CYCLING: There is a standard range of platitudes that the Tour de France leader usually comes out with after the final major mountain-top finish: the Tour is not over until Paris; the toughest stages are behind us, but there are tough stages ahead; the race is not won yet.
These are things that have to be said, to avoid tempting fate as much as to avoid sounding arrogant.
Yesterday, with almost three minutes in hand on the Italian Ivan Basso, Lance Armstrong said the right things but he might as well have spared all present and said the truth: this year's race is over, barring illness, crashes or acts of God. The magnificent seven, glorious retirement and a celebration with a cold beer and Sheryl Crow await in Paris on Sunday.
Yesterday, as on Saturday, Jan Ullrich, Mickael Rasmussen and the rest were unable to match Armstrong. Only Basso remained on equal terms - or as good as - at the mountain-top finishes here and at Ax-3 Domaines on Saturday, and his poor stage to Courchevel means he is not close enough to worry the American.
"I tried on the climbs yesterday, I gave it everything," said Basso. "But Armstrong is too strong. He never weakens."
The weekend's stages over eight tough climbs in the Pyrenees ran to the same pattern: an early escape of men who were no threat to the top of the standings, and a late battle between Armstrong, Basso and Ullrich, which went the way of the Texan.
Ullrich rode up the 6½-mile climb to the finish here at his own pace, without entirely falling to pieces, and is now in a position to challenge Rasmussen for third overall.
Just occasionally in the tightly structured world of professional cycling, openings appear for those who do the legwork of chasing rivals, fetching water bottles and sheltering their leader. Not every domestique has his day, but yesterday was the turn of George Hincapie, a New Yorker in Armstrong's Discovery Channel squad who is the only team-mate of the Texan to have ridden in all his six winning Tours.
Hincapie is as slow-eyed and bumbling as Armstrong is razor-sharp, and his lanky build has meant he has tended to focus on the spring one-day classics. Yesterday he was permitted to mark the morning escape on the premise that he would be ahead later in the stage to assist Armstrong. But he ended up the winner, to a mix of delight and disbelief, of his own and the caravan.
There is no precedent for a one-day classic specialist winning a mountain-top finish of this severity. The only comparable case might be Sean Kelly's stage win at Pau in 1982, but that came in a sprint finish 35 miles after the last mountain. "No one has done anything like that in 30 years," said his team leader.
As a reminder of the distance the race travelled, each climb had its own character: vertiginous hairpins on the descent of the Col du Portet d'Aspet, where Italian fans lit candles around the memorial to Fabio Casartelli; great beech trees atop the neatly stepped hairpins on the Col de Mente, where a plaque on a wall on a right-hand bend shows the place where the maillot jaune Luis Ocana fell and lost the race in a thunderstorm in 1971.
Once atop the Val-Louron ridge, the ski station finish could be seen on its mountain shoulder across the valley. Quite what that did to the cyclists' mental state can hardly be imagined, but merely being on the mountain was clearly a little too much for some Basque fans. One was run over by a television motorbike as he attempted to run alongside Armstrong and Basso; others had a confrontation with French police and expressed their disgust by stoning media vehicles.
Armstrong and other cyclists wore wristbands bearing the name Fabio, in honour of Casartelli, who will be remembered in a ceremony today.
There were other messages along the way. At the foot of the Col de Mente, the riders pedalled into the village of Saint-Beat.
The saint's name summed up the fate of all who have come up against Armstrong in the last seven years. Why should the next seven days be any different?
Guardian Service
Lezat-sur-Leze - Saint-Lary Soulan (Plad'Adet) (205.5km)
1 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel 6hrs 06mins 38ses, 2 Oscar Pereiro Sio (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems at 0.06secs, 3 Pietro Caucchioli (Ita) Credit Agricole at 0.38, 4 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank at 0.57, 5 Laurent Brochard (Fra) Bouygues Telecom at 2.19, 6 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC at 5.04, 7 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel at same time, 8 Oscar Sevilla (Spa) T-Mobile Team at 6.28, 9 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team at same time, 10 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank at 6.32.
Overall: 1 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel 62hrs 09mins 59secs, 2 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC at 2.46, 3 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank at 3.09, 4 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team at 5.58, 5 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne at 6.31, 6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner at 7.35, 7 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems at 9.33, 8 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team at 9.38, 9 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Credit Agricole at 11.47, 10 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile Team at 12.01.
Points: 1. Thor Hushovd (Norway/ Credit Agricole) 164 2. Stuart O'Grady (Australia/Cofidis) 150 3. Robbie McEwen (Australia/Davitamon - Lotto) 142.
Mountains: 1. Michael Rasmussen (Denmark/Rabobank) 185 2. Oscar Pereiro (Spain/Phonak) 114 3. Lance Armstrong (United States/ Discovery Channel) 92.
Teams: 1. T-Mobile 184:24:01; 2. Discovery Channel +19:28; 3. Team CSC +21:58.
