Lance Armstrong has no doubts about the risks that lurk in the next stage of the Tour de France: If luck goes against him, he says, his drive for a record sixth win could be over before it's barely begun.
What worries the five-time champion are bone-shaking cobblestone paths coming Tuesday. Some riders say they shouldn't even be part of cycling's showcase race. Bumpy, unsettling, treacherous when wet -- a recipe for crashes. Armstrong says there will be victims.
"Everybody is worried," the 32-year-old Texan said Monday. "It's always dangerous. You have to be in the front. If you get stuck behind a crash or something like that then you could almost say that your Tour is finished."
PHOTO: EPA
So far, Armstrong seems pleased with his race and his team "is maybe the best one we've had." But the competition is perhaps the toughest he's faced.
"The field is full," he said. "The course is tough, but I think the competition will be deeper than other years."
Armstrong is fourth overall, but will look to take the lead later in the three-week race. His biggest rival, 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich, is a mere 15 seconds back. He looks lean and hungry -- but Armstrong played down the German's apparent good form.
The two cobbled sections today come in the second half of the mostly flat 210km, to the northern French town of Wasquehal.
The sprinters get their glory in relatively flat first stages.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier