Lance aiming for a spot on the podium
Tour De France Stage 19 Recap
AUBENAS, France -- There's no way to make a molehill out of Mont Ventoux, where the final podium for the 2009 Tour de France will be definitively decided in Saturday's Stage 20, the second-to-last day of the race.
One of the most imposing climbs in Europe both physically and historically, the obstacle posed by the uphill finish on the rounded mountaintop that rises almost out of nowhere in Provence is the last real one for the men who hope to finish in the top 3. Sunday's stage ending in Paris is reserved for the sprinters who vie for position on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees and is a parade lap otherwise.
Tour leader Alberto Contador of Spain said Thursday that he intends to race conservatively, and with a lead of 4 minutes, 11 seconds, he can probably afford that strategy unless severely provoked. The real dogfight will be for the other two spots on the podium, and perhaps for the stage win that is among the most prestigious in cycling.
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Where the world's interest is concerned, however, there will be a first among equals. Most eyes will be focused on Lance Armstrong's bid to maintain or improve his current position of third place, 1:10 behind gifted young climber Andy Schleck of Luxembourg and 15 seconds ahead of Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins.
Armstrong gained four seconds on Schleck and Wiggins on Friday as he latched onto the back of the group driving for the sprint finish and gapped the main pack. Ahead of him, Team Columbia's Mark Cavendish won his fifth stage.
But those extra few stopwatch ticks may not mean much in the end. Team Saxo Bank's Schleck and his brother Frank, the only riders to demonstrate that they are consistently in Contador's league in the mountains during this Tour, are likely to gang up to drop Armstrong and Wiggins and try to relaunch Frank Schleck (in sixth place, 23 seconds behind Armstrong) into podium position.
If Hollywood were scripting the day -- and let's not forget there is a big-budget documentary film crew following Armstrong during his comeback season -- the Texan would win the stage that twice eluded him during his run of seven straight Tour victories. He is likely to have the support of teammate Andreas Kloeden, who is in fifth place, just two seconds shy of him. But that would take climbing form vis-à-vis his younger rivals that Armstrong has yet to show.
In 2000, Armstrong famously gifted the Ventoux stage to Marco Pantani, the doomed Italian champion who would die from an overdose of recreational drugs less than four years later but was then at the height of his powers. The two wheeled toward the line side by side before Armstrong let Pantani slip by him. Armstrong later admitted that his gesture -- an attempt, he said, to show his respect for Pantani -- was misguided, but he didn't know he might have blown his best chance.
France's Richard Virenque, a key figure in the 1998 Festina team doping scandal who first stonewalled, then confessed his involvement but remained a popular favorite in his home country, won at Ventoux in 2002. Virenque went on a solo breakaway that Armstrong, then firmly in control of the race lead, couldn't close down.
"I didn't come here to win Ventoux; I came here to win the Tour de France," Armstrong, then 30, said at the time. "I think it'll be in the Tour again before I'm done. Maybe I'll get another chance." He wouldn't have if he had stayed retired. Race organizers have left the climb out of the Tour itinerary since, until this year.
Despite the fact that Astana increasingly appears to be a team in name only, Armstrong ruled out the possibility of trying to strip Contador of his yellow jersey even in the unlikely event that the 26-year-old Spaniard conks out somewhere on the 13-mile climb.
"The fact that we're on the same team, I have to respect that," Armstrong said Wednesday. "If he has a bad moment, I can't exploit that. If he was on another team, I would exploit it in a heartbeat. But he's not. … That would be not the right thing to do."
Wiggins will be trying to become the first British rider to finish in the top 3 at the Tour on a mountain that is a sad milestone in his country's cycling history. (Robert Millar, no relation to Garmin-Slipstream's David Millar, just missed with a fourth-place showing in 1984.)
In 1967, Tom Simpson collapsed and died on the climb, dehydrated and weakened by a combination of amphetamines and alcohol. The peloton will ride by the stark granite memorial to Simpson that stands out against a bleached limestone landscape near the spot about a mile and a half from the top where he wobbled and fell.
Wiggins' team director at Garmin-Slipstream, Matt White, said that while riders are aware of the mountain's lore, they won't be thinking much about their environment. "By the time you get this late in the Tour de France, everyone's so on their limit -- so tired and so focused that all they know is they're riding up a road with an amazing number of people [watching] and it's hot," White said. "They're in so much of a zone, they don't know where they are."
Conditions promise to be brutal in a place where they are habitually difficult. Temperatures could reach the 90s on the course leading up to the mountain's base, which is wooded and thus slightly cooler and sheltered from the wind. That will change when the riders emerge from the canopy onto switchbacks that could be battered by gusts up to 30 mph.
The climb starts relatively gently, then abruptly goes vertical between the 3- and 4-mile mark, rising at a 9 percent gradient or higher in four separate sections, including the summit.
"Tomorrow's big," Armstrong said. "It doesn't get any bigger than Ventoux." Whether it makes a big difference in the results is the cliffhanger that the course designers wanted.
Bonnie D. Ford covers tennis and Olympic sports for ESPN.com. Reach her at bonniedford@aol.com.
