THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Rasmussen soloes to Dauphiné stage win
Michael Rasmussen, the willowy Dane who came late to road racing after winning the 1999 world mountain-bike championship, was all smiles Saturday evening after taking a brilliant solo stage win at the Dauphiné Libéré. Tyler Hamilton, despite maintaining his second place on GC, 36 seconds down on Ivan Mayo, was just relieved to have finished the four-hour mountain stage in one piece.
Phonak team leader Hamilton crashed halfway down the long, dangerous descent of the Col de la Morte (“Pass of the Dead”) along with two others, his Spanish teammate Santos Gonzales and Frenchman Walter Beneteau. All three had superficial cuts and bruises, but only Hamilton — who said he lost about two minutes and needed two bike changes — managed to catch back to the lead group led by Mayo’s men in Euskaltel orange.
The American ripped his shorts and had a bloodied elbow, but he cast off the pain and made an amazing chase up the day’s toughest climb, the Col de Luitel, which averages 9.5 percent over 9km of bumpy, narrow pavement. Hamilton got an assist from another of his Spanish teammates, Oscar Pereiro, who dropped back to help his leader. They gained back half the two-minute deficit on the climb, the other half on the incredibly fast, curving descent to Uriage-les-Bains.
Rasmussen, just 30, is in only his fourth season as a road professional. But he’s made a true mark as a climber. The skinny Dane, who’s 5-foot-9 and weighs a shade under 130 pounds, hasn’t wasted his time. He took a summit-finish stage win at the Tour of Burgos in 2002, won a mountaintop stage of the 2003 Vuelta a España at Cauterets (and took seventh overall), and his goal this year is to win a stage of the Tour de France.
Saturday’s win was a great rehearsal, especially as he had some stomach problems on last Thursday’s Mont Ventoux time trial (but still finished ninth) and on Friday he lost 5:35 to the main pack on the easy stage to Sisteron. That put the Rabobank rider down to 35th overall, 9:22 behind Mayo, so he wasn’t considered a threat when he made an initial move on the Col Bayard just 3km into the 144km stage 6.
“I attacked as soon as it got steep,” Rasmussen said. “Some others tried to come across, but only Basso made it.” CSC’s Italian rider Ivan Basso was even further back on GC than Rasmussen after using this race as training for the Tour. The pair topped the steep Bayard, a Cat. 2 climb of 6.5km, with just 15 seconds lead on the pack, knowing that they had a long road ahead of them, most of it into a head wind, with seven more climb to go.
“I knew if I could get to the 60km point with at least five minutes, I had a good chance of winning the stage,” said the Dane. In fact, Rasmussen and Basso, had 7:40 by that point, and knew they had an excellent chance of staying away to the finish in Grenoble. Then on a sharp switchback on the fifth climb, the Col de la Morte, Basso dropped his chain and had a hard time fixing it. “I waited for him,” Rasmussen said, “but he didn’t come back, and I was 40 seconds ahead at the summit.”
The Dane certainly wasn’t going to wait any longer, as the highly technical 15km descent required all of his bike-handling skills and concentration. Rasmussen opened up the gap to more than five minutes on Basso over the last three killer climbs, while the Mayo group — which featured a calm, strong-looking Lance Armstrong and three of his teammates — was pulled home by Phonak, once Hamilton had rejoined. Their deficit on the line was 6:43, with Rasmussen jumping to seventh overall, two places ahead of his Rabobank teammate Levi Leipheimer.
After the finish, Phonak’s Jose Gutierrez was unhappy and came to speak to Leipheimer, with Hamilton translating. “Did I cause the crash?” asked Leipheimer. “No,” replied Hamilton, “but he’s saying you blocked him.” The two Americans, who sometimes train together at the Spanish base of Gerona, agreed to talk things over later.
We can be sure that Leipheimer, who said he still has to hone his form for the Tour, won’t win Sunday’s stage. But few will disagree that, barring accidents, Mayo will keep the race lead on the final stage, which includes four more alpine climbs on a 200km loop out and back to Grenoble.
