Riblon wins 14th stage, Schleck leads
July 18: Frenchman Christophe Riblon of AG2R claimed a deserved maiden Tour de France victory on the race’s 14th stage here Sunday as an anticipated yellow jersey battle failed to materialise. Race leader Andy Schleck of Saxo Bank retained the yellow jersey with his 31-sec lead on main rival Alberto Contador of Spain after the pair stubbornly played poker games with each other on the race’s two difficult climbs.
Instead, podium hopefuls Samuel Sanchez of Spain and Russian Denis Menchov were given unexpected freedom in the final third of the 7.8km climb to the summit finish here to close their respective deficits.
As Riblon finished off an impressive solo performance to claim his first success on the race, Sanchez and Menchov crossed the line together at 52secs adrift. Schleck and Contador came over the finish around 15secs later.
With Contador still in second at 31, Euskaltel’s Sanchez closed his overnight deficit of 2:45 to 2:31, with Menchov staying in fourth at 2:44. A number of pre-race contenders continued to see their respective campaigns crumble, with Lance Armstrong being dropped early on the 15.5km clmb to the summit of Port de Pailheres.
Australians Michael Rogers and Cadel Evans, as well as Britain’s Bradley Wiggins, were left among the strugglers on the final climb. Seven-time champion Lance Armstrong dropped further down the Tour de France overall standings after another underwhelming performance in the mountains Sunday.
However the American has not ruled out trying to close his final Tour de France with a 26th and final stage win on the day. Frenchman Christophe Riblon of AG2R took a deserved maiden stage win on the race after a 184.5km race from Revel which took in one unclassified (hors categorie) mountain pass before finishing on the summit here.
Armstrong was dropped early into the 15.5km climb of the Port de Pailheres as the pace of Astana took a toll on many of the podium hopefuls. The American was left to finish the race with RadioShack teammate Janez Brajkovic, the pair crossing the finish line 15:14 adrift of Riblon, who crossed the line 1:08 ahead of Spain’s reigning champion Alberto Contador (Astana) and race leader Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank).
Although he would like to add one more stage win to his tally, Armstrong knows from experience that won't be easy to come by. “I’d still like to get one. The race is hard, nobody's going to give it away, back in our heyday we did not give anything away,” he said. “So I don’t want anybody to say, ‘hey let the old man have one’. That’s not what this event is about, it’s a hard sport and the best guy’s suposed to win on a daily basis and on a three-week basis.
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