THE extent to which Bjarne Riis has dominated the final week of this Tour de France is simply illustrated. When" he took the race lead 12 days ago in the Italian Alps, three men Evgeny Berzin, Tony Rominger and Abraham Olano were within a minute.
Going into today's 63.5 kilo metre time trial through the vineyards to Saint Emilion, Rominger and Olano trail the Dane by 11 minutes and Berzin is a distant 33 minutes back. The Russian, the Swiss and the Spaniard are all specialists of the contre la montre.
Over a distance as long as today's stage a minute can quickly be won or lost, without putting the chance of a puncture or crash into the equation, and it is this fact which has made Bjarne Riis's first Tour de France win a certainty barring acts of God completely different from all Miguel Indurain's five victories.
With three time trial lists of the calibre of Berzin, Rominger and Olano breathing down his neck a week ago, the Dane had no alternative but to put as much time as possible between himself and the specialists.
Whereas Indurain could merely defend any advantage he had in the knowledge that he would not lose time in the final time trial, Riis has had to attack to gain time whenever the time trial lists have looked weak.
He has been so aggressive that he actually leads the race's combativite prize, awarded after all the daily points awarded for aggression have been added up. This is a rare feat for a Tour winner in recent years.
Riis has been so successful in eliminating the time trial lists, that the only man who is even theoretically in a position to overtake the Dane is his young team mate Jan Ullrich, who is set to become the first German to make the podium in Paris since 1932.
The rest of the top eight are all men of the mountains, for whom a stage like today's is merely something which must be got through. The Dane in the maillot janue looks so fresh that he is likely to take his third stage win of the race. Previous records may count for little after the suffering that all the race's time trial experts, including Miguel Indurain and Chris Boardman, have endured in the last few days.
When the race circumnavigates France clockwise, as has been the case this year, Bordeaux is, the Tour's traditional stopping off point between the Pyrenees and Paris. Tradition demands that the race enters the city on the river Garonne with a mass sprint finish, and yesterday that tradition was, duly upheld in the race's 75th visit when France's Frederic Moncassin led the cavalry charge from Riis' team mate Erik Zabel, wearer of the green points jersey, and Italian Fabio Baldato.
Crowds of a similar size to those which welcomed the Tour in Holland three weeks ago flocked from the beaches of Biarritz to wave farewell as the peloton quit the Basque Country at high speed. Perhaps shocked by the sight of a dozen naturists fortunately not waving, but carefully covered with fig leaves at the roadside, the riders slowed abruptly as they entered the pinewoods of the Landes.
Only France's Gilles Talmant and Belgian Marc Wauters showed any interest in evading the sprinters' teams. Wauters had good reason his team, sponsored by the Belgian national lottery, have been so unadventurous in this Tour that each man was promised a bonus for every combativite point. Wauters netted 11 points, and Talmant picked up 12.
