Lance Armstrong extended his overall lead and his teammate, George Hincapie, won the stage as the Tour de France scaled its hardest day of climbing in the Pyrenees on Sunday.
Hincapie became the first Armstrong teammate since 1999 and the eighth American to win an individual Tour stage. He and Armstrong hugged each other after the six-time champion rode in more than five minutes back.
Hincapie was part of a group of riders that broke away from the main pack early in the sun-baked 205.5km 15th stage from Lezat-sur-Leze to Saint-Lary-Soulan.
Hincapie and Oscar Pereiro, having shaken off the rest of the group, fought for the victory alone on the final and hardest climb. The tall, genial New Yorker beat the Spaniard with a sprint finish, shaking his head in disbelief as he crossed the line high in the mountains.
Hincapie, 32, is the only one of Armstrong's eight teammates to have been with the Texan for all of his six Tour victories, from 1999-2004. He and 33-year-old Armstrong are firm friends, and first met each other as teenagers.
"This is a dream for me," said Hincapie. "I'm really in a state of shock."
Armstrong called it a "perfect day."
"He is my biggest guy, my biggest friend on the team," he said of Hincapie.
"We've been riding together since we were 17," Armstrong added. ``The guy is one of the best riders in cycling. Period. I'm so proud of him.
"To win a stage in the Tour de France is special, but to win a stage like this which is arguably the hardest stage of the Tour is a big, big accomplishment. He deserves it."
Armstrong finished with Italian Ivan Basso, who jumped to second in the overall standings, but still trails the American by 2 minutes, 46 seconds.
Mickael Rasmussen of Denmark, who had been second overall, 1:41 back, fell to third, now 3:09 behind Armstrong.
Jan Ullrich of Germany struggled on the final climb. His overall deficit to Armstrong grew to 5:58.
Armstrong seems set to collect his seventh consecutive victory when the Tour ends, and he retires, on July 24. However, Armstrong remains cautious. He said his lead is "more secure," but that hard racing lies ahead in the last week of the three-week event.
"You never know, you go to a village and take a turn too fast and break your collarbone -- Tour de France over, so you have to be realistic," Armstrong said. "We have a week to go and a lot of things can get in the way."
Crowds are among the potential risks. Some fans ran dangerously alongside the riders up Saturday's climbs. One fan was knocked down by a motorbike carrying a television cameraman who was filming the race. It was not immediately known if the fan was injured.
Hincapie said he went with the breakaway group thinking that he would slow down later on the stage and wait for Armstrong to help him up the day's last two climbs.
But the breakaway group built up a lead of more than 18 minutes on Armstrong's following pack. At that point, Armstrong's team manager gave Hincapie the go-ahead to keep on riding, but this time for himself.
"I just started thinking about the win," said Hincapie. "For it to work out is just a dream come true."
The stage had a succession of five climbs before the final ascent up to the Pla d'Adet ski station above the Pyreneean town of Saint-Lary-Soulan.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
HSIEH ADVANCES: In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei was to play in the second round last night, but Taiwan’s Ray Ho exited in the men’s doubles It is more than 10 years since Grigor Dimitrov reached his sole Wimbledon semi-final and back then it still seemed a reasonable bet that the Bulgarian once dubbed “Baby Federer” would win a Grand Slam title. There were semi-final runs at the US Open and Australian Open after that, but it has never quite happened and despite him still being ranked No. 21, it most likely never will. Dimitrov, 34, remains one of the most stylish players on the circuit though, with his elegant single-handed backhand and smooth all-court game a rare reminder of how tennis was before the power merchants turned
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
RSS