Word: ventoux
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...smother Mr. Armstrong with protection." During last year's Tour, observers detected a warming trend in Franco-Lancian relations. Armstrong conducted more interviews in French, hired less-menacing bodyguards and signed plenty of autographs. Aside from the group of drunks who yelled "Dopé!" during his ascent of Mount Ventoux in Stage 14, things went well between him and the French public. The relationship should be even better this year. A French court's two-year investigation of drugs in cycling ended last September without any evidence that Armstrong has taken banned substances. And Armstrong surprised many Europeans this winter...
While French journalist François Thomazeau estimates that "80% of the French public respects and loves Lance," it was the other 20% that made its presence felt on the grueling climb to Mont Ventoux in Provence on July 21. Armstrong, who is randomly tested for drugs throughout the year and has always been clean, has nevertheless faced suspicion that given his domination of a drug-tainted sport, he must be illegally boosting his performance. And so he was heckled with cries of "Dopé!" as he chased France's Richard Virenque, a rider who confessed to using performance...
Still, his victory looked even more certain on Thursday, when the riders climbed barren, snowy Ventoux Mountain, the toughest ascent of the race and the one in which rider Tom Simpson died in 1967, from exhaustion. So while mountain-climbing specialist Richard Virenque, who just last week was bragging to reporters about his unparalleled fan base, was sucking from an oxygen tank, Armstrong, his teammates far behind, rode with Pantani toward a victory in the moonlike, vegetationless mountain-top. And Armstrong lost the day, as at every other stage thus far, this time to Pantani...
...Monday ride to Spaniard Javier Otxoa, who had started his sprint hours before Armstrong made his breakaway. Armstrong nearly applied his brakes to allow the wobbling Spaniard to cross the victory line within sight of cheering countrymen who had come to see the race. Even the Pantani win up Ventoux was a gift, with Armstrong slowing down to let the troubled ex-champion catch up. "He's come to win the war, not kill everyone in every single battle," says Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael. Armstrong, now clearly the strongest rider in the world, is being careful not to take...
Last week, as the Tour set out from Marseille for the climb up 6,273-ft. Mont Ventoux, Tom Simpson, 29, who in 1965 became the first Briton to win bike racing's world championship, was in the lead pack. Nearing the summit, Simpson began to zigzag, crashed into a rock pile and collapsed. Doctors rushed him to a hospital in a helicopter-but Simpson was dead. In his jersey pocket, police found two partly empty pharmaceutical vials-one labeled with the trade name for a brand of British "bennies"-and Tour promoters found themselves with the makings...