[Le Tour 2003]Stage 11 - Back on the Bike

[Tour Reporter]

Stage 11 - Narbonne - Toulouse - 153 km

1895 km completed and 1531 to go.... piece of cake.

The riders stretch out their legs by covering 47 km in the first hour.

Today greets the day with 91 degrees at 31% humidity with increasing 
winds from the Northwest, which will be into the faces of the riders on 
today's stage.

Carlos Dacruz of FDJeux.com scoots away from Credit Agricole's Stuart 
O'Grady at the first sprint point, keeping him from nabbing the maximum 
sprint points.  Dacruz' teammate Baden Cooke holds the Green Jersey by 9 
points, so every bit counts.

The sprint-point-duking-pair continue their effort, and some others come 
out to play.  They establish an 8 man breakaway, edging out to 1:57 with 
85 km to go today:
16 - Isidro Nozal - ONCE
32 - Juan Antonio Flecha - iBanseto.com
43 - Bram de Groot - Rabobank
63 - Inigo Cuesta - Cofidis
94 - Carlos Dacruz - FDJeux.com
118 - Michael Rogers - QuickStep
127 - Stuart O'Grady - Credit Agricole
158 - Nicolas Portal - Ag2R

They continue working well, rotating themselves out to a lead of 2:21.

Credit Agricole's lanky Australian-raised-German Jens Voigt has trouble 
staying in contact with the main bunch.  His suffering easily shows 
across the cameras, as he wrenches at the bars as they climb the day's 
only hill - the Cat 3 Cote de Saissac.

The leaders are rolling along at 2:46 behind.  USPS gets a little lazy 
help from Lotto and Brioches La Boulangere riders, but after a bit, they 
drift away from their pacemaking turns.

========================================
Today's Trivia Question -
The Tour has had stages annulled four times.  Which was the last time 
this occurred - 1998, 1995 or 1982?
========================================

Voight continues going slower, gradually looking worse and trying to 
continue ticking over his gear, but with the speed of the peleton and 
the remaining miles into a headwind, he will have difficulty finishing 
within the day's time limit - probably about 7 percent of the finishing 
time, as this is a flat stage.

The USPS continues to ratchet down the lead, although not necessarily 
because they want to do so.  As far as the overall lead is concerned, 
this is a "good break". 61 km remain as the leaders have moved back to 
about a 2:46 as the leaders roll through the day's feed zone. With the 
pack spread across the roadway, it's not surprising to hear that the gap 
has edged out to 3:35.

Even the large cows at the roadside watch the parade of riders. Both 
Damien Nazon of Boulangere and Robbie McEwen of Lotto were both in 
trouble on the climb.  That expains why their teammates slid away from 
the pacemaking duties.

A low moto-camera gives closeup footage of Voight's current gearing 
choice - a 39 x 25, and he'd clearly like at least a 27.  The broom 
wagon begins fluffing up its pillows, and I would bet that one of the 
Credit Agricole team cars is moving some gear off the back seat. His 
slow cadence continues.

One of the riders who I'm surprised to see still with us is none other 
than Gilberto Simoni, who had been wheezing his way up the climbs of the 
Alps like a half-wrecked accordian.

The break have edged things out to 4:12 as the moto cameras get all 
impressionistic as they blow through the town of Revel. With camera 
angles reminiscent of film school excesses, they loop around a 
roundabout and you get a sense of the speed with which the riders attack 
the course.

Armstrong has called tomorrow's stage, "the most important time trial of 
my career."  Despite the elevation map which shows it as fairly flat, it 
has been described as undulating and a bit tricky, with a short climb 
beginning about 10 km from the finish.  He's clearly keying on it, and 
must have the speed to create time gaps within the relatively short 47 
km length of the course.

Voight has already fallen behind the time limit on the roadway, and the 
broom wagon trails him like a hungry shark.

40 km to go, and the riders begin to string out underneath the 
tree-lined roadways on a beautiful sunny day.  Telekom has slipped into 
the rotation along with the Boulangere riders and a few from 
Vini-Caldirola.  Clearly the sprinters would like to prevent O'Grady 
from using his "local knowledge".   O'Grady actually is based in the 
Toulouse, as are a number of othe Australian riders.  Word gets up to 
the break that the main group is winding up their effort, and they seem 
to notch it up a bit to maintain their lead.

Jens finally packs it in at the feed zone, and quietly slips into the 
team car and relinquishes his number - he looks totally wan as he slumps 
into the back seat.

3:32 gap with just under 35 km to go.  Pretty much dead flat roads to 
the finish.  Even Saeco dips into the rotation along with some Lotto 
riders - the big figure of Axel Merckx dwarfs a couple of the Boulangere 
boys.

Up front, the breakaway approaches the sprint point in the town of 
Caraman.  Dacruz kicks out hard to again prevent O'Grady's effort  to 
gain maximum points.  O'Grady pushes a bit harder as they continue to 
move forward, causing a bit of disorganization in the breakaway as they 
recognize that they do not want to let the Aussie get away. They seem to 
be able to hold their gap at around 2 and a half minutes.

The break stretches under the 20 km to go banner with the hint of a 
cross to tail wind.  iBanesto's Flecha had skipped off the front while 
no one was watching, but gets reeled back in without breaking rhythm.

15 km to go with a 1:54 gap.

ONCE's Nozal pushes off the front, gets reabsorbed and Flecha 
immediately rides off the front with a sharp turn of speed.  He tucks 
into the drops while the rest of the breakaway look at one another and 
dink around.  O'Grady accellerates, but draws every other rider up with 
his effort.  Flecha has managed to gain 15 seconds over the break, while 
they must have lost a bit to the main group as they foul their 
consistency and drop their speed accordingly - yep, now down to nearly a 
minute and a half.

Flecha skims up the gutters under the 10 km to go banner.  Rogers blows 
through the same banner after fading back to the rear of the bunch to 
launch his accelleration.  He gains a gap and Dacruz moves strongly up 
the roadway to snag his wheel. Rogers gives him a flick of the elbow to 
pull through, but the FDJeux.com rider modulates his effort - he moves 
up, but without the necessary vigor.  Clearly, he wouldn't mind seeing 
the main bunch catch everyone, giving more points to teammate Cooke.

Flecha holds an 18 second gap, while the breakaway remnants reabsorb 
Dacruz and Rogers.  De Groot immediately attacks - it's definitely a 
brain-stem function for Dutch riders.  But, O'Grady and Rogers work 
together to grab him.

4 km to go for Flecha, holding 20 seconds while the peleton is 1:25. 
Nozal blows past O'Grady, who can find no one to work with him - all 
fear his sprint.

2 km to go as the lone Spaniard rider tries to find a hole iin the wind.

Nozal continues alone, finally with O'Grady just getting ornery enough 
to chase him alone.  Cuesta pushes his nose out in chase of O'Grady.

Now Flecha has ony 1,000 meters to go, finishing at the Toulouse 
airport. There's no hiding on the wide roads as he pushes into a 
headwind, scraping up everything from his legs as the banner seems not 
to move an inch toward him - staying tantalizingly far away despite his 
massive effort.

Behind him, riders continue to hammer and close the gap, but they will 
not make it, and he crosses the finish line miming a bow & arrow shot 
through the finish banner.  Straight as an arrow?  Cupid? His last name 
(Flecha = Fleche = Arrow?) Sometimes the  dance is slightly cryptic. 
Nonetheless, this talented Spanish rider has won the stage.

Now only 4 seconds behind, De Groot and Nozal duke it out with Nozal 
taking it and De Groot again finding himself third.

In the chasing break group DaCruz once again nicks O'Grady to the line - 
three for three on the day.

Ripping up the roadway, the main bunch comes in and McEwen just pushes 
his bike ahead of Cooke as they scream up the barriers.

Stage 11 - Results
1 - Juan Antnio Flecha - iBanesto.com - 3:29:33
2 - Bram de Groot - Rabobank - @ :04
3 - Isidro Nozal - ONCE - s.t.
4 - Inigo Cuesta - Cofidis - @ :15
5 - Carlos Dacruz - FDJeux.com - @ :23
6 - Stuart O'Grady - Credit Agricole - s.t.
7 - Nicolas Portal - Ag2R - s.t.
8 - Michael Rogers - Quick Step - s.t.
9 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - @ :42
10 - Baden Cooke - FDJeux.com - s.t.

Overall - No changes
Lance in yellow again, but we are shown the perverse image of Arnold 
Schwarzenegger on the podium with Lance, as he seems to be the "star of 
the day" winner.  Schwarzenegger wrenches Armstrong skyward as he 
salutes the crowd - hopefully doing no lasting damage...

Abandoned - Jens Voigt - Credit Agricole

Tomorrow's Stage -
The Race of Truth - Individual Time Trial - 47 km from Gaillac to 
Cap'Decouverte.
"and more will be revealed..."

========================================
Trivia Answer:
That'd be 1998, after the sit-down protests of the riders following the 
Festina Affair. Stages were annulled during all three years listed, in 
'95 following the death of Fabio Casartelli, and in '82 for delays due 
to a demonstration.
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