American Floyd Landis will ride to Paris in the yellow jersey on Sunday after finishing second in Saturday's individual time trial, unseating the two rivals ahead of him.
As the race for Paris is traditionally for a sprint win, not the overall title, Landis is destined to become the third American to win the Tour de France since Greg Lemond broke the barrier in 1986 and Lance Armstrong won a record 7 Tours between 1999 and 2005.
Shortly after the race, Landis told OLN: “I'm happy it's over. That was stressful.”
Stressful? Landis had the Tour de France locked up in the Alps, cracked on Wednesday and dropped back to 11th, then won the last Alpine stage on Thursday in one of the greatest rides of all time to get back within striking distance of the lead.
T-Mobile's Serhiy Honchar won the time trial, a 35-mile individual bike ride from Le Creusot to Montceau les Mines. Andreas Kloden finished second, Landis third, and Oscar Pereiro fourth. Kloden's time was enough to unseat Carlos Sastre, who dropped to fourth overall as Kloden took third in the general classification.
Landis had finished ahead of 1st place Pereiro and 2nd place Sastre in the earlier solo race on Stage 7, and most expected Landis to excel on Saturday if he could keep his bike ride trouble-free. Considering his mechanical problems with a cut tire in the prologue and loose handlebars in Stage 7, everything went smoothly on Stage 19.
Starting the day 30 seconds behind Pereiro, Landis beat him by 1 1/2 minutes, and Sastre by 3 1/2 minutes. Landis actually passed the 10-mile time check at one-second ahead of Honchar, but his pace slowed slightly at the other points.
As the TV camera showed Landis nearing the finish line, you could see him smiling. He'd come to win the Tour de France, and he had done it.
OLN televised team director John LeLangue in Landis' chase car. Landis had already gone over the course a couple of times, and LeLangue repeatedly warned Landis about upcoming turns and bumps in the route.
Unlike Thursday when LeLangue passed 70 water bottles to Landis from the team car during his solo attack, all LeLangue could offer Landis on Saturday was encouragement: “Good job… You can make a difference… C'mon, c'mon, c'mon.”
Landis didn't ride in his patented “praying mantis” style, as the UCI had required his handlebars to be set lower during the earlier time trial. This time, said coach Robbie Ventura, they were stronger and set right at the legal limit.
The broadcast for the final ride to Paris begins at 7:30 a.m. (ET) on OLN.
The top 10 riding in the overall standings are:
1. Floyd Landis (US) Phonak
2. Oscar Pereiro (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne
3. Andreas Kloden (Ger), T-Mobile
4. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC
5. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon
6. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank
7. Cyril Dessel (Fr), AG2R
8. Christophe Moreau (Fr), AG2R
9. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Euskaltel
10. Michael Rogers (Ger), T-Mobile
The standings for the remaining 6 US riders:
1. Floyd Landis (Phonak)
13. Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), 19:22 behind
24. Christian Vandevelde (CSC), 50:27
32. George Hincapie (Discovery), 1:11:22
63. Chris Horner (Davitamon), 2:12:06
74. David Zabriskie (CSC), 2:33:46
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