CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCEJOHN-LEE AUGUSTYN climbed on to the roof of the world yesterday. Less than a minute later, he fell off. But by conquering the highest climb in the 2008 Tour de France he ensured that his subsequent humiliation took a distant second place to a remarkable feat.
The Col de la Bonette-Restefond is the highest mountain pass in Europe. At 2,802 metres it is a lunar landscape of grey scree and whistling winds. Only three times in its long history had the Tour passed this way, and on each occasion the first rider over the top was one of the sport's great climbers.
In 1962 and 1964 it was Federico Bahamontes, the Eagle of Toledo. In 1993, it was Robert Millar, the enigmatic Glaswegian.
Yesterday it was an unknown 22-year-old from South Africa, who did not even know in whose wheeltracks he had followed.
With a kilometre to go to the summit of the climb carrying the distinction of being this year's "roof of the Tour", Augustyn jumped out of a group of half a dozen riders and was eight seconds ahead when he began the swooping, 23km descent to the finish in the village of Jausiers. Within a handful of corners, however, he had been caught, and it was as he tried to follow the Ukrainian rider Yaroslav Popovych through a wide right-hand bend that he ran wide, hit the verge and plunged over the edge in a small cloud of dust.
Luckily for Augustyn, this is a mountain formed by a long-gone glacier. It has steep slopes rather than precipices, so he found himself sliding head-first through shale. He came to a halt after about 15 metres, and was forced to do a Spider Man impersonation, scrabbling up by his fingertips in order to regain the road. Once he got there, however, he discovered that his bike had fallen even further, which meant he had to wait for a replacement before cruising down the hill to finish 35th.
"I was confident I could win the stage," he said after extricating himself from the embrace of his Italian directeur sportif and brushing off a coating of dust. "But I took the wrong line when I tried to follow Popovych and I overshot the bend. I just thought 'I'm going to drop for ever'. I could see my bike going down and all I could do was try to stop, stop, stop."
There were two big climbs in yesterday's stage, which saw the Tour ending its sojourn in Italy and returning to its native land under the eye of Nicolas Sarkozy.
The president was rewarded by a rare, one-two finish for France, Cyril Dessel sprinting to the line ahead of Sandy Casar.
Not much changed at the business end of the general classification, with Frank Schleck of Luxembourg retaining the yellow jersey ahead of Bernhard Kohl of Austria and Cadel Evans of Australia.
But there was no shortage of animation as the race hit the Hautes-Alpes.
Stefan Schumacher, who spent a day in yellow after winning this year's first time-trial, led a four-man breakaway at the start of the climb up the 2,351-metre Col de la Lombarde. The German rider crested the Lombarde first and flung himself down the tricky descent, four minutes ahead of his nearest pursuers and eight minutes ahead of the peloton, which contained all the yellow jersey contenders.
Schumacher, who won the day's combativity prize, began the 40km climb up the Bonette-Restefond still in lonely majesty, but was caught four kilometres from the summit by a small group including Augustyn, Dessel, Casar, Popovych and George Hincapie. Behind them a new group was getting closer, pulled along by a succession of CSC riders intent on safeguarding the elder Schleck's leadership and hoping for the chance to do damage to Evans, Kohl, Denis Menchov, Christian Vandevelde and Kim Kirchen, all of whom were in the same bunch, with the remains of the peloton now distributed along the mountainside.
Schleck is intent on increasing his lead over Evans before Saturday's 53km time-trial in Sant-Amand-Montrond, where the Australian is expected to make significant gains. Yesterday's stage, and tomorrow's jaunt to the top of the Alpe d'Huez, represented the best chances of opening a significant gap, but the chess game ended in an absorbing stalemate.
Guardian Service
