Lance Armstrong says Tour de France organizers could do more to calm jumpy riders and avoid spills that could mar his record hopes.
For a second straight day Saturday, the five-time champion offered unsolicited pointers for Tour managers. He suggested that a time trial be held in the often nervy first week, to thin the number of race favorites.
Sending riders out one-by-one against the clock would leave just the fastest with a realistic chance of winning the three-week Tour. Laggards would fall by the wayside, reducing the field of contenders. That, in turn, could leave fewer racers jostling each day at the front of the race -- a recipe for crashes.
PHOTO: AFP
"The race needs a time trial in the first week because it's too nervous without it," Armstrong said. "It's safer for the event to establish some order in the group and we're still another week away from figuring out who the hell's going to be in the front."
A day earlier, Armstrong had said the finish of Friday's stage was too narrow. A pile-up left some riders badly hurt.
As the 32-year-old battles for a record sixth title, young riders are stealing the show.
Outpacing two last challengers, Italian hope Filippo Pozzato bolted to victory in Saturday's 204.5km ride from Chateaubriant to Saint-Brieuc in Brittany. At 22, Pozzato is the Tour's youngest rider.
French champion Thomas Voeckler, 25, holds the overall leader's yellow jersey.
Armstrong, who aims to recover the lead by Tour's end in Paris on July 25, was 55th Saturday -- 10 seconds behind Pozzato. Armstrong rival Jan Ullrich of Germany, the 1997 Tour winner, placed 30th, in the same time as the Texan.
Overall, Armstrong remained in sixth place, 9 minutes and 35 seconds behind Voeckler. Ullrich is still 55 seconds behind Armstrong.
Pozzato's win was the first bright spot for Italians. Two top Italian sprinters -- Alessandro Petacchi and Mario Cipollini -- withdrew with injuries this week. Gilberto Simoni, an outside threat to Armstrong, nearly quit Saturday after an injury in the mass crash Friday.
A dozen riders have withdrawn so far from the Tour, mostly with injuries. Tyler Hamilton, an American with Phonak, was embroiled in Friday's pileup and hurt his back but is racing on.
"I wasn't feeling so hot," said the Marblehead, Massachusetts, native. Phonak sporting director Jacques Michaud said Hamilton whacked his back against the pedals of another rider's bike.
Racers faced brief showers, windy conditions and fans in the last 10km who lit smoky flares and spilled onto the course. But Armstrong said there was little flair to the stage -- just what the doctor ordered after a week of rain-soaked roads and crashes galore.
"I thought you'd have more spice in the race, but I think guys are tired and stressed from all the crashes," said the Texan, who was bruised but not badly hurt in a tumble Friday.
Belgian cyclist Christophe Brandt is out of the Tour de France after failing a drug test.
Hendrik Redant, coach of Brandt's Italian team Lotto-Domo, said Brandt was sent home Friday after testing positive for methadone, a drug typically used to help recovering heroin addicts.
Brandt was the first rider to fail a drug test at this Tour. He suggested that a laboratory error might be to blame and said he was awaiting results of a follow-up test.
"I've had a dozen tests this year and they were all negative," the rider told Belgium's RTBF television. "There are two possible explanations. Either it's a handling error at the laboratory ... or, well, we'll have to dig a little deeper and we'll do that after the follow-up test," he said.
He insisted that he would never have knowingly taken any product containing methadone.
"I want to fight to prove that I didn't do that," he said.
His coach, Redant, added: "I feel like I've fallen from heaven down to earth ... It's very serious. We're very upset."
One of Brandt's teammates was also surprised.
"No one understands the situation," Rik Verbrugghe said. "This is not a product that improves performance."
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB