The “Bonk”
Stages in the Tour de France are tough. They often take over 5 hours to complete and the riders never stop. No time outs. No water breaks. If you need to eat or drink, you need to do it on the bike. Team cars, riding at the back of the peleton, supply drinks and food, and there are one or two ‘feed zones’ in a stage where riders can pick up supplies as they ride by. At this level, a rider can burn up to 10,000 calories from their effort. If they do not eat enough, they will run out of energy and suffer a condition know as “the bonk”.
On Stage 16 of the 2000 Tour de France, Lance was safely in the lead over Jan Ullrich by seven and a half minutes. But that kind of time can be lost quickly in the mountains, and stage 16 was full of mountain climbs. The last climb, over the Col de Joux-Plane would really sting the riders as it was occurring after 185 KM of racing. Early in the stage, Marco Pantani, still fuming at Lance from the stage at Ventoux, took off on a suicide attack, leaving the other riders and the peleton behind. At this point of the Tour, Pantani was no longer a threat to Armstrong, but the Texan decided to work to reel in the tiny Italian climber. Fighting alongside Jan Ullrich, Armstrong was so focused on catching Pantani he lost track of his eating. As the chasers began the 12KM climb to the summit, Lance suffered the bonk. TV footage showed a visibly shaken Armstrong, slowly losing time to his German rival. He was isolated, with no teammates nearby to share food or drinks. The team car could not reach him. Seeing a chance, Ullrich teamed with the Spanish rider, Roberto Heras to take as much time away from Lance as possible. By the time they reached the finish, Ullrich had claimed back 2 minutes of the 7 minute gap he was behind at the beginning of the day. It could have been a lot worse. Lance got lucky.
What about Pantani? After baiting the Texan into chasing him, he slowed mid stage, and ended up well down by the finish. His tactic? perhaps, simply to force Armstrong into some trouble.
The “Gift”
When Lance returned to the Tour in 2000 as the defending champion, there was a lot being written by the press and other riders that his 1999 win was a fluke. The pundits mentioned the absence of the past two winners, German Jan Ullrich and Italian Marco Pantani, as reasons the Texan had taken the yellow jersey. As both were back this year, the expectation was one of these two riders would re claim the top spot on the podium.
And so it came as no surprise that Lance and Pantani would battle, head to head up the difficult Mount Ventoux climb. The two had escaped from a small group of riders that included Jan Ullrich. With 2KM left, Armstrong sensed an opportunity to take more time from Ulrich. At this point, Pantani was well down in the general classification, so it was more important to Lance to get time on the riders behind, than to actually win the stage. During the last kilometers, Lance kept urging Pantani on ‘vitesse , vitesse’ he yelled. This seemed to annoy the Italian, and he pressed on. At the finish, Lance eased up, apparently handing the stage win to Pantani. Later, a war of words was exchanged through the press between the two riders.
Pantani was mad, and would be heard from again in the 2000 Tour de France…. Tomorrow
The Tour de France is starting July 3 with the prologue in Rotterdam. Once again, Lance Armstrong will be joining 197 other riders in the 3 week stage race circling France, with forays into the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
Lance has already won the tour 7 times, and managed to finish on the podium in 2009 after 3 years away from the sport. How will he do this year? We will have to wait until July 25 to know for certain.
As I was pondering Armstrong’s astonishing string of 7 consecutive victories, I began to see key events that could be summed up with one word. Over the next 7 days, I will post a key even in 7 of Lance’s previous tours that played a significant role in the outcome.
Here is the first::
The ‘Slime’
In 1999, Stage 2 of the Tour passed over a causeway called the Passage du Gois, a roadway that can only be navigated for about 4 hours during low tide. The road is cobbled and remains wet and slimy even after the sea has temporarily revealed the surface. Lance and his team, aware of the dangers of this section of the stage, managed to get to the front of the peleton as the riders approached. As expected, there was a large crash on the cobbles, creating a large pile up and trapping many key riders. At the front, Lance and his captain, George Hincapie, along with other riders such as Mario Cippolini, took full advantage of the carnage, working together to increase the gap.
Stuck in the pile up was Swiss rider, Alex Zulle, one of the riders expected to contend for the overall. The unfortunate Zulle lost 6 minutes to Armstrong on this stage alone. At the end of the tour, the Banesto rider finished in second place, seven and a half minutes behind the Texan. Would Zulle have used different tactics on other stages had he not been trapped on the slippery cobbles? We will never know, but the stage demonstrated the advantage of tactics and planning as Armstrong’s postal team were aware of the dangers of this section, and successfully kept their key rider out of trouble.
