Articles - Lance on Safety Issues

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Armstrong: Bruised, but far from out

France

10 July 2004 10:46

Lance Armstrong knows his bid for a record sixth Tour de
France victory could all end in one crash. So he wasn't
pleased when dozens of riders went down in a pile in
front of him.

The crash at the finish in Angers was the final straw for a
five-time champion already bruised up in a tumble earlier on
Friday in an otherwise smooth ride in balmy weather through
western France.

Exasperated, he suggested that organisers of the three-week
race should put safety first.

"You saw the big crash at the finish, this is stressful,"
the 32-year-old said. "Coming in, they've got the barriers
really tight, and you've got 200 guys racing through there
at 40 miles (65 kilometres) an hour."

"I don't know what ... they're thinking, but you're going to
have crashes."

Belgium's Tom Boonen, a former teammate of Armstrong riding
in his first Tour, won the sixth stage in a sprint ahead of
the spill that took out and held up dozens of riders,
including the Texan.

Only the evening before, Armstrong had told reporters
about the strain of knowing that his ambitions at the Tour
-- the race he works so hard to win -- could all end in a
bout of bad luck.

"In this race, I'm always scared, always nervous," he said.
"The last two or three days for me, personally, have been
really, really nerve-racking."

Down but not defeated, Armstrong scraped himself up off the
asphalt and resumed after his fall 20 minutes into the 196-
kilometre ride from Bonneval to Angers.

In the rain-soaked first week, other riders haven't
been so lucky.

Italian sprinting specialists Alessandro Petacchi and Mario
Cipollini withdrew from the race before Friday's stage.
Petacchi, who roared to four sprint-finish wins in the 2003
Tour, injured a shoulder in a crash on wet roads Thursday.

Former world champion Cipollini fell on Wednesday,
aggravating a leg injury from the Giro d'Italia in May.
That same day, Iban Mayo -- once considered a threat to
Armstrong -- fell out of contention after he crashed and
lost crucial minutes.

While he wasn't hurt, the spill was Armstrong's biggest
scare in his bid for an indelible place in the annals of
sporting history.

"It was a typical early race crash," Armstrong said.
"There's nothing you can do. You hit the brakes, but bikes
don't stop that fast, so I just went over."

"It wasn't bad, a little bit on the arm, a little bit on the
hip," he said, listing his bruises.

In another stroke of good fortune, the second spill that
held him up almost within sight of the finish happened close
enough to the line that he wasn't docked valuable time.

Under the rules, competitors held up in a crash in the final
kilometre of a stage are given the same time as Boonen, the
winner: 4 hours, 33 minutes, 41 seconds.

That meant that while Armstrong finished 34th, German Jan
Ullrich -- his most feared rival -- was 26th but didn't make
up time on the defending champ. Frenchman Thomas Voeckler of
Brioches La Boulangere maintained the overall lead.
Armstrong remains 9 minutes, 35 seconds back in sixth place,
and Ullrich trails him by 55 seconds.

Barring any mishaps, Armstrong is confident he can recover
the leader's yellow jersey by the end of the three-week race
in Paris on July 25, expecting Voeckler to eventually buckle
under the pressure of leading.

Taking the yellow jersey made the 25-year-old French
champion a homegrown hero overnight, but he still shows
deference to the leader of the pack.

Ensnared in Armstrong's crash, he rolled over the champion's
feet -- and was quick to apologise.

"I hope I didn't twist his ankle," Voeckler said.

Crashes are nothing new. Riders accustomed to grueling
mountain climbs and punishing weather often take tumbles,
and are competing here with bandaged chins, black eyes and
stitched-up wounds.

This year, a mix of nervous, aggressive riding and narrow
roads made slick by rain have caused several collisions and
spills in the first six stages.

The daily medical statement issued by Tour organisers on
Friday listed a dozen riders who had a variety of
injuries, including broken ribs, injured knees, and cut
wrists and necks.

Tyler Hamilton, a former teammate of Armstrong's, hurt his
shoulder. But it was of little worry for the thick-skinned
American: He thrilled crowds a year ago by riding most of
the Tour with a double-fractured collarbone -- even winning
a stage and finishing fourth in Paris.

The Marblehead, Massachusetts native still has
psychological scars.

"His morale is not so good because he's thinking about last
year," Phonak team manager Urs Freuler said.

Several Armstrong teammates have also been entangled
in crashes.

Spaniards Jose Luis Rubeira and Manuel Beltran are riding
with stitches after falling. Another Armstrong teammate,
Viatceslav Ekimov of Russia, arrived back at the team bus
Friday with a trickle of blood down his right knee.

Armstrong's US Postal Service team has made no secret of its
strategy of keeping to the relatively safe areas at the head
of the main rider pack -- and others are trying to mimic it.

The problem: Not everybody can do it.

"The US Postal's habit of always trying to remain ahead to
protect Lance Armstrong has been copied this year by other
teams," said Boonen, a Quickstep rider. "The roads are
sometimes narrow, so naturally there isn't always enough
space." - Sapa-AP