TDF Update: Stage 12
Category: Sports (Pro/College/HS)...
Posted Friday, July 16, 2004 at 08:17 PM [GMT-6]

OK, so Lance made a move today and now sits in 2nd place overall in the Tour de France, five minutes and change behind Thomas Voeckler (who may well be The Next Lance, but not this year). But my question is this: what price did he pay?

Stage 13 tomorrow is a killer, with seven categorized climbs...well, six, if you consider that the final one of the day is 16 km at an 8% grade and is actually beyond categorization. Oh, and it comes after 188 km of racing.

Lance's effort today wore out most of the riders who were considered his main rivals coming into the TDF: Ullrich, Hamilton, Heras...but it also wore out his own stable of protective climbers. Can they recover enough to pace him in similar fashion tomorrow?

And, how much did Lance himself leave on the mountain in finishing second in today's stage? He was outsprinted by Italian Ivan Basso, and even though no one will argue that Lance needed to win the stage, it's also hard to argue against the psychological advantage of his doing so, not to mention the 20 second time bonus he would have picked up. As usual, though, he gave no sign of what was going through his head.

I think the tone of this race is shifting -- has shifted -- with Lance's chief rivals now being riders who weren't previously considered as contenders: Basso, Kloden (who may displace Ullrich as The Man on Team T-Mobile), Sastre.

It's a cliché, but there's still a lot of racing left. But I can't help thinking that tomorrow is a watershed stage for Lance. If he does tomorrow what he did today, you can start cashing #6.