TDF Update - Stage 16: Bring on the Pain (Bring on the Yellow)
Category: Sports (Pro/College/HS)...
Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 11:13 AM [GMT-6]

Lance has now beat every competitor in the Tour de France like red-headed stepchildren, in every conceivable way: with his team, in mano-a-mano sprints and now in the most painful of cycling events, the individual time trial.

The time trial is hard enough on a flat course, but it's hell on wheels when you're climbing 1100 meters over 15.5 kilometers, an inclince that averages around 8%. Lance was the only rider to break 40 minutes on this course up L'Alpe de Huez. In doing so, he caught up to and passed the overall second place rider, Ivan Basso, who started two minutes ahead of him. Basso is now almost four minutes behind Armstrong, and his performance dramatically illustrated the difference between hanging onto the wheel of another rider over a long road course, and doing it all on your own.

How hard is today's course? Armstrong averaged less than 15 mph in winning the stage. Compare that to his overall race average thus far of around 25 mph.

It's pretty simple, really. Lance can stand the pain. I think Lance embraces the pain. As he's said before, hurting on the bike is nothing compared to being cooked from the inside out by chemo treatments. The other riders feel the pain and try to overcome it; Lance grabs hold of it and bends it to his will.

The pressure of the race now shifts to the shoulders of Lance's teammates, who have the responsibility of protecting him through some still quite difficult stages.