Tour Recaptures Lost Glory in the Alps

Carlos Sastre won the most daunting test of the Tour de France yesterday, beating out CSC teammate Frank Schleck for the overall lead on the Alpe-d'Huez. It was a huge victory for the 33-year-old Spaniard on this last day in the mountains, but fortunately for the rest of us, this Tour is not quite over.

Sastre's 1-minute, 34-second advantage over prerace favorite Cadel Evans is significant, but it may not prove enough in the end. An individual time trial awaits the riders on Saturday, and this is Evans's ace in the hole. If the results of the last race against the clock on July 8 are any indication, the Australian still has a decent chance to ride into Paris wearing yellow.

"It will take a good time trial," Evans said afterward. "I hope that I'll have the legs on Saturday. We'll see."

This is exactly the sort of Tour that organizers have been attempting to stage since Lance Armstrong began his series of dominant, and ultimately predictable, victories a decade ago. With doping scandals making a mockery of the competition since then, launching would-be runners-up to the top of the podium for the past two years, the once-glorious Tour de France has been struggling to regain its glory.

This year, Tour leaders stiffened penalties and regulations for drugs and blood doping. They continued to tweak the stages to engineer a more competitive race, eliminating certain mountain stages, scratching team trials, and eliminating bonus points for the fastest stage finishers, even killing the opening time trial for the first time since 1966.

"The idea was to break the classic scenarios," the Tour's director, Christian Prudhomme, said at the unveiling of the route. "I am convinced that cycling will rediscover its romanticism that made it a legend."

With a tight race at hand and few doping scandals to detract from it, Prudhomme may be wondering if the Tour hasn't already regained some of its majesty in the lofty Haute-Savoie.

If that moment has arrived, the Alpe-d'Huez is a fitting backdrop for it. It is practically the signature event of the Tour, appearing now for the 25th time. Armstrong used it to catapult himself to certain victory in a 2004 time trial. The 2006 edition, the mountain's last appearance on the course, was won, ironically, by Schleck.

Again this year, the Luxemburger enjoyed the company of the best team on the Tour throughout the grueling, 130-mile trek over three beyond-category climbs. Right up to the base of the Alpe-d'Huez, the man in the yellow jersey was flanked by his brother Andy, by Sastre, and three other teammates, while the other contenders rode mostly alone.

But this year, it was Sastre, who found an extra gear at the foot of the last ascent, and capitalized on it for a two-minute margin of victory. According to Schleck, that's almost how they envisioned things that morning.

"We had planned that Carlos would attack at the beginning of the climb and that I should attack afterwards, but he got away and he took it all the way to the line," Schleck said. "I'm not at all disappointed."

At the finish, Sastre bowed his head and kissed the CSC logo on his jersey, and then eagerly accepted its replacement.

"The team worked perfectly together," he said afterward. "Without the support of Frank and Andy, this moment would not have been possible."

It has been a long time coming for the Spaniard. This is his eighth Tour, and in all but three of those he finished in the top 10. And yet all he had to show for his efforts was a third place awarded to him in 2006, after the first-place Floyd Landis was disqualified. He had only one other stage victory to his credit, which came in 2003. This is his first time wearing the yellow jersey.

In order to keep it, the CSC team needs to fend off fatigue and chase down any significant threats in today's moderate climbs near Lyon, all the while keeping Sastre fresh for his showdown with Evans in the oak forests of Allier.

jmoretti@nysun.com