Tour de France – Lance Armstrong, Second in the Overall Standings
By Audrey Nolan
Before the sixth stage of the Tour de France begins, Lance Armstrong is placed second in the overall standings behind Fabian Cancellara. This could not be better for the veteran who is now heading to the Pyrenees Mountains near Gerona, where Lance used to live and train for the Tour years ago among many other cyclists that use Gerona as a principal base for training and for him is like a second home. This stage will go on until they get to Barcelona in a 122 mile ride.
At the fifth stage, which was a 122 mile long by the Mediterranean Sea from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan, Lance finished within the main part of the cyclists in the peloton behind the winner of the stage, Thomas Voeckler of France, who finished in 4 hours 29 minutes and 35 seconds. Voeckler has never won the Tour de France but wore the yellow jersey for nine days in the 2004 Tour. He is 6:48 minutes behind the Tour overall leader Cancellara, in the 138th position.
Armstrong anticipated that this stage was going to be kind of difficult because that part of France is very windy and may cause some trouble if they don’t go carefully through it, like it happened 2 days before with a breakaway that allowed Lance to overtake his teammate and rival Alberto Contador. His experience was what counted in that stage.
Right now the favorites are still Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, who looks more confident as the Tour advances. With defending champion Carlos Sastre 2:44 behind and two-time runner-up Cadel Evans 2:59 back, the possibilities for the Astana team are bigger each day. Cadel Evans and his team didn’t have a good stage at Montpellier on Tuesday where they finished 13th and Evans was dropped to the 35th position.
The rivalry between Lance and Contador has not been so evident yet since it hasn’t come to the stages where both are stronger. The main difference between them is that Contador is 11 years younger than Lance and that he is considered the best climber in the world and with the mountains heading up in the sixth stage, they both know that Friday is going to be a crucial day.
Contador has stated that he can’t wait to be in the mountains since that is his territory and he is almost sure that he is going to win that stage but he has to wait to have authorization from his team manager, Johan Bruyneel, to attack the American and it will not be a possibility if Armstrong is responding well to the climbing of the mountains.
Armstrong is very aware that Contador may be stronger than him physically in the mountains, but he says that mind and body have to be connected and he thinks he is mentally stronger and this may prevail.
This stage will be the biggest test that Lance will have to face in the Tour; he will be riding in the top of the peloton with his teammates facing strong winds and will have to answer the question that everybody has until now: is he still capable of climbing as he was before? This will be answered as soon as the first hilltop is over on Friday in Arcalis.
About the author
Audrey Nolan is a high-ranking writer on sports for the online betting industry. Feel free to reprint this article in its whole on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.