CANNES, France — If Floyd Landis planned to lose the yellow jersey on the second Alpine stage in order to ease his Phonak team’s burden, he did that successfully yesterday, and then some. The American totally fell apart on the final climb of Stage 16 of the Tour de France, losing eight minutes to the new leader, Oscar Pereiro of Spain. Barring a blistering attack today, a top finish on Saturday’s time trial, and lots of luck, Landis’s Tour hopes, which appeared golden just a day ago, are over.

On the first beyond-category climb of the day, the “Iron Cross,” or Croix-de-Fer, Landis appeared to be carrying a burden that was heavier than usual. He lagged conspicuously at the tail end of the peloton, and his competition smelled blood. While the others stormed the final climb to the Toussuires ski area, Landis was planted in his tracks.

With no riders around him and with 8km to climb, Landis looked as though he had lost all hope. Teammate Axel Merckx then waited back and tried to drag him up the Tour’s tallest mountain to limit the damage, but it was in vain. Landis ended the day in 11th place, roughly six minutes behind his most feared rivals, Carlos Sastre (CSC) and Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile).

Last year’s climbing champion, Mickael Rassmussen (Rabobank), won the stage after an indomitable attack just a few minutes into the five-hour, 182k trek from Bourg d’Oisans to La Toussuire. The Dane finished 41 seconds in front of Sastre, and 10:04 in front of Landis, who crossed the line 23rd overall.

This was a monstrously difficult day on an otherwise not-so-terrible Tour. In fact, 67 riders faced elimination from the competition yesterday because they failed to arrive within the requisite 40:20 of the leader. Then, Tour organizers added an additional seven merciful minutes off to limit the carnage.

Many of the athletes coughed on the ascents and complained of difficulty breathing, problems generally attributed to the suffocating, hot ascents followed by frigid downhills.

The descents were trying in themselves. Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), who arrived in an impressive seventh place on Tuesday’s ascent of the Alpe d‚Huez, crashed against a cement barrier and flew off his bike. The Frenchman then got up and kept riding, rubbing his shoulder.

After such a trying stage, it was not a surprise to see such journeymen as Sastre, Kloden, and Australia’s Cadel Evans (Davitamon) in excellent position on the cusp of the final mountain stage. But few would have bet a single euro that Pereiro would be able to keep pace through the mountains and regain the yellow jersey the way he did.

The Spaniard didn’t see it as occasion for bravado.

“Floyd is very strong, and today he wasn’t so good,” Pereiro said at the finish. “It could be the same thing for me tomorrow, who knows? You’ve got to take it day by day.”

The yellow jersey has been passed onto seven pairs of hands on this race, nearly a record.

“It’s a crazy Tour,” Pereiro said, echoing what has become a mantra of this 93rd edition, devoid of its perennial contenders thanks to a last-minute doping scandal.

Had it not been for Landis’s collapse, though, the Tour may well have ended the way it has every year since 1998: with an American atop the podium in Paris. But the Phonak team’s general strategy was as much to blame as Landis’s lack of stamina on the final climb.

In the Pyrenees, the American-led Swiss team decided to stay back and allow Pereiro to mount an outrageous 30-minute lead on the peloton, something that in a normal Tour would never have happened. It certainly came back to bite them yesterday, despite the slim chances of the Spaniard’s success.

While Pereiro is a surprise favorite now, the biggest shock of the afternoon was the performance of Frenchman Cyril Dessel, once entirely anonymous and now a real contender. Not a soul would have put Dessel in fourth place entering the final Alpine stage, and no one might have guessed that, going into the final stages, he would be supported by one of the Tour’s previous favorites, countryman Christophe Moreau.

Dessel, who moved up to eighth overall, was as shocked as anyone else at yesterday’s outcome.

“I looked around and Landis was no longer there,” he said afterward. “I knew the general classification was at stake today, so I gave my best … Moreau helped me tremendously. I thank him from the bottom of my heart.”

Today’s ride from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne promises to be just as hot, and at a longer distance (200km). The climbs, though, will not be as drastic and therefore less productive for those trying to make up lost time and put an imprint on a Tour that is, for the most part, still up for grabs.

jmoretti@nysun.com