and cranks a big gear and he’s smooth as yes and the interesting one with Rick is you know he’s on these uh throw bars but when he has to change his gear he has to leave it and go to uh you know go to the uh to the changer so he’s moving position a lot and I would uh I would be concerned about the benefit of those bars me too time trialists uh back in England Scotland Wales uh more frequently these days actually have the gear changers on the end of the tri bars and it only takes a little movement of the thumb to change gear and you don’t lose any rhythm there yes that’s true of course you know you have it there right at your fingertips and you know you just you lose no uh you lose no rhythm at all when you go to change and that’s is the problem with Rick he’s kind of you know moving from from the tri bars to change his gears and you lose a rhythm of it there and that is a little bit of a concern for me lance Armstrong then coming up the climb of Aldz his destiny as far as he is concerned is win number six in the tour to France come Sunday that is his big aim as he goes up the part this part of the climb we’re waiting a little while yet to see him get to 9.5 kilometers and to see what time he has done remember he’s the last rider on the road to all the other rivals of his like for instance Yan Orish here who went off let me see 246 8 minutes ahead of him on the road or’s time will obviously be coming up a little earlier riders still to come through that point riders like Toshnik Aedo and Mbo Clinton Baso Faulkler Kioli Lipheimer’s not quite reached there will be getting all their times coming up we’re really reaching the nittygritty part of this climb up loud dues yes and uh the interesting thing is with Alance and the US Postal Berry floor Brunell he said this is a climb that we know the best in this too he said this morning in the paper because they’ve been here many times uh they were here in May he said to uh to look at it and they did do it a few times and then they came in June again and one day they climbed it three times Armstrong climbed it the alter he never climbed it at 100% he said because at that time of the year Lance wasn’t his best form so it wasn’t going to give him many idea what time he could do But he said it was it’s very important and he said Lance he knows every inch of this climb the best the best one he uh the best climb he knows this the best of any of the climbs in the space well I think that that’s very important it’s not so much in training how fast you can go up up it but more or less getting a mental picture of every hair in bend every little variation in the gradient in your mind fixed in your mind for the big day well you might remember in uh I think it was year 2000 could have been 2001 when Lance had what looked like it was going to be a bad day for him and he was actually playing a little poker and and it was at the base of Mount of Alzheime for the first time well he’s still pedling away at that fast cadence that we’ve seen so far uh from from this man from America higher up the climb the spectators will be waiting for him and cheering on each and every rider but particularly this man with five tours already under his belt and so close they are to him there’s Oh gosh my heart’s in my mouth here folks [Music] you know you were talking quite a bit about um Yan Oric’s position i have a feeling you know with the gear changes and stuff to me he’s chosen that position because he’s comfortable there the way Armstrong rides with a fast cadence is one of has to be one of the least comfortable ways to ride a bike he he just seems to be able to to do it and suffer through it whereas others like Yan are more traditional riders and here’s Ivan Baso looking very very smooth for Ivonne yes he is looking smooth and of course Paso by any stretch of the imagination has not had a bad tour you know one stage victory could so easily have been two or even three had it not been for Lance Armstrong himself baso remember still an improving rider two years ago he finished as the best young rider in the tour last year seventh overall this year almost certainly I would think a podium place last year seventh overall almost totally by himself all he had was Dario Chion and one other teammate after stage seven he was totally alone and had to look for his own wheel and they lost so much time in the team time trial that really last year’s ride was magnificent too it was just overlooked because he didn’t uh place in the top five on general classification [Music] [Applause] sorry Sean the interesting one is we’re not seeing clothing at all clothing at all so uh we have you know no pictures of him for the moment to see how is he uh negotiating this climb well now here is the really crucial uh nitty-gritty of this race because in the wider context not just of today but in the overall classification Ivan Basso is currently Lance Armstrong’s nearest rival 1 minute and 43 seconds between them uh remember Basso began the day at 1 minute 25 and he’s really got to try and limit his losses here and see what he can do tomorrow on the last big mountain stage i I I would like to also see what the um speed is that they’re actually traveling i know I I was watching it in the car behind Kim Kurchin and he was doing about 20 21 kilometers an hour climbing these guys are for sure going quicker than that and I’d just like to know for my own personal reference how fast are they going at each point in this climb because many many thousands of people have climbed AL due and we all know that it’s not easy to be above 20 km/h on this hill very very difficult indeed to climb a hill of this nature at that kind of speed Christie i don’t think that they’ll get quite that fast and look at the effort being made here by Yanish still insisting on the triar position which is a little controversial I think on such a steep hill and as you see they’re very very short triars indeed not the I think these have probably been tailor made particularly for this stage i would guess you’re right about that but I also think it’s it’s basically coming down to comfort for him i think I think he’s very very comfortable in that position well he’s still got a long way to go and after him in order on the road Manfo Cluden Basso and Armstrong and there you see Yan taking a drink so they are drinking on the way up this mountain and there is a weather change coming through i don’t know if you can tell from the screen so much but definitely out there it’s uh it’s clouding over and they’re talking about rain yeah we mentioned the weather forecast a little earlier and not only that but the forecast did say that with possible showers later on the wind would also get up they didn’t say in what direction either but having said that it’s a bit academic because of course this this race twists and turns one way you’re going one minute you’re going that way the next minute you’re going the other it twists and turns very very much indeed as we go back to Yan Urish remember that after him there are still four more riders mano Cludon Basso and Armstrong still no sign of Cludon whatsoever we’re just waiting now for them to get to the important 9.5 kilometer time check [Applause] well Ivan Basso now really trying very very hard and notice he’s got triars on a similar sort of short version to those which Yan Urick is using but he’s not actually making use of them at the moment as we go to Rishard Veron and Virank losing a lot of time he’ll be over 2 minutes behind Gonzalez is leading time for the moment of 4152 remember Garini also did 4152 and Carpet 4156 but Vank here clearly I think Sean saving himself for tomorrow yes as we forecasted I think you know he did not go about or give it 100% effort here i think you know well calculated uh by him that he wasn’t going to gain anything by giving it 100% so just decided to take it easy and uh concentrate on the days to come for the mountain the mountain testament 4411 then for Rishard Vir which is not going to gain him any of those mountain points today I’m sure he’ll be well outside that so it has to be tomorrow that Vir makes the big push because tomorrow from his point of view is the last stage in which he really has a big interest as though of um Lance Armstrong’s teammate Azabedo coming up with a very good time here to the 9.5K point and remember that this was David Harmon’s pick back in Paris i hope he’s not bouncing around on his desk at the moment but Aso 2440 and taking the lead at 9.5 kilome david must know something that we don’t he’s really picked a goodie however we’ll see how that bears uh comparison with the other big names a little later on here’s another of the French heroes Kristoff Morrow but Kristoff Morrow has lost a lot of time 436 for the former prologue time trial winner 436 i don’t think we’ll have him in the frame at the end of the day oh no he’s looking to do something tomorrow he’s looking to get away in a group that stays away um and doesn’t come down to the Lance and Ivon Boso challenge and look at the strain on Oric’s face there he’s he’s clearly uh suffering yet suffering may be but for a good cause because just look at the time compared with Azervedos now Azerdo has just gone through the first time check in 2440 to take the lead but Urish is going to knock spots off that because he’s not very far away I don’t think from the point where the clock stops and it’s going to be around about the 24minute mark I think which is going to put Azdo’s time well and truly into the shade so Orish really is putting in a big big effort here uh the clock’s going to stop any time now I’m sure just over 24 it’s clearly going to take the lead at this point 24 minutes and 7 seconds orish is the new leader at 9.5 kilometers no sooner had ADO gone over has done even better and look at that for effort yes and you see uh you look at the position of here if you did not know it was going to happen today as you’re watching your television and nobody told you it was a climb you think it’ll be a flat time trial here the way he’s going down on these tri bars it’s amazing the way he’s you know powering up this climb in this position i’d never thought I would see I mean I I I have time trials when I make my pathetic efforts as we go back to Lance Armstrong uh and I get onto the tri bars from time to time i’m not sure it doesn’t feel that good but I’ve gotten nonetheless but not surely up a steep hill remember if you take off the first 1 and a half kilometers and you just give the average gradient for the climb itself it’s an average of 10% 1 in 10 as we say in Britain that is so steep it is steep and this climb as you know very well Sean it changes its uh its pitch quite a bit um in the different kilometers when you first make that left-hand turn and you come onto the climb it’s quite steep oh there’s finally Andreas Cloden it’s good to see him i wonder how he’s going he looks quite comfortable i’m amazed we’ve not seen him before because I’m sure that Cludon is going to a fairly good time he’s had his mountain legs with him these last several days hasn’t he well this is the day when he can take some time back on Ivan Baso because he does time trial better than Ivan Baso and he’s climbing so strong back to Lance Armstrong though and this is the man who everybody’s got with the exception of David i haven’t forgotten you David who’s gone for ADO this is the man that we all the rest of us have gone for and I must say that up here at Beldo I was I’ve been at the to the press center this morning talked to quite a few of the people there and they all are saying Armstrong is going to beat Urish well Urish may have other things on his mind he will have other things on his mind and this is a very very determined Ourish we saw this same expression on his face yesterday when he attacked Armstrong on the road to Valance and he at one time looked as though he was going to really really blow the race apart sadly for him it did not happen in the end but we are seeing him continue on the offensive today Sean yes we definitely are and I think he’s going to give a new style of time triing mountain time triing with his position here uh it’s amazing on the tri bars and not getting out of sight at all but we haven’t seen enough of the saddle since he started which is amazing well Pereira for fun coming through but Liimer behind him is doing a terrific time the clock is focusing on Pereero but Liipheimimer finished six minutes behind him i can’t believe Oh it’s not Blipimer forgive me i’m getting too carried away it’s Rasmuson whom he has caught for 2 minutes uh I should have realized so panic over Pereira finishing but outside the leading time of Gonzalez and Guerrer Garini who’ve both got 4152 and Manbo as we see here uh he’s a rider he looks always to be in trouble he seemed to be struggling with his position but he can you know get up those climbs and uh do quite well well for me he just doesn’t seem to have that little spark about him that we have seen him produce in Spanish stage races in recent years there are so many 5day Spanish stage races he seems to love those but uh well there you see the time down into 11th place and Orish at 24 minutes and seven the current leader at that point mabbo some way off that uh yes he’s a long ways a long ways off but Holik’s time I think you know he’s it’s a it’s a very good time at this moment and you also must remember you know some of the riders maybe they might finish a bit better uh you know 14 km of climb there’s a long ways to go at our first checkpoint after 9 and a half so riders can you know come back and do uh pull back a lot of time they might lose maybe in the first half of the climb back to uh Glidden i’m glad the cameras did find him it seemed to be some time before they caught up with him it’s very difficult of course when you’ve got riders firing off at one minute or two minute intervals all up the road and Cluten coming through well he’s in second place he’s not quite got to the checkpoint where the clock stops but remember that the current second place at that point uh is ASDO’s 2440 and Clon I think might just get inside that and hold on to second place there you are by 5 seconds he’s gone into second place there so he’s doing a pretty good ride yes it certainly is you know against uh against Olrich it is a good ride and you know that reference for him is very good so you know the two T-Mobiles are doing very well today but Cloen of course we see him he’s been you know very active and seems to be riding very comfortably the last days in the Pyrenees Jabberto Simone who has had a very disappointing tour really and well this is not particularly a brilliant time either already 14th it might go down another place or two by the time he hits the And of course there are some riders quite a lot of riders I think who after him who are going to place him even further down the final result big disappointment this race after his near miss in the Jiro Ditalia being beaten by his younger teammate well yeah and I think that was also a sort of a preconceived thing in the in the Jurro i mean he he sacrificed his Jurro basically to have a good result here and it just didn’t turn out that way um I look to see him definitely doing something tomorrow on that big mountain stage because he’s such a specialist and uh Clayton looking very good here um as he comes around and here’s Sastra oh well Sastri is going to go into second place or is he third well there are two guys on 4152 remember Geria did 4152.83 almost the same as Gonzalez’s time so Sastri just slipping over the 42 minute mark as he gets towards the line but nonetheless a pretty good ride by the Spaniard 4208 for Carlos Sastri and CSC 10 riders then still to complete this course one of whom is Ivan Baso the man lying in second place on the overall classification and the crucial factor is going to be how he performs against Armstrong these are the two guys in the leading classification baso coming up to the first time the first significant time point fourth fastest at 2443 let’s make a little note 2443 for Baso uh and Armstrong should be here at that same point within 2 minutes if he is to win the stage well now here he is look at this and he is massively ahead what an incredible difference he’s not there yet but he is going to be clearly ahead of Basau and indeed ahead of Yanish who is the current leader of on that at that point 247 for 2443 for Baso and Armstrong is going to stop the clock a long way faster 2328 that is massively better than his nearest rival on the general classification Basso 23-28 Basso 2443 that’s a huge huge gap yes well 30 seconds in 9 12 km so the question is like how much is it going to be at the finish if he keeps going at this rate well uh I think it will grow out to well over a minute uh you know calculating but uh you know Lance he can really keep it going so he could go from you know anything to a minute to minute and a half uh so he’s definitely you know in the uh in the rhythm at the moment well he certainly seems to be in the rhythm and what he’s got to do is keep his concentration going and of course if there’s any rider in the tour to France who has the ability to do that it’s Lance Armstrong one of the most powerful parts about Lance Armstrong other than his physique is his brain I mean he he is so motivated mentally um and that is such a powerful thing for him you you see it when he finishes the stage you see the expressions on his face sometimes it’s elation but more more than anything else it’s just pure victory and as I was saying uh oh yes at 40 sorry uh yes he’s um you know uh he’s in the better part of the climb as well we must remember in the early part with the spectators there on the roadside now he’s into a better uh uh a better position um on the route so uh he’s out of the danger zone let’s say with the spectators with all these flags waving I’d say he would have been concerned with that so you know a better a more of a relaxing time and he can concentrate more on his effort here well this is the barrier section and the spectator there getting over the barrier and just throwing some water over Yan Urish who’s really biting the bullet here look at the perspiration it’s gone a little overcast here but believe me it is still very very warm all the way up this climb and all the riders will be losing an awful lot of moisture as they make their big push up A outdoes the barrier section is obviously a portion of the race where the riders can at least in their mind relax from that thought that that maybe they might get impeded by a member of the public they should be okay from here on in as we go back to Ivan Baso remember that Baso is Armstrong’s main rival so far as the overall classification is concerned but Armstrong is putting time at the moment into everyone yes he is but I think also Bas’s got to be a little bit concerned here about Cloen today because Clin could be inching his way into second place um on the podium in Paris so he he really needs to to keep an eye out for the difference in the time between himself and Cloen he knows Armstrong’s going to beat him but he it’s now going to come down to who’s who’s in second and who’s in third so uh it’s really not so much a race for first place anymore well Clin’s just a few seconds ahead of Basso at the first point nothing significant at this stage uh but of course we’ve got the longer time trial to Club come where maybe Clen can gain even more time on Basso than maybe here it’s a longer time trial obviously little more time to go at uh so today might not be conclusive for that podium spot i rather suspect that the final time in Bazans on Saturday will be the one that decides that yes and possibly tomorrow’s stage because Ivon Baso has put so much energy into staying with Armstrong on these three big mountain top finish stages that uh you know you wonder is is he going to have a bad day well Lance Armstrong is still on a good day as he gets a little bit nearer to the next crucial time check which is the one as they enter the original village of Uz which existed a long long long time long time ago long before the ski resort of La Due was begun and they go through there and when they go through Uz the old village that’s the point actually where Jeppe Garini had that coming together with the photographer and of course it’s still some way from there to the finish line uh so we’ve got to watch out because you can actually make a misjudgment on this stage you get to the final hair bin hair bin number one and you think I’m nearly there but it’s actually some considerable distance from there to the finish line yes and you’re coming into a headwind too when you make that lefth hand corner but that was not a photographer that was a 19-year-old well it was a young man with a camera I’m sure and um actually Garini the press found that kid and brought them together for a press conference later where they shook hands and Gurini actually signed his jersey and gave it to him but all was well in the end wasn’t it it was a French boy who who could not have felt worse about the incident oh boy and it would have felt even worse if it had caused Gini to lose the stage i mean about does it let’s go back to Ivan Basso now baso of course lying in second place in the overall classification and Sean you’re watching him how do you think he’s going is he suffering a little here well he’s definitely suffering but I think everybody’s suffering and Bazos Basos stylist he seems to be suffering a little bit more as we get the time here olri went through the 12.5 at uh at 34 so he was 36 seconds on a Seveo and 101 on Gurini who was who was told going through that 12.5 km soish the new leader then at 12.5 now and he’s as you see just going under the 2 kilometer to go barrier but remember that Urish was a long way down on Armstrong when Armstrong got to that point little while before Armstrong gets there but here’s the crucial time gap now on general classification we’re doing an ongoing general classification and now the gap has gone up to over 3 minutes in the general classification between number one and number two on GC number one is rider number one and that of course is Lance Armstrong uh just for the record Basso’s number in the race is number 61 as we continue to concentrate on Lance Armstrong [Applause] well he’s still on that high cadence which needs I would have thought more concentration uh to keep it going at the desired pace than maybe the gears that most riders tend to use as we go back to and seems to me just that little bit more labored now than he was on the lower slopes i don’t know what you think uh Christie Sean uh just a quick comment on Orish how’s he going well I think he’s he’s still looking quite well but uh you know the difference is that Lance is just going that bit faster and he’s just you know taking time from him all the time up this climb and I think he’s going to continue on like that uh both of them I think you know are much the same as they were on the earlier slopes but uh you know once again Armstrong so impressive it’s uh it’s unbelievable sean barring a puncture or anything terrible is the tour to France over so far as the over overall classification’s concerned well it looks uh you know it looks very like that but you never know uh you know we have a lot of difficult days to come and Lance he can always have an off day you know Roy does you know look so impressive and they get hunger knocked during the stage not eating enough uh as seen before and uh you never know so he he has to keep concentrated but it looks like it’s going to be a very difficult task for anybody to take the other jersey from Lance well here we go with George Toppson not a bad little climber actually the Austrian coming into the home straight now well over the 42 minute mark so Toshnik is not going to get on the leaderboard it’ll be nearly 43 by the time he finishes trying ever so hard the Gstein rider and coming to the Whoops nearly going to the barriers there losing his rhythm just before the line 4256 for George Torchnik and that just leaves Azerdo Urish Manto Cludon Baso and Armstrong to come now here’s Azdo and uh this uh was David Harmon’s pick for the day and it looks to me as though he is going to take the lead azdo coming in it’s going to be a 41 and surely Gonzalez is 4152 he’s going to be relegated now by some considerable distance very good ride by one of Armstrong’s left tenants 4126 five riders to go and the Portuguese has gone into the lead but back to rider number one Lance Armstrong still this cadence still the regular rhythm he’s not faltered at all so far no he hasn’t and I’m really surprised to see his teammate putting in such a big effort today knowing as as it seems everyone does that Armstrong’s going to just crush this time trial now here’s the former yellow jersey riding in white this year as the leading young rider 25year-old Thomas Vookler for France and Brios Lab Bulonier well it’s only a 46 it’s not really a terribly good time he’s had an excellent tour this lad has had a fabulous tour actually and coming up to the line with a somewhat disappointing ride he ran out of gas a bit yesterday on the road to VR Dant a 46-minute ride and you know that is going to throw the young rider competition wide open but here now comes Yan Orish now Orish is clearly going to take the lead here at the finish line 3437 put him on top at the second checkpoint but Orish is going to slaughter Azabo’s time by the thick end of a minute and look at the effort as Orish pulls out every last bit of energy 4042 for Yan Ori well that is a marvelous marvelous time compared with everybody else and Urish you cannot say anything other than he has given everything that he’s got here today but will it be good enough and just look at this here is the leader of the tour to France taking 2 minutes out of the second place rider three minutes out of him well that’s incredible yes three minutes of course the last uh the last 23 was a rival started at three minutes apart well I don’t think so for me it’s two i’ve been saying all day two intervals yes I’m mistake yes it is too much i thought so it’s 2 minutes and but nonetheless nonetheless what a crushing blow for Ivan Baso to see the man he’s aiming to overthrow come past him on the climb of Valdis yes it’s uh it looked to be getting difficult for Basso we see there just some time ago that he was having problems keeping his rhythm and uh it looked like he was suffering a bit more and I think we see there now as Lance catches him for the two minutes difficult time because you know when uh when you get caught like that by the Roy behind you it’s morale-wise it’s very hard to take and when you’re really suffering you know it’s it really works on you and to hang in there it’s h it’s going to be really difficult for that well he’s trying very much to hang on to Armstrong he says shirt tails there as the American flags fly high and wide and Armstrong trying to just leave Baso in fact he’s going away from his nearest rival in the classification now what an epic ride by the American even pausing for a drink there what a relaxed ride this is from the American 12.7 km and he’s 56 seconds up onish who is currently the fastest man in the clubhouse so to speak with that 4042 Armstrong is just annihilating the opposition and he actually threw his water bottle there he threw it away so he’s not carrying any extra weight he he’s at this point all he wants to do is take as much time and I think this is the only man that he’s even remotely concerned about today to put putting time between himself and Ivan Baso well he started one minute twice 25 seconds to the good the start this morning he’s now increased that by 2 minutes plus still going the gap is still opening and surely if there were any doubt Sean about a sixth tour to France surely now that doubt has to have vanished yes it certainly has i think it’s put uh you know uh put it right in a lot of the riders minds and also uh you know the press you know we were saying in this time flight would he be able to do it you know what sort of performance will he throw in but I think he’s answered a lot of questions and he’s proved that he’s definitely on the road to win his uh another tour back to Andreas Clinton who’s just coming up to the red kite with 1 kilometer remaining but with all due respect it’s academic because this American from Texas is riding away with his sixth tour of France barring accidents and we trust that no one has any of those between now and the shel on Sunday the the press had this man down as a favorite and favorite he has proved to be he rides race number one as he has done for the previous five years now and he’s going to prove himself number one when he comes up to the top of the finish he will get a monumental round of applause as you see the virtual general classification at time check number two we’ve worked it out 3 minutes 25 is now his advantage and it’s still growing [Applause] francisco andreas Clutdden further down the road and he seems to be catching Francisco further up the road actually seems to be catching up with Francisco Manteo manto just in sight ahead of him around these curves you’ll see him on the straight there’s Manteo so he’s not far short of catching the Spaniard for 2 minutes it’s been a disappointing race for Mbo but not for Cluden included for my money has had a very good tour of to France and it’s not over yet for him absolutely not i I feel very strongly that he will be third on the podium in Paris and uh also I mean he has this is his first good year in four years it was four years ago that he had a good a good season and now he is really showing showing his colors well here you’ve got Mandavo in the lead so to speak he started two minutes ahead of Clen but Clen’s all but getting two minutes out of the Spaniard here cluten coming to the line with a 41minute ride as Manabo crosses the line cluten 4123 an excellent ride by the German and Manbo had a little bit of a smile there because he feels he won the sprint from Claud yeah well there’s not much to be won when you’ve had two minutes taken out of you but Urish meantime remember is still actually the leader here at the finish as we go back to Lance Armstrong armstrong still continuing to take time out of his nearest rival in the classification Ivan Baso armstrong really has lived up to all the hype all the expectations everything that has been talked about him he the many people have asked questions about whether he could win six and surely now he is answering every question every critic yes the sixth tour to France in a row is definitely on yes it’s uh it looks uh you know more and more so every day we go on and uh until now as I said earlier we haven’t seen Lance really attack because the team have been so good they’ve been around you know right up to the end in the stages on the Pyrene stage the mountains but I think this is the real test you know a time trial man against man and he’s definitely proved that he has got it all and he’s got everything to win another tour of France and the time looks like it’s going to be the only one I would suggest inside 40 minutes I think it’s going to be 39 something uh we weren’t sure just what the time was i made the conjecture early today with you Sean that the winning time would be around 39 thus making the time delay at a third of that 13 minutes add the 13 onto the 39 52 in other words 52 minutes is the cutff point in which case I think everybody will probably get inside it but here comes Armstrong now coming towards the finish and just look how fast and smooth this man is still pedling still well inside the 40 minutes as he comes into the home straight now and I think he’s going to crack that 40minute barrier Sea which we thought was always possible yes he certainly is because from the last corner it’s roughly about 20 seconds a little bit more and he’s definitely going to and we see the way he’s finishing it he’s finishing a sprint it’s you know very impressive this is as if his very life depended upon it lance Armstrong chasing his sixth tour and the place in the record books for all time perhaps 39 minutes 41 seconds rider number one is rider number one and and he’s just won the time trial by a minute to Orish’s blistering speed and that’s it’s just amazing well that’s just taken my breath away and it’s taken Ivan Baso’s breath away too he must be so so demoralized 42 minutes and 4 seconds is not a bad ride but for Baso it’s disastrous yes because this is the time trial where you know he should be able to limit his losses a bit more against Lance the mountain clients while Baso a good mountain climber but uh you know Lance was just so strong today uh nothing to do against him well there is Lance Armstrong his effort inside 40 minutes is over for the day yet another stage victory in the Tour to France his 19th overall since he first began racing in this great race and a very very satisfactory 39 minutes and 41 seconds it has been he did not weaken until he’d gone over the line he gave everything he’d got look at the determination on the man’s face trying to gain every vital second as indeed he did at VR Das when he came round Basso to take the victory and gain those extra bonus seconds very crucial good thinking from the Texan [Music] well there we see it in real time after the slow-mo and the effort on his face as he comes up to the line well now we slow it down a little bit just to intensify the moment of drama as Armstrong comes to the line inside 40 minutes the only man to crack the 40-minute barrier now we know the time and in terms of the time trial from Bourj Disong the center of the town to the usual finishing line that will establish a precedent for maybe future such stages of the tour to France well well certainly um oh look at the and now you were looking at the uh the result today had a very respectable ride i mean at 1 minute 41 off off Armstrong and only 41 seconds behind Olrich that’s just incredible ivon Baso was a bit disappointing uh with taking 2 minutes 23 seconds but what’s more interesting is that um Coden has now gotten about 30 close to 30 seconds um back on him on Ivan Baso so I look to see Clin doing something to in tomorrow’s stage trying to get away a little bit and get a that one more minute on uh on Ivan Baso yeah the 42 seconds that he’s gained today on Basso will give him every incentive with of course the longtime f to come on Saturday where he can hope to gain further time so Basso’s second place in the overall classification Sean still under fire yes it definitely is i think uh you know it’s going to be uh very interesting in the next number of days i don’t think we’re going to see a lot of battles because they’re all you know a lot of rivals there are you know in a position for the podium and you know you can’t count closing of course you know and I think he’s getting stronger and stronger so he’s going to be a dangerous man and the last time of course you know he can take a lot of time back there so I think the podium second and third place in the podium is all to play for from here on in but for Lance Armstrong he’s looking down from on high as indeed we are here up at the top of Aldoz down to the valleys below and that’s where everyone else in the tour to France might well as be so far as Armstrong is concerned he is definitely on top of the mountain and the interesting one as well is carpets he finished second in the st in the stage sorry at 214 and where Bookler he finished at 636 so he lost over four minutes to carpets uh and that’s you know looking dangerous for the days to come in the elves because I think carpets yesterday we see him he took a lot of time back and I think Vocler is going to pay for his efforts uh you know the weight of the other jealousy over the last number of days well as you see Lance Armstrong once again I’ll just get a quick reminder to you Sean that carpet was my original pick nearly 3 weeks ago for the under 25 competition so I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for him and let’s see how am I doing in that competition with Canelara very well enough said well look at the riders who did so well upd here today in this classic confrontation they all gave of their best armstrong 3941 Orish 40 minutes and 42 seconds uh Cluden 4123 and of course Basso who of course started in second place overall a somewhat disappointing eighth in 4204 many riders here did good performances even the sprinters the non-climbers who feared that they might not finish inside the time limit we reckon they’ve done it because a quick calculation of 39 minutes alone 3941 was Armstrong’s actual time would give a delay of 13 minutes we had this all worked out before didn’t we Sean so if you add the 13 minutes and a little bit on 40 52 minutes yes I would suggest that everyone is safely inside the time limit even Jean Patrick Nazong who I think is the slowest hall told on exactly 50 minutes yes they must have been speaking with Lance over the last couple of days and to know what time he was going to do because uh they had calculated very well some of the climbers as you said Nazone just really you know close very close on the limit and just h stays inside it so it looks as though we’ve still got 157 riders who started remaining in the race for tomorrow and the last big stage in the Alps uh but Armstrong surely now has left them all with little else to fight for but second and third places on the podium on Sunday armstrong has slowly but surely exerted his authority on this race not too concerned about taking that yellow jersey too early although of course after the team time trial victory he briefly did have it uh but yesterday was the day when he finally took it back again and he’s worn it today with great pride and with great assuredness in his method of climbing up the mountain here and literally blowing the opposition apart i think um yesterday’s attack by Yan Olrich is probably what um prompted Armstrong to counterattack as we’ve talked about before he always counterattacks and that he possibly took the yellow jersey a day before he actually planned to i think today was the day he he had planned or had his eye on taking the jersey well nonetheless he took it yesterday he’s got it and I rather suspect that he’s got it for keeps well here’s Alz which lies just at the foot of the GR RS massie behind which rises very majestically as you can see to something like 10,900 ft above sea level some 3,000 plus feet even higher than where we are here at the top of this marvelous ski resort of La Duets and uh the interesting one is 23 km an hour average on the climb for Armstrong a little bit over h you imagine 23 km an hour uh you need and it would be a good motor bike you need to come up the alter with that well that’s about that’s just about 15 m an hour and uh folks if you don’t think that sounds very quick try doing that up a 1 in 10 climb that goes on for nearly 10 miles if you can do that then you should be riding the Tour to France yes uh it’s uh it’s impressive you know you know to just do that average on a climb like that uh you have to really to go out on the ways and try and do it because uh what we see on TV the pictures we’re getting you know you don’t really appreciate how steep it is and as you said Mike you know we came up last night uh it’s just amazing this climb the way it comes around the corners and it just you know pips up again very very steep well there you see the many camper vans which line the road all the way up the climb chrissy saw them this morning and she you I can’t believe you walked all the way down i walked all the way down and when I got to the bottom I said and excuse me where’s the departure line and they’re like “Oh it’s it’s just two more two more kilometers that way.” And and the buses are another half a kilometer i’m thinking you have no idea what you’re saying to me right now it’s a long walk just look at these crowds this has been such a magnetic place to be if you are interested in cycling La Deers it’s developed this great aura ever since FTO copy first one up here in 1952 and for the first time a time trial stage i would suggest not the last lance Armstrong may not be contesting it when next week come up here in that form but his name will go down in the record books as the very first winner of an individual time trial up here lance Armstrong today has shown us exactly how good he is when compared with the rest of the competitors and there you see a very crucial moment I feel in the day’s play the moment when he caught his nearest rival in this great race for 2 minutes yes it’s amazing as we see here we want to have an interview with him i wanted it bad i wanted it because because of the the history around the mountain and and because of the importance to the race i mean it’s it’s still still a tight race i knew I had to be good i knew that the other guys would be good and so I mean all in all it was a very important day talk a little bit about you’ve come to love and respect the French culture the French people and certainly you love the history of the tour how important was it or how much of a feeling was it today to have the honor of riding up Ald it’s important it’s important i’ve done it uh one one other time and uh my first tour in 99 the first one I won um but it was tough today the the crowds were were animated I should say i mean a lot of a lot of a lot of German supporters a lot of a lot of uh how should I say uh uh talk talk a little bit how tough it was i mean it looked as though until the barriers were put up the the crowds were very vocal and got very close did it make it difficult yeah no they they um I mean they’re always close on the climbs you know that’s the way it was in the Pyrenees when you when you open the road uh they’re going to get close and and quite frankly I I think it’s a I have I have to say although I I I enjoyed my day I think it’s a really bad idea to do a time travel on this mountain um it’s it’s it’s it’s not safe it’s uh there’s too much at stake to have to have Altoz open with with such a history and such a such an aura about it to to put a million people on the side of it that have been there for weeks and you know or some of them up to a week and then you know could have you know has been drinking all day long or whatever and they get a little angry and then and stuff stuff can happen so I was some of those sections I was lucky I made it through all right well you took an important step towards six congratulations thank you and that’s all that matters an interesting observation there Sean uh from Lance as we see an overview of La Du about the dangers of riding up yes I think uh as I was saying earlier I would reckon that as Lance was very concerned in the earlier slopes where they hadn’t got the barriers and exactly what he said you know dangerous and always especially uh he didn’t really say whether there were barriers but that’s what he meant the people getting so close to you it’s it’s on all the times that but on this one you know there’s so much at stake and the people are here for so long he said like you know almost a week some of them and you know they’re celebrating here all day and by the time he come people have drank a lot and it can be it could turn you know dangerous and he is very very right although he had no problems today he said the people were quite good uh you know they all very supportive but he said he had he was very concerned stopping out would you therefore advocate sometime in the future another such time trial appear well I think yes i I think you know there’s a big history here with Always but you know the barriers uh when we came to the last seven or eight kilometers uh there were the barriers and they need to do that all the way for an individual time trial it’s a necessity a necessity but a very big uh amount of work for those barrier people there are a lot of people working to make sure that all the stages each and every day are properly set out particularly in the start and finish areas it’s a lot of work by a lot of people it is asking a lot to barrier the whole 15 12 kilometers which is not far short of 10 miles i suppose it can be done yes if you got the manpower but manpower cost money and so on and so forth it’s a big big job but I’m sure that the ASO the Morris sports organization will think of that having had today’s experience then bottom line is everybody did get up safely i think one or two riders were touched we saw in one particular instance was touched by a spectator he did actually wobble a little but Olish came through any wobbles that he may have had from spectators i didn’t see him get touched actually and he came through Armstrong in such great style and now barring accidents seems to be sure of victory number six yeah it certainly looks that way but just a note on Olish’s ride today i think today he’s looked the best I’ve seen him look all tour um he had a very very good ride and I uh I think it’s a sign that maybe maybe tomorrow he’ll he’ll be in the action again well Sean you said that you thought had been getting just that little bit stronger as the tour has gone on you don’t yet put a p podium place out of the question for Yan Hish do you no I do not because his form is definitely coming better he proved that today and I think you know the problems he went through in the Pyrenees he was you know a long ways off the pace and you know to be able to come through that uh you know uh uh morale-wise I think he’s come back you know from being doubted a lot by a lot of people uh I think you know that proves that he is very strong and he definitely will you know do a lot more damage in this race i think we will see a lot more action from okay well we’re just about coming up to presentation time here on the top of La Dair as we see some lovely shots of the surrounding area but here is the shot that all the US postal supporters and the American supporters were wanting to see here at Beldue for the second time in his career because of course he won here on the road race stage it was of course 2001 lance Armstrong takes victory at Al Dues and I think this will be his 19th state victory in the tour [Applause] [Music] well Lance Armstrong three stage wins now to his credit here in this tour to France four if you include the team time trial let’s not forget because that was nonetheless a very significant part of the tour for him well there you see him making the climb in yellow and any moment now he’s going to get yet another yellow jersey 32 years of age and it’s interesting that of the previous five times winners of the Tour to France none of them won a Tour to France at the age of 32 in fact Yeti Merks when he won his fifth he was still only 29 believe it or not and yet he never made a sixth armstrong looks like he is going to make the sixth now at the age of 32 [Music] it’s it’s just amazing to me how he keeps getting stronger and stronger i mean you don’t you keep thinking well how long can he hold this level and then he raises the bar another level it’s uh it’s just miraculous well Al Duz has seen many great days in the history of the tour to France ever since it came here in 1952 this place here of course is very much changed on the right and extreme sorry left hand of the picture there you can see the village of Wes which has existed up here in the mountains for many many years but right now central is what has built up here in the last 30 or 40 years out of virtually nothing a typical modern ski resort and it’s been a focal point for many years for people like Lance Armstrong in the tour to France Armstrong won here today for the second time and took another another step towards a historic sixth tour to France victory we continue in the Alps tomorrow with another big big mountain stage and we trust that you will join us for that stay with us here on Eurosport for more on the tour with David Harmon in Paris but for the moment from Aldoz and Lance Armstrong goodbye