WHATEVER awaits the Tour de France field in the Alps over this weekend, it can hardly be much worse than the conditions yesterday heading south through the Jura mountains.

With only one second category climb between Arc et Senans and Aix les Bains, the day should have been one of mountain scenery without too much of the associated suffering. Instead, the adjective `apocalyptic', which the French press employ at the slightest drop rain, was fully justified.

The cloud was just above the tarmac, darkness fell, thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and the rain came down like stair rods, flooding the roads. Gendarmes' with chainsaws had to clear pine trees blown down across the route.

What it was like riding a bike - let alone trying to race - through these biblical conditions can only be imagined. The pelotoa squelched along, sodden to the core, ice cold spray pelting into reddened eyes. The only solution was to pray for deliverance, which came to Lance Armstrong, stage winner in 1993 and 1995 and an outside tip for a top 10 placing, when he climbed off after 40 miles. The Texan makes no bones about his dislike of the rain.

The retirements continue apace as the foul weather and late finishes combine to produce muscular and chest ailments. Alexandr Gontchenkov, a young Russian who has been one of the finds of the year, was one of two who failed to start the stage, and another 11 men joined Armstrong in the broom wagon. In conditions which suggested the day of Final Judgement, the quick were selected from the dead on the last, short steep climb, where 50 men made the first `selection' of the Tour.

The only absentee of note was Luc Leblanc, world champion in 1994. Five of Miguel Indurain's team mates were unable to hang on, so Laurent Jalabert and Alex Zulle ordered their ONCE domestiques to make a blistering pace into the finish to gain the psychological upper hand before today's first Alpine stage.

ONCE looked set for the stage win when Melchior Mauri, who was sixth last year, disappeared into the gloom and spray with a young Dutchman, Michel Boogerd. But the Spaniard's brakes gave out, causing him to overshoot a corner just before the finish, awarding Boogerd the stage victory on a plate.