Lance Slows Up to Stay on Top

Stage crashes have dominated this Tour de France, and they played a key role again as Jan Ullrich's challenge to Lance Armstrong ended on a slippery roundabout, virtually guaranteeing the Texan his fifth Tour win in a row, while fortune finally smiled on David Millar, winner of the stage in spite of falling himself.

France's heatwave ended with a vengeance: leaden skies, torrential rain that turned the roads into a skating risk, and a howling gale out of the west bending the trees and driving the riders to average well over 30mph for the stage.

The conditions were what the French call apocalyptique, and on the final six miles through the streets of Nantes they were positively dangerous with roundabouts, traffic islands and pedestrian crossings to negotiate, along with road surfaces coated with a film of oil. In these conditions, the final showdown between Ullrich and Armstrong turned into a lottery, with the desire for speed tempered by the paramount need to stay upright. Ullrich started the faster, gambled on using a large gear, but never opened a gap that suggested he would close the 1min 5sec that separated him from Armstrong at the start.

The pair were never separated by more than half-a-dozen seconds until the incident 12 kilometres from the finish that effectively settled the Tour. Ullrich rode into a roundabout at about 30mph, looked to have chosen the right line, but felt his front wheel skid slightly. He adjusted with the back wheel, lost control and slid across the tarmac into the hay bales.

That ended the German's challenge. He was clearly shaken and on the next severe turn, came close to riding straight on and into a banner demanding the liberation of Jose Bove. It also caused Armstrong to slow down, as he suddenly received a stern reminder of the risks, so the American took the final corners at almost walking pace, before crossing the line with his fist clenched, a huge grin on his face.

His lead at the finish over Ullrich was 11 seconds, giving him a 1min 16 second advantage overall, meaning that his place among the legendary winners of five Tours, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Induraín, is all but sealed.

'My thing today was to start gently and ride my tempo,' said Armstrong. 'I have a minute's lead, it wasn't neces sary to take risks on the corners in the rain. When I heard Jan had crashed I said to myself, "careful, careful, don't take any risks". I knew the last 10km were dangerous, with a lot of roundabouts and paint on the road so I slowed up a lot.'

For Millar, stage victory came as a complete surprise. He fell off in the final kilometres, as did several others including the German Uwe Peschel, who broke a rib. He finished half an hour before Armstrong had even left the start ramp, and clearly expected the American and the German to beat his time. Instead, both Ullrich and Armstrong rode the end of the stage with the utmost caution, Ullrich clearly fazed by his fall and unable to calculate the right speed for the corners, and Armstrong taking each turn at walking pace to avoid his third crash of the Tour.

The upshot was that Millar wound up with the third Tour stage win of his career, in four starts, and with a result that made up for his appalling ill-luck three weeks ago, when a derailed chain cost him victory in the prologue. Since then his Tour had turned into a nightmare due to a chest infection that left him with coughing fits and brought him to the brink of quitting the race in the Pyrenees, where on one stage he spent 75 miles chasing the backmarkers.

'I've had three weeks of problems, and today I'm happy, not so much because I've won, but because I actually feel well for the first time in ages,' he said. 'I'm just happy to have good health again, not to suffer on the bike, I could take real pleasure in riding today.'

As a final reminder of the impact that crashes have had on this race, the American Tyler Hamilton took second on the stage, just nine seconds behind Millar, and moved to fourth overall, broken collarbone notwithstanding.