Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer found the best way to save what could have been a disastrous day for American cycling in the Tour de France Thursday . Phonak team leader Landis took the yellow leader’s jersey, while Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) finished second to Russia’s Denis Menchov (Rabobank) at the end of this Tour’s most grueling and decisive stage yet.

Landis began the day in third overall but stage 11 from Tarbes to Val d’Aran (Pla-de-Beret) in Spain saw the peloton split so decisively that just three men remained in the lead group that conquered the brutal 206.5km stage featuring five torturous mountain climbs.

After donning the maillot jaune for the first time in his ascendant career, Landis, 31, could not help but reflect on how his life had changed since he first ventured to Europe as a 17 year-old for the world junior mountain bike championships, thinking that he’d just landed on Mars, so different was the eclectic continental scene from his sheltered upbringing in a Mennonite family in rural Pennsylvania.

“I found out it wasn’t actually Mars but it felt like it to me,” said Landis, who also admitted that the urgency of his hip condition, which will require an operation after the Tour, had helped him to better appreciate the day-to-day offerings of life — a yellow jersey being one.

“I said [on the rest day in Bordeaux] I didn’t want to miss anything. What I was referring to was that since I found out about my condition a year and a half ago it’s been one day at a time I was told my career won’t go on forever,” Landis said.

“I should have been aware of that from the beginning. But anyway it’s made me think about it more. Since then I see things a little differently. I’m honored to be sitting here [in the yellow jersey].”

However, it could be said Landis also had the hand of fate on his side too. For despite the Pennsylvania native’s undoubted effort, he only managed to move ahead of overnight race leader Cyril Dessel (AG2R) by eight seconds — the time bonus he took for finishing third behind Menchov and Leipheimer.

Dessel and his French team deserve every plaudit for the way they fought to try and defend a jersey that most people thought would be taken with relative ease. It was anything but when AG2R controlled the race for as long as they could; until they ran out of numbers on the fourth of the day’s five climbs.

Finally, it was left to Dessel to repay their faith. And he did so, leading home a group of five riders to take 18th place at 4:45 – exactly the overall deficit with which Landis had started the day.

But were it not for Landis — and to a lesser degree, Leipheimer, who moved up to13th place overall from 58th — this first mountaintop stage finish of the Tour would have been remembered for being an American nightmare.

The reason? The implosion of the Discovery Channel team that has finally been exposed as a far less force in the Tour without their retired seven-time champion Lance Armstrong. The team that began the Tour with the balance of power in its favor, today saw its overall hopes founder. Dual Giro d’Italia champion Paolo Savoldelli of Italy finished in 50th place at 23:04, and last year’s best young rider, Ukraine’s Yaroslav Popovych placed 26th on the stage 6:25 back..

The saddest story of them all though was that of George Hincapie. Billed as the man that most Americans believed (naïvely or not) could replace Armstrong, Hincapie struggled home in 46th place at 21:23, knowing that his overall classification dreams are now as distant as the Tour’s finish on the Champs-Élysées.

“It’s just not coming together for me. I am very disappointed. [The] general is over for me. I’ll try to recover and maybe go for a stage,” he said after dropping from a hopeful 19th place to a distant 40th overall.

Landis in Paris?
Landis’s performance today indicates that he is the top favorite to win the Tour – and to become the third American rider to do so. But with three brutal stages in the Alps still ahead he won’t be expecting the victory to be handed to him. His overall lead is eight seconds on Desssel, 1:01 on Menchov and 1:17 on Australian Cadel Evans (Davitamon-Lotto), who placed fourth on stage 11, just 17 seconds back of the winning trio.

Evans crossed the line with Spaniard Carlos Sastre (CSC), who is now in fifth overall at 1:52, giving his Danish team hope of salvaging a terrible Tour. In sixth overall at 2:29 is German’s 2004 Tour runner-up Andreas Klöden (T-Mobile), whose teammates proved today that their hard work on stage 10 had indeed taken much of the sting out of their legs — especially for the final climb, where the lead group splintered.

Reports later filtered back that after Klöden ordered his T-Mobile teammates – including 12th placed Australian Michael Rogers — to ride hard on the Col du Portillon because he felt extremely strong, he then suffered cramps on the descent that impaired his ability to answer the accelerations up front by Menchov and Leipheimer that shattered the group.

In light of the competition, Landis was quick to stress that defending the maillot jaune at all costs all the way to Paris was not the aim. “It will be difficult to control and keep it. We don’t have so much time on a lot of guys,” he said.

“If it’s in our interest and we find a common goal with some help along the way, I wouldn’t be opposed for other teams to have [the jersey]. The objective is to have it on the last day.” Take nothing away from Landis though. He certainly deserved his break-through success, after he willingly towed Leipheimer, Menchov, Sastre and Evans for most of the last 5km on the climb to Pla–de-Beret.

The five riders were part of a 17-strong selection that hit the last 13km climb with a two-minute lead on Dessel’s group that was made up of a similar number of riders. Also in Landis’s group were two of Menchov’s teammates, Dane Michael Rasmussen and Dutchman Michael Boogerd, to whom the elated, impressive Russian later dedicated his stage victory.

Rasmussen, who cashed in earlier in the stage to bag points for the King of the Mountains classification he won last year, dug deep to ride at a ferocious temp on the false flats from the Portillon until a few kilomeres into the last climb. His efforts condemned the daylong attacker, Spain’s David de la Fuente (Saunier Duval-Prodir), who took the King of the Mountains jersey for his efforts on the first four climbs. Rasmussen then passed the relay to Boogerd, who would finish sixth, at 1:04.

It was just after Boogerd’s pace started to wilt with 6km to go that Menchov unleashed an attack that resulted in the decisive five-man selection being made. Immediately cut from the group were Klöden and, understandably, an exhausted Boogerd.

By now Landis was confidently setting tempo at the front, knowing that what was most important to him was time, not a win. “Today there was more value working on the last climb to make time so that [winning the stage] was not my objective,” explained Landis later.

The next crucial move came from Leipheimer. His attack from behind and to the right with 2.5km to go was chased by Menchov and Landis. However, Evans, on fourth wheel could not follow, and neither could Sastre after he rode around the Aussie.

Landis again took command when the leading trio formed. And he did so all the way to the finish, realizing that the stage win would be decided between Menchov and Leipheimer. All he didn’t realize was how tight the margin between him and yellow jersey Dessel really was.

Early attacks
The stage began with a flurry of attacks, one of them from Australian Stuart O’Grady (CSC) after 19km – proving, no matter its outcome, that his recovery from a fractured L4 vertebra in the first week was going well. O’Grady’s triggered a 16-strong break that also contained Popovych and AG2R’s Christophe Moreau, the great French hops, whose pre4sence prompted at strong response from the other contenders’ teams to end the break at 25km.

Soon after that the day’s first long escape began. After 31km Spaniard Iker Camana (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and De le Fuente attacked, to be joined soon after by Germany’s Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) and a third Spaniard, Juan Antonio Flecha (Raboank).

By the foot of the 18.3km-long Tourmalet after 56km the break had forged a maximum lead of 8:15 that was cut in half on the spectacular the ascent — at which time the peloton was already shedding riders like a tree losing its leaves in the fall.

With the AG2R team of yellow jersey Dessel setting tempo, one of the first big names to be cast off was Basque star Iban Mayo (Euskaltel-Euskadi), proving that his poor form the day before was no brazen attempt at bluffing anyone in readiness for a stage-winning attack in his homeland.

Mayo was stressed mentally as much as physically on the climb. Little wonder, considering a motor cycle-mounted television crew followed every pedal stroke of his suffering. Mayo’s angry wave at the crew said enough of what he felt about their interest. To get the message across, Mayo later shouted at them, only to invite the cameraman to zoom in to the Spaniard’s distressed face for live television. In the end, Mayo had to surrender. On the Col du Peyresourde two climbs later he abandoned.

Others who were expected to shine but were instead dropped included Aussie Tour candidate Evans’s domestique American Chris Horner (Davitamon-Lotto) whose presence later would have helped; Savoldelli; the talented Venezuelan Tour rookie José Rujano (Quick Step-Innergetic); and one of Landis’s key mountain henchmen, the Swiss Alexandre Moos (Phonak).

Over the summit, De la Fuente led Wegmann. Meanwhile the other two were dropped by the Spanish stage leader’s attack 20 meters earlier, but they rejoined on the decent and approach to the Cat. 1 Col d’Aspin, where the status quo remained — except for a chase from French 2003 yellow jersey wearer Thomas Voeckler (Bouygues Telecom), and a bid from Rasmussen for minor places in mountain finishes for KOM points.

On the Col de Peyresourde, it was Wegmann who threw a hand grenade into the proceedings up front, attacking with 5km to go on the 9.5km-long climb. That move discarded Flecha and Camano. Then another surge by Flecha dropped Wegmann, even though he managed to rejoin the Spaniard on the decent and beat him in the intermediate sprint at Luchon after 151km, where the peloton was now down to a 3:45 defecit.

In reality, the leading duo’s attack was futile, and by the time the peloton had climbed up and over the Col du Portillon summit at 161km and down the other side, they were doomed. Wegmann was caught first. Then the guillotine fell on De la Fuente who was joined with 28km to go by a two-up chase from former Giro d’Italia champion Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Fondital) and Spaniard Davide Arroya (Caisse d’Épargne-Illes Balears).

Four kilometers later they were joined by Landis’s group that included all those who are now the leading Tour candidates. Racing under the fuel of a T-Mobile magenta train commanded by Kloden, neither De la Fuente nor Cunego were able to keep up.

The scene had been set for Landis to take control.

Top 10
1. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank
2. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Gerolsteiner, same time
3. Floyd Landis (USA), Phonak, s.t.
4. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, at 0:17
5. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, at 0:17
6. Michael Boogerd (Ned), Rabobank, at1:04
7. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 1:31
8. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC, s.t.
9. Andréas Klöden (G), T-Mobile, s.t.
10. Christophe Moreau (F), Ag2r, at 2:29

Overall
1. Floyd Landis (USA), Phonak
2. Cyril Dessel (F), Ag2r, at 0:08
3. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank, at 1:01
4. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, at 1:17
5. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, at 1:52
6. Andréas Klöden (G), T-Mobile, at 2:29
7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, at 3:22
8. Juan Miguel Mercado (Sp), Ag2r, at 3:33
9. Christophe Moreau (F), Ag2r, at 3:44
10. Marcus Fothen (G), Gerolsteiner, at 4:17

Complete results

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