Tour de France Archive (1997-2009)
AUBENAS, France — It's too bad Alberto Contador leads the Tour de France by more than four minutes. The 20th stage of the race's 96th edition Saturday really could have been something. Now, it will only be epic. The next-to-last day of this year's race, now three weeks old, will take riders 167 kilometers (103.7 miles) from Montelimar to Mont Ventoux. The day will feature five categorized climbs, but it's the final ascent that will cause the most problems.
COLMAR, France — Not much about NASCAR racing and professional cycling seem comparable. Perhaps the lone similarity is the biggest financial factor of each sport — sponsors. The cars and drivers in NASCAR are high-speed billboards. Cyclists at the highest level of the sport who pedal for weeks in events like the Tour de France are also moveable marketing campaigns.
Even more than 100 years ago, French newspapers engaged in fierce circulation wars. News scoops were fine, but promotion ruled, and Henri Desgrange one day forged a grandiose idea. He invented the Tour de France and it was held for the first time in 1903. Today, the Tour de France is the world's largest free sporting event. Spectators can watch every stage in person and along the entire route, without admission.
One year after he competed in the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race
and decided to return to competitive road cycling, Lance Armstrong
has completed the first season of his second comeback. It's been a season of unqualified success.
Lance Armstrong has returned to competitive cycling after a 3 1/2 year retirement. The seven-time Tour de France titlist, cancer survivor, father of three (soon to be four) children, and global businessman will compete in about a half-dozen races in 2009 for two reasons: to expand his mission of global cancer awareness and to the top level of competition, which he said he's missed since his retirement after the 2005 Tour de France. A few days prior to the Tour of California, I interviewed Armstrong as his team was concluding its training camp in Santa Rosa, Calif.
My
friend Bruce Aldrich joined me for the final eight days of the 2006 Tour de
France. He took hundreds of images and a good supply of video during his
maiden voyage to the race.
Carlos Sastre, 33, won the 2008 Tour de France on Sunday after leading the race for the final five stages following a solo victory in the 17th stage to L’Alpe d’Huez. Sastre was victorious over Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) of Australia by 58 seconds and by 1 minute and 13 seconds over Bernard Kohl (Gerolsteiner) of Austria.