20-07-2004 19:53									#91
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Lance wins.

The finish was familiar with Armstrong edging basso one more time ( he wants the time bonuses for a stage win). Kloden and a much stronger-looking Ullrich rounded out the top 4.

The top 10 on the stage


001 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 4h 40' 30"
2 061 BASSO Ivan ITA CSC at 00' 00"
3 011 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 00' 03"
4 017 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO at 00' 06"
5 151 LEIPHEIMER Levi USA RAB at 00' 13"
6 101 VIRENQUE Richard FRA QSD at 00' 48"
7 158 RASMUSSEN Mickael DEN RAB at 00' 49"
8 002 AZEVEDO José POR USP at 00' 53"
9 069 VOIGT Jens GER CSC at 01' 04"
10 067 SASTRE Carlos ESP CSC at 01' 24"

Ita amazing how quickly folks like Azevedo and Voigt can lose time after being with the leaders until the last climb at the finish

Vockler elastic has snapped and he will be well more than 5 minutes back. Armstrong will be in yellow.

	20-07-2004 20:01									#92
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Voeckler actually lost about 9 and a half minutes and has plummeted down through the general classification. Apparently he should get the white jersey as the best young rider ( although his rival did finish in front of him on this stage).

Interesting that Ullrich attempted to attack in these mountains. Naturally he is not just going to concede .. . The attack failed against the combined efforts of Postal and CSC ( Basso) but it did show he is still a strong rider. Since Kloden is now apparently T-mobiles leader, the attack can be seen in two lights-- Ullrich trying to gain time OR making Postal and CSC work harder while Kloden sits on their wheel.

	20-07-2004 20:03									#93
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When are the doping allegations going to start in the French press?

	20-07-2004 20:12									#94
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When did they stop?

	20-07-2004 20:13									#95
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Did they ever stop?

edit:

	20-07-2004 20:13									#96
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The top 10 in the general classification

1 001 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 67h 13' 43"
2 061 BASSO Ivan ITA CSC at 01' 25"
3 017 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO at 03' 22"
4 071 MANCEBO Francisco ESP IBB at 05' 39"
5 011 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 06' 54"
6 002 AZEVEDO José POR USP at 07' 34"
7 081 TOTSCHNIG Georg AUT GST at 08' 19"
8 129 VOECKLER Thomas FRA BLB at 09' 28"
9 134 CAUCCHIOLI Pietro ITA ALB at 10' 10"
10 151 LEIPHEIMER Levi USA RAB at 10' 58"

Only Basso and Kloden even have a decent chance to win ( barring catastrophe for Armstrong). Aklso note that Ullrich has pulled himself into 5th-- but I think that both Kloden and Basso are now too strong for Ullrich to crack the top 3.

Kudos to Kloden to finish well despite what looked to be a nasty crash

Voeckler will be in white as he lost only a few seconds to Sandy Casar-- he has a pretty large lead in that category

Virenque also picked up a ton of points for the King of the Mountains-- no suprise that he went out to win the intermediate climbs for the bigger points.

	20-07-2004 21:23									#97
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The word is that Basso has been training hard in a wind tunnel and has greatly improved his time trial form.

	20-07-2004 21:25									#98
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quote: Ita amazing how quickly folks like Azevedo and Voigt can lose time after being with the leaders until the last climb at the finish

Neither of them are competing for the overall individual classification, therefore once the're role is played out, they take it 'easy'.

	20-07-2004 21:36									#99
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quote: Originally posted by alva Neither of them are competing for the overall individual classification, therefore once the're role is played out, they take it 'easy'.

True but Azevedo is currently in 6th in the overall which is pretty great for a rider who's job is to ride himself to exhaustion on behalf of Armstrong. A top 10 finish is very likely and with a time trial tomorrow in which he can't help Armstrong, I would not have blamed Azevedo if he continued to pull hard to keep himself up in the GC. As high as 4th was ( and maybe still is) in his reach.

I guess the fact that he goes easy once his work for Armstrong is done, without regard to his own placing,is further proof of the focus of the Postal Team. There is no goal and no effort extended for anything other than Lance winning yellow.

	20-07-2004 21:43									#100
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Azevedo's time is another proof of the overall strength of the Postal team. Another one is the number of ex-Postal members who have gone on to lead their own team. Perhaps Azevedo will be the next to be recruited.

	20-07-2004 23:59									#101
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Well postal try to get a top notch team all around-- Aparently they made a serious attempt to get Basso. If they had succeeded basso would probably be in 6th or 8th or 10th overall, depending on the role he wasassigned and we might have seen Azevedo as a leader of another team and challenging for yellow.


The guy that has most suprised me is Heras-- Perhaps I am too influenced by my memories of him leading lance over mountain after mountain in previous tours. I really thought with a team around him he would do much better than he has shown thus far.

	21-07-2004 00:04									#102
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was pretty harsh about Heras in interviews. He said the guy didn't learn anything during his time at Postal. At the time, I thought Armstrong was just being an arrogant dick. Maybe there was some truth to his statements. Perhaps Heras' performance is an indication that he did not learn good strategy and training preparation while at Postal.

	21-07-2004 20:23									#103
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Lalpe D'huez time trial is on and Lance, riding last is on the mountain when I I just lost my live audio broadcast

arrggghhhh

So far-- with Lance to come, the leaders at the second timecheck are

Ullrich
Kloden
Azevedo and
Basso

a familiar group eh ??

	21-07-2004 20:25									#104
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Ouch Lance is killing them at the 2nd ine check now


1. ARMSTRONG (USA, USP) 23'28"
2. ULLRICH (GER, TMO) at 40"
3. KLÖDEN (GER, TMO) at 01' 07"
4. AZEVEDO (POR, USP) at 01' 12"
5. BASSO (ITA, CSC) at 01' 15"


If he can maintain this pace, there will be no doubt as to Armstrong's supremacy and only a crash will prevent a record 6th win

	21-07-2004 20:30									#105
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Four riders left to go at the final timecheck before the finish

ALPE D'HUEZ (entrée) - km 12.5 153 riders
Last rider : 011 ULLRICH (GER, TMO) - 1st in 00:34:37
1- 011 ULLRICH (GER, TMO) 00:34:37
2- 002 AZEVEDO (POR, USP) 00:35:13 at 36"
3- 014 GUERINI (ITA, TMO) 00:35:38 at 01' 01"
4- 023 GONZALEZ (ESP, PHO) 00:35:43 at 01' 06"
5- 075 KARPETS (RUS, IBB) 00:35:44 at 01' 07"

Last edited by Flubber on 21-07-2004 at 20:42

	21-07-2004 20:35									#106
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Wow-- Armstrong has passed Basso at the final timecheck and will have a full 3 minutes on everyone in the GC by the end of the day

ALPE D'HUEZ (entrée) - km 12.5 157 riders
Last rider : 061 BASSO (ITA, CSC) - 6. at 02' 00"
1- 001 ARMSTRONG (USA, USP) 00:33:41
2- 011 ULLRICH (GER, TMO) 00:34:37 at 56"
3- 017 KLÖDEN (GER, TMO) 00:35:12 at 01' 31"
4- 002 AZEVEDO (POR, USP) 00:35:13 at 01' 32"
5- 014 GUERINI (ITA, TMO) 00:35:38 at 01' 57"

	21-07-2004 20:58									#107
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While apparently only 156 riders have finished, all the contenders appears on this cut and paste


L'ALPE D'HUEZ - km 15.5 156 riders
Last rider : 061 BASSO (ITA, CSC) - 8. at 02' 22"
1- 001 ARMSTRONG (USA, USP) 00:39:41.450
2- 011 ULLRICH (GER, TMO) 00:40:42.480 at 01' 01"
3- 017 KLÖDEN (GER, TMO) 00:41:22.990 at 01' 41"
4- 002 AZEVEDO (POR, USP) 00:41:26.530 at 01' 45"
5- 023 GONZALEZ (ESP, PHO) 00:41:52.323 at 02' 10"



So Basso loses 2:22 but thats not enough as he will still maintain a reasonable lead on Kloden. Ullrich and Azevedo have passed Mancebo in the GC. The overall standings are as follows:


1. Lance Armstrong (USP) 2,802.1km in 67h53'24" (41.265km/h)
2. Ivan Basso (CSC) at 3'48"
3. Andreas Kloden (TMO) at 5'03"
4. Jan Ullrich (TMO) at 7'55"
5. Jose Azevedo (USP) at 9'19"
6. Francisco Mancebo (IBB) at 9'20"
7. Georg Totschnig (GST) at 11'34"
8. Carlos Sastre (CSC) at 13'52"
9. Pietro Caucchioli (ALB) 14'08"
10. Levi Leipheimer (RAB) at 15'04"


It now appears impossible that anyone can catch Armstrong unless he crashes or bonks.There are only four stages left

Tomorrow-- hard mountain stage that includes the Col de Madeline
Friday-- a rolling stage with nothing harder than a second category climb
Saturday- a flat time trial
Sunday -- the procession to Paris

eally tomorrow is the only chance to get serious time on anyone, so it may be last ditch effort time-- But Armstrong can also see that this is the last big effort and he will know that his team can drag him along on the flatter stage on Friday.

Its not over yet but we would need some strange things to happen for Armstrong to NOT win this Tour

	21-07-2004 21:18									#108
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I wasn't sure it was over before, but now it is.

	21-07-2004 21:48									#109
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A good chance Basso will break over the next few days. I see Ullrich finishing second on sunday.

	21-07-2004 23:14									#110
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I'm sure the Germans will try to get Basso out of second place tomorrow and/or on Saturday. While they probably realise that they won't win the tour, they'll want Ullrich and Klöden in second and third place.

	22-07-2004 00:11									#111
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I think the German's best chance to put time on Basso is the time trial.

	22-07-2004 00:16									#112
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quote: Originally posted by pchang I think the German's best chance to put time on Basso is the time trial.

Total agreement here.

	22-07-2004 02:48									#113
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I'm pretty sure they'll do much better than Basso in the time trial, but I'm not sure if Ullrich could beat him by more than 4 minutes.

I'm hoping tomorrow will be a grueling battle.

	22-07-2004 04:08									#114
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Did Lance win yet?

	22-07-2004 04:32									#115
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This comes hardly as a surprise right.
We knew Armstrong was going to win this climb, Ullrich was going close in on the others and that Basso was going to lose a few minutes.



This is somewhat like Schumacher and F1

	22-07-2004 05:36									#116
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If you were that sure, how come you haven't made a killing at the sports books?

	22-07-2004 19:46									#117
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It appears that they are all on the final mountain of todays's stage and all the leaders are still together. There will not likely be any major cahanges in the time gaps affecting the top 5--

Virenque and Sastre are off the front again but thats as usual and has no effect on the GC

	22-07-2004 20:19									#118
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Same old same old

Armstrong wins with all the usual suspects in close attendance


1 001 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 6h 11' 52"
2 017 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO at 00' 00"
3 011 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 00' 01"
4 061 BASSO Ivan ITA CSC at 00' 01"
5 006 LANDIS Floyd USA USP at 00' 13"
6 185 MERCKX Axel BEL LOT at 01' 01"
7 151 LEIPHEIMER Levi USA RAB at 01' 01"
8 067 SASTRE Carlos ESP CSC at 01' 02"
9 158 RASMUSSEN Mickael DEN RAB at 01' 02"
10 081 TOTSCHNIG Georg AUT GST at 01' 02"
11 002 AZEVEDO José POR USP at 01' 02

	22-07-2004 20:24									#119
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The overall is unlikely to change tomorrow so that leaves the time trial.


The overall standings are as follows

1 001 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 74h 04' 56"
2 061 BASSO Ivan ITA CSC at 04' 09"
3 017 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO at 05' 11"
4 011 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 08' 08"
5 002 AZEVEDO José POR USP at 10' 41"

The big question is whether Basso will be able to maintain a top 3 finish-- Ullrich is a great time trialist and Kloden is seen as stronger than Basso as well-- Thats the big story since its unlikely that anyone can catch Armstrong-- even a flat on the time trial wouldn't prevent a victory-- The only thing that can prevent an Armstrong win is a major debilitating crash

	22-07-2004 20:24									#120
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Wow, there is only one second separating the four first riders. Quite impressive, for a 6 hours long run