Tour Favorite Falls Hopelessly Behind in the Mountains

ANTIBES, France — No one had to ask Alexander Vinkokourov whether he thought his Tour de France was over yesterday. His face told the story. He wrinkled his brow as he looked up fearfully at his microphone-wielding interlocutor, like a puppy that had just soiled the carpet.“I did everything I could,” he said softly, in French with a heavy Russian accent. “It was another horrible day.”And then the tears began to flow.Vinokourov is without question Kazakhstan’s most revered celebrity. Not even President Nazarbaev has the star power to remind the rest of the world that Kazakhstan moved its capital in 1998 and renamed it Astana: But that’s the name of Vinokourov’s Switzerland-based team, and it is emblazoned on its powder blue and yellow jerseys.The country’s defense minister, Danyal Akhmatov, said on Monday he was shocked to see Kazakhstan’s colors waving from every street corner in France. With the hopes of the ninth-largest nation weighing on his shoulders and stitches in both his knees from a crash suffered last week, Vinokourov grimaced through most of yesterday’s brutal mountain stage from Val d’Isere to Briancon.He started the stage in 19th place, 5 minutes and 23 seconds behind, and managed to keep pace with the yellow jersey until the final climb. But there, on the grueling Col de l’Iseran mountain pass, the attacks at the front of the group took their toll, and even the pace of the peloton proved too much. He finished 2 minutes and 42 seconds after the leader, Michael Rasmussen, dropping to a nearly hopeless 8 minutes and 5 seconds behind.The top of the rankings saw little change otherwise, as the rest of this Tour’s contenders stuck close to Rasmussen and to each other — the sporadic attacks from the peloton by third-placed Alessandro Valverde were chased down again and again. Secondplaced Iban Mayo, fourth-placed Cadel Evans, and fifth-placed Alberto Contador made certain the Spanish hopeful never got too far ahead.No one, though, could stop the stage’s eventual winner, a relatively unknown 24-year-old Colombian by the name of Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez, from a wild-card team, Barloworld. Soler broke away from his only competitor, Discovery Channel team’s Yarolav Popovych, with about 5 1/2 miles to go and then rode the final hour on his own. It was a hard-earned and unexpected victory.Soon after he was ditched by the Colombian, Popovych was joined by his teammate Contador, with about three miles to go. The yellow jersey and company swallowed them up on the level approach to the finish. In the end, the top 10 in the overall classification finished with roughly the same time.For a while, it seemed as though eighth-placed Andreas Kloden would not be among them. Once again, the German front-runner was stuck with the increasingly frustrating task of hauling an ailing Vinokourov up the hills.The Kazakh had lost more than a minute on Sunday’s mountainous course, yet his teammate remained faithful, blocking the wind and setting the pace for him throughout.“I promised Vino that I’d be there fighting it out for him, even while he suffered,” Kloden told the French sports daily L’Equipe after that stage. “It’s a very frustrating situation, because we’re in good form, but we’re still not ready to go 100%. That day will come very soon and that’s why I didn’t let Vino ride alone. As two, w e’ll be stronger in the Pyrenees.”Their team’s manager, Mario Kummer, had pushed that philosophy throughout — until, that is, yesterday’s final climb. With Vinokourov clearly out of gas and, consequently, out of the running, Kloden was given the green light and made up for at least some of that lost time, finishing in the top 10.The Astana duo may well be riding en deux in the Pyrenees this weekend, but this time it will be the Kazakh blocking the wind for Kloden.* * *President Sarkozy of France had the equivalent of a front-row seat at the Tour yesterday, his head and shoulders popping out of the sunroof of a red hatchback, his hair and tie blowing in the breeze, as he enjoyed a competition he has watched faithfully since he was a teenager.“I saw my first Tour in 1968 and have watched it faithfully ever since,” he told French television from his sunroof at about 24 miles an hour, microphone in hand, while talking with French telecaster and former Tour veteran Laurent Jalabert, who was in a motorcycle riding alongside.A lot has changed in cycling since 1968. That was the year Jalabert was born, and, incidentally, the same year doping tests were instituted in Olympic games. Not an hour goes by on this tour without some reference to the blood-doping scandal that has threatened to decimate the sport’s following.“That’s why I’m here today,” Sarkozy said, when asked about the darkened reputation of the Tour de France in the world.On that front, so far so good: 25 riders from two teams, including the leader, Rasmussen, were given surprise blood tests before yesterday’s race. All came up negative for blood doping.jmoretti@nysun.com

Tour Favorite Falls Hopelessly Behind in the Mountains

Tour Favorite Falls Hopelessly Behind in the Mountains

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