"A STAGE of traps", was how one French newspaper summed up yesterday's 200km run across the limestone plateaux of the Vereors and Drome to the old Roman Colonia Valentia on the river Rhone.
A day of roads which climbed and descended constantly "heavy" in cycling slang, with few pauses for rest between rocky gorges and pinnacles, waterfalls, herds of grazing cattle, pinewoods, monasteries, Roman ruins and monuments to the Resistance.
The combination of medium sized hills and constantly twisting roads which the Tour covered yesterday and will stick to until Monday is prime territory for surprise attacks. However, yesterday's ambushes came from outside the race caravan rather than the half dozen men left with a realistic chance of ousting Bjarne Riis of Denmark from the race lead.
On the final descent to Valence, saboteurs from a body which appears to be acting on behalf of small businesses strewed nails on the road, causing multiple punctures among the cars and motorbikes accompanying the race. Legal action is being taken by the Tour management.
The closest Riis came to losing his yellow jersey was when the maillot jaune which he was due to be awarded after yesterday's stage was stolen on Wednesday night (together with its green and redpolkadot companions) from a bus belonging to one of the official jersey sponsors, the PMU lottery.
The gendarmerie got swift hold of the culprit, and the stranglehold of Riis mainly German Telekom team on the stage was almost as efficient. Their only nervous moment came on the longest climb of the day, the 14km ascent out of a limestone gorge to the 3,600ft summit of the Col du Rousset, when Tony Rominger, placed third overall, and Richard Virenque, seventh overall, found themselves briefly ahead of the main bunch together with last year's runner up Alex Zulle.
This was an assault worth taking seriously, and Riis himself took on the task of restraining Rominger and company. That was about as bad as it got for the Dane. Indeed, on the final descent from the top of the escarpment (which rises above the Rhone valley as the Mendips rise above the Somerset levels, but on a far larger scale) the "stage of traps" caught Rominger, who fell heavily for the third time in recent days.
If he is not in yellow when the race finishes in Paris next weekend, the Swiss may wonder about the influence of his chutes. After tasting the tarmac at Les Arcs on Saturday, and Sestrieres on Monday, Rominger damaged the same knee which he injured at Les Arcs, and acquired a new bruise on his right thigh.
Such injuries have a cumulative effect Zulle had a similar serie noire over the weekend and is now a lowly 14th overall.
The French verb pieger to trap is also used in bike racing slang to describe a situation when one rider puts the others in an impossible position. That perfectly sums up the achievement of stage winner Chepe Gonzalez of Colombia, who caught out the seven other members of the stage winning break with an audacious attack with a kilometre to go. His move left all his erstwhile companions facing Hobson's choice if any of them attempted to catch the Colombian, he would have exhausted his final reserves of energy and handed the stage victory to one of his fellows.
The stalemate left the tiny climber dismissed by his team manager the previous day as the worst member of the Kelme team astounded at his good fortune I couldn't believe I was crossing the line first. I dedicate this victory to God my mother, my family and the people who pay me Kelme (a shoe company) and Artiach (a biscuit maker).
While stages such as yesterday are perfectly suited to middle ranking climbers, such as those who formed the winning break, they can prove fatal to anyone suffering from illness or injury.
Yesterday's stricken star was Britain's Max Sciandri, who had been suffering from a muscular strain for three days, and was unable to ride his bike on Wednesday's rest day.
"I knew when I started the stage that I would not finish," he said after abandoning. "Every time I turned the pedals I was in pain."
Sciandri, a stage winner last year, was using this Tour to build up to the Olympic road race in Atlanta. He will see a specialist this weekend in Italy, but agreed that his Olympic preparation has been compromised. "The form you get from training is nothing like the form you get from the Tour."
Today Valence to Le Puy en Velay, 143 km.
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