Fedrigo denies Lance stage win

Jul 21, 2010 |

Pay (France), July 20: Lance Armstrong lost a sprint finish and watched his chances of a glorious stage win in his final Tour de France slip away on Tuesday. He came in sixth in a sprint that was won by Pierrick Fedrigo of France, ahead of his compatriot Sandy Casar and Ruben Plaza of Spain.

Armstrong had joined the first break of the day and remained ahead of the peloton for the entire length of the 16th stage — the toughest in this year’s Tour — that included four major climbs including that of the famed Col du Tourmalet.

It was the third successive French victory in this year's race and the sixth in total.

There was no change in the overall standings in the race. Yellow jersey holder Alberto Contador of Spain crossed the line in the peloton along with his closest challenger, Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, after Contador's strong Astana team packed the front of the peloton on the climb up the Col d’Aubisque and prevented Schleck from attacking. Schleck had been furious with Contador after Monday’s stage because he felt the Spaniard should have waited when Schleck suffered a mechanical problem during the main climb of the day.

Contador surged ahead and took the yellow jersey at the end of the stage.

Contador later apologised, and on Tuesday the two came together on the stage of the French broadcaster and shook hands.

Wednesday is a rest day in the Tour, but on Thursday the racers will turn around and ride the Pyrenees in the other direction, ending on the top of the Col du Tourmalet.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/23278" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b2db717e14c6f9ad5c018ff53c6fe2af" value="form-b2db717e14c6f9ad5c018ff53c6fe2af" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="91435353" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>