Lance Armstrong crushed his rivals for the yellow jersey with another stunning climbing performance on the gruelling 198km 12th stage of the Tour de France today.
The 30-year-old US Postal team leader, who pulled on the race leader's jersey the previous day, coasted past team-mate Roberto Heras and ONCE rider Joseba Beloki around seven kilometres before the summit finish of the unclassified category Plateau de Beille.
The American finally crossed the line after dancing his way up the monstrous ascent, which has featured only once on the Tour before, in 1998 when Italian Marco Pantani took the honours, in 6hr 00min 29sec to gain a minute on his closest challenger Beloki.
Beloki came third at 1.04sec adrift after climbing specialist Heras pulled away from him in the dying metres to finish second, at 1.03 behind his team leader.
On a difficult day when further damage was heaped upon the peloton, Armstrong took another step towards winning his fourth consecutive yellow jersey.
In almost a carbon copy of yesterday's final climb up La Mongie, Frenchman Laurent Jalabert, who had escaped from the peloton early on in the day, was caught by Armstrong and Heras as they pounded their way steadily upwards.
CSC rider Jalabert was caught by the trio of leading riders with just under 10km to race. Heras, who had set the pace for his team leader the previous day thus allowing him to coast upwards towards victory, once more cleared the path for Armstrong on the last of the five climbs.
However this time there was a change of tactic. Instead of waiting until they were near the end of the stage, Armstrong increased the pace and left Heras to his own devices with around seven kilometres to race.
The little Spaniard, who was brought to the US Postal with the full intention of helping Armstrong in the mountains, stayed with Beloki as Armstrong surged ahead.
Minutes later Heras left the ONCE rider to chase after Armstrong however his efforts - whether intentional or not - left him wanting and Armstrong coasted to his third win of the race, and 14th on the Tour overall.
AFP