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Despite the over-exuberant broadcasters that called the stage over, Lance Armstrong won the 17th stage of the Tour de France. Trailing Andreas Klöden with 100 feet to go, Armstrong caught him and passed him right as they passed the finish line to win 4 of the last 5 stages. The victory puts Armstrong 4:09 ahead of Ivan Basso with 3 stages left. With the lead he has, Armstrong is virtually assured of sipping champagne while riding down the Champs-Elysées
The blunder by the announcers notwithstanding, Armstrong showed people why they can't count him out. Klöden pulled ahead of the lead pack of racers within sight of the finish line and Phil Liggett announced, "The race just got won here by Andreas Klöden. It's all over." Even Gothamist knows that you can't call Armstrong out of a race. It ain't over until...well, you know.
Looks like the only thing that can stop Armstrong from winning is Armstrong. A Tour official said that if he wins this Tour, which would be his 6th in a row, he would not race next year. While Armstrong has said that he would race at least one more year in the past, the official said that he wants to race in other races and doesn't want to "appear to be rubbing in any superiority over the feats of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain [the four racers that have won five tours]. Armstrong's agent and head of the Team Postal said they have had no discussions about next year and no decisions have been made.
See you on the winners podium in Paris, Lance.
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I actually think Armstrong may forego the Tour so that he can challenge the superiority of Merckx and Indurain. One of the criticism's of Lance is that he focuses so much on the Tour, he can't dominate the rest of the season. The others, especially Merckx, were known for winning many races, not just Tours, and being incredible all-around cyclists. Lance could do that as well, but he usually uses other races as training runs only.
Another reason for focusing on the other races is that if Lance is really concerned with the sport of cycling (and it seems like he is), he could bring a lot of press to lesser-known events.
Well I think part of the thinking is that no one in the US knows there are other races besides the TDF. If Armstrong won the Tour of Italy, no one here would know, much less care. No cable or network stations even consider broadcasting any of the other big European races.
And it's only been relatively recently that Greg LeMond was the first american to win it, bringing it to the US consciousness.
I can't remember where I read it or heard it, but some article mentioned how cycling isn't inherently an American sport, because sports here glamorize the superstar aspect, whereas cycling specifically needs subservient and subordinate team members to help others win, like getting water bottles, feedbags, setting the pace, etc, something distinctly not an american concept.
As an aside, have you ever tried maintaining 25 mph on a bike for even 30 seconds, much less 5 hours straight? It's difficult to do, even downhill. The mindblowing thing about the whole race is it's a solid 3 weeks of that, you need to maintain that endurance and power, and then add climbing these unbelievably steep Alpine hills to it... It doesn't seem humanly possible.
At least now that Armstrong's about to win for a 6th time, solidifying his legend, (god, just being able to win that race ONCE after recovering from cancer is pretty damned amazing,) anything else he does will hopefully bring the sport a little more recognition, but I think Lance's approach is that you gotta start with the big one first.
Sheryl Crow hanging around doesn't hurt either!
james and ross, you both make good points.
and ross, if i could even finish one stage (a flat time trial) within 30 minutes of armstrong, i would be happy.