Lance Armstrong looked around for help and found none. He was alone, on a Tour de France climb, his rivals swarming all over him.
Armstrong's usually trusty teammates failed him Saturday as the Tour had its first encounter with the mountains, unable to match the punishing pace set on the day's final ascent by riders determined to bring the six-time Tour champion down.
Digging in deep, Armstrong found the will and the way to fend off most of his challengers and retain his overall race lead.
PHOTO: AFP
"Definitely, a crisis within our team on the final climb," Armstrong said. "For whatever reason I was left alone. We had a bad day as a team and that makes it that much harder and I had to cover some big moves myself."
"If it's two more weeks of days like today then you're in trouble."
T-Mobile is built around a trident of challengers -- Jan Ullrich, Andreas Kloeden and Alexandre Vinokourov -- whom Armstrong has decisively beaten in the past. This Tour represents their last chance for revenge because Armstrong will retire at the end of the three-week race on July 24.
PHOTO: AFP
Ullrich won the Tour in 1997 but has since finished runner-up to Armstrong three times. Kloeden was second last year, when Armstrong got his record sixth win. Vinokourov, third in 2003, is perhaps the biggest danger. The Kazakhstan champion has explosive acceleration on climbs, is unpredictable and hungers for success having missed the Tour through injury last year.
He was first to attack Armstrong on the final Col de la Schlucht climb, surging ahead. Armstrong accelerated and caught him, only for Vinokourov to break again, following French rider Christophe Moreau of the Credit Agricole team.
Once more, Armstrong laid chase, followed by Ullrich. But Paolo Savoldelli, the only one of Armstrong's eight teammates who managed to stay with them to this point, was unable to match the bursts of speed, falling back and leaving Armstrong alone.
Armstrong and the other riders eyed each other warily as they continued ascending.
Then, after another attack from Vinokourov, Kloeden suddenly sprinted ahead. Armstrong, knowing that the German trailed him by 2 minutes, 29 seconds in the overall standings, cut his losses and let him go, concentrating his energies instead on staying with Vinokourov and Ullrich.
"You have to pick your fights. You can't cover them all," said Armstrong. "I was trying to do my best and minimize the damage."
Pieter Weening of the Rabobank team was riding up ahead. Kloeden caught the Dutch rider at the top of the 16.8km-long ascent, and they raced downhill to the finish in Gerardmer, in eastern France.
There, Weening beat Kloeden in a sprint. He covered the 231.5km route, which started in the German town of Pforzheim, in 5 hours, 3 minutes and 54 seconds.
Armstrong, Ullrich and Vinokourov finished with same time in a pack of 32 riders that came in 27 seconds behind the two leaders. Ullrich placed sixth.
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