Yesterday morning, there was considerable doubt whether the man who would later win the 16th stage, Marco Pantani, would even come to the start line in Courchevel. Twenty minutes before the flag was dropped, the rest of the field had signed the registration sheet, but the shaven-headed little climber was nowhere to be seen, and there was a worried hum around his team bus. On Sunday evening, the Italian had made it known that he was thinking of quitting the race due to persistent bronchitis which had been affecting him since the race started in Rouen. He had complained after winning Saturday's mountain-top finish at l'Alpe d'Huez that he was not 100 per cent healthy, and yesterday morning his manager was adamant that Marco's chest was tight, he could not breathe properly, and he was not sure if it was worth going on. Worse still for an Italian he had not eaten his pasta at breakfast, or at dinner the previous evening.

Perhaps it was all a perfectly executed bluff to make his rivals for the stage win ignore him: if so, it was unnecessary. Try as they might, no one could come near the little Italian when he decided the time had come to take flight on the final climb of the stage, and the final super-category mountain of this Tour.

The Col de la Joux Plane is short by the standards of Alpine passes, and it wends upwards through hay meadows and fir forests rather than the rocky wastes which make its fellow cols such as the

Izoard and the Galibier as aesthetically imposing as they are athletically demanding. But it is breathtakingly steep and its hairpins follow each other with such frequency that it is impossible for a cyclist to pedal up it and maintain any kind of rhythm.

Pantani's particular gift is his ability to jump away from a group on a mountain at such speed that no one can come near him. It is the mark of the pure climber, and he used it to the full halfway up the

Joux Plane to fly out of the select group who had managed to stay with the yellow jersey Jan Ullrich.

It was breathtaking: within seconds no-one was in sight and stage victory was virtually assured. "Some bronchitis victim," said a

French television commentator acidly. Asked about his health afterwards, Pantani's reply that he felt rather better seemed superfluous.

France's Richard Virenque must wish that his lungs were as parlous as the Italians. For all that he has won the King of the Mountains jersey three times, and is likely to take the award for the fourth time this weekend, he has never possessed Pantani's uphill burst of speed.

This has been evident every time he has tried to dislodge Ullrich from his wheel over the last week, and it was the case again yesterday. Once Pantani had flown the nest, Virenque again tried to get away from Ullrich, but he might as well have saved his energy.

The only effect his acceleration had was to dispatch Bjarne Riis.

In the space of a week, the Dane has turned from master to loyal servant: yesterday he was again prominent making the pace to protect

Ullrich's position. His selflessness probably cost him the energy he could have used to defend the third place which he took from Pantani at Courchevel on Sunday and which the Italian regained yesterday.

Ullrich has looked completely secure in every area since taking the race lead, except when the road goes downhill. When he crossed the Joux Plane summit with only Virenque for company, he must have expected the Frenchman to try to test him as he had the previous day on the descent from the Col du Glandon.

Indeed, every time he lifted his head on a hairpin, the polka-dotted figure of the Frenchman drifted away and he was forced to sprint to catch up. That was about as bad as it got for the

German, who is unlikely to be in any greater danger now that the race has left the mountains.