After much pondering, the Tour de France rolled out of Aix-les-Bains at 11.30 yesterday morning, destination Switzerland. That was the major event on a Tour which is now being lived day by day according to the caprices of the Lille gendarmerie and the collective will of the riders. Apart from that, it was business as usual: a team doctor, a major rider and a manager helping police with inquiries.
Yesterday the riders decided that they wanted to get to Paris; however, the Champs-Elysees is still one working day away, and in the time scale of the Lille investigators, that is a long way. Fortunately the stage finished in neutral Switzerland, out of reach of the CRS riot police who provided what may prove one of the lasting images of this Tour when they surrounded the hotel of the ONCE team on Wednesday night.
ONCE's doctor Nicolas Torralbo was still in custody yesterday evening, as was the Francaise des Jeux manager Marc Madiot.
The bunch rolled out of Aix-lesBains 103 strong, minus the Italian Riso Scotti team, and the four Spanish squads - Jalabert's ONCE, the remnants of Indurain's Banesto, the Kelme squad of the fourth man overall Fernando Escartin, and Vitalicio, whose most distinctive rider was Prudencio Indurain, the spitting image of his brother Miguel.
One key man was also absent; the King of the Mountains Rodolfo Massi was still in the police station at Chambery after the investigators found cortisone-based substances in his hotel room. His Casino team, stated to be pulling out the previous evening, did, however, take to the start. At the finish, the red-and-white-measled jersey was put on the shoulders of the young Frenchman Christophe Rinero, who refused to put it on the podium as a mark of respect.
There are others as well who have benefited from the effects of the gendarmes' work; the Frenchman Jean-Cyril Robin now finds himself in an unprecedented sixth overall, while Axel Merckx, son of Eddy, has an outside chance of finishing in the top 10 in his first Tour. While no one will contest Marco Pantani's victory on Sunday - assuming we get to Paris - the finishing order has a rather spurious look.
Yesterday, as if to make up for the go-slow of Wednesday, the peloton averaged over 27 m.p.h on roads which, apart from the final flat, run-out alongside Neuchatel's lake. By the finish, a side wind, the effort of chasing a four-rider escape and the fact that many of the survivors are simply fed up meant that the lead group had been whittled down to 45.
The final gallop went to the Belgian champion Tom Steels, who avoided disaster in the finishing straight when his lead-out man Stefano Zanini pulled his foot out of his pedal. Somehow the Belgian avoided smashing into his teammate; he has now managed to win stages in Ireland, France and Switzerland in this Tour. He is remembered as the bottle-thrower who was himself thrown out last year. This offence now seems somewhat trivial.
The peloton is now down to a thin-looking 101, after the Cholet stage-winner Jeroen Blijlevens and the former French champion Stephane Barthe dropped out. Blijlevens is a TVM man, Barthe a Casino rider, which means their disappearance can be put down to mental rather than physical stress. This Tour is set to have the smallest number of finishers since 1983, even if the police stop assisting the process of natural selection.
Race leader Pantani said yesterday the rider's strikes had been a waste of time and that justice should be respected, especially if competitors were found guilty of doping.
His remarks were apparently prompted by claims by some riders who gave up the Tour that Pantani should have supported them by quitting.
18th Stage
(Aix-les-Bains to Neuchatel, 136 miles) 1, T Steels (Bel) Mapei 4hrs 53mins 27secs, 2, E Zabel (Ger) Telekom, 3, S O'Grady (Aus) GAN, 4, R McEwen (Aus) Rabobank, 5, J Durand (Fra) Casino, 6, L Van Bon (Ned) Rabobank, 7, F Simon (Fra) GAN, 8, N Jalabert (Fra) Cofidis, 9, A Vierhouten (Ned) Rabobank, 10, V Djavanian (Rus) Big Mat all same time.
Overall: 1, M Pantani (Ita) Mercatone Uno 82hrs 31mins 51secs, 2, B Julich (USA) Cofidis at 5:42, 3, J Ullrich (Ger) Telekom 5:56, 4, C Rinero (Fra) Cofidis 8:01, 5, M Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank 8:05, 6, J-C Robin (Fra) US Postal 12:34, 7, R Meier (Sui) Cofidis 13:19, 8, D Nardello (Ita) Mapei 13:36, 9, B Riis (Den) Telekom 14:45, 10, G Di Grande (Ita) Mapei 15:13.
Points: 1, E Zabel (Ger) 294pts, 2, T Steels (Bel) 186, 3, S O'Grady (Aus) 171, 4, R McEwen (Aus) 162, 5, G Hincapie (USA) US Postal 127.
King of Mountains: 1, C Rinero (Fra) 200pts, 2, M Pantani (Ita) 175, 3, A Elli (Ita) Cofidis 165, 4, C Vasseur (Fra) GAN 156, 5, S Heulot (Fra) La Francaise des Jeux 152.
