Seven One Word Events in Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France - “The Gift”
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