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87th Tour de France - Grand Tour

France, July 1 - 23, 2000

Tour News for July 10

Quotes from the riders

With the mountains looming tomorrow, many riders saw today as their last chance for a while to win a stage. Successful today was Mapei's Paolo Bettini who said that he knew he had to do something today. "I was afraid that we didn't have enough time to the bunch before the finish, therefore I started the sprint early. I didn't want all our efforts to be in vain so close to the end. I hope that this win makes my position in the team stronger, so I will have more opportunities to ride for myself in future."

The yellow jersey wearer, Alberto Elli (Telekom) will definitely not lie down without a fight in the Pyrenees tomorrow, saying that he will "fight on the Hautacam." He realises that he won't be up with the best climbers, but he remains confident that he can wear the yellow for a little longer. Of course, his main goal is to help Ullrich.

Erik Zabel, who won the green jersey today said that he was very happy to have gained it. "I have waited eight days for this moment...I can't count too much on my team to defend it though, as our highest priority is to win the Tour with Jan Ullrich."

Alex Zülle is intent on keeping a watchful eye on Pantani, although he will struggle tomorrow. Zülle is currently 75th, at 9:59 down and will find it very tough to put a lot of time into the rest in the coming days. "I am in a difficult situation. But I've always said that this Tour will be decided in the last week. Last year Armstrong had to control only me in final week. This year there will be Pantani and Ullrich as well. He will have to counter all the attacks."

Mercatone Uno up front

The pink bandanas of the Pirate's Mercatone Uno squad have been prominent at the head of the peloton for the last few days, helping to contain the breaks that they have missed. Their leader, Marco Pantani is currently 86th overall, 11.06 behind Elli and 5 minutes behind riders such as Armstrong, Ullrich, Olano and Jalabert. He has shown in the past that he can make this time up in the mountains, and tomorrow's stage will be the first test.

His directeur sportif, Guisseppe Martinelli ordered his riders to chase the 17 man break on stage 8 (that Mercatone Uno and ONCE missed). This was primarily because Giuseppe Guerini (Telekom) was in it, and he is known for being a good climber. However, the boys in pink had no help from ONCE, whose leader Jalabert said that they had no interest to chase.

Pantani was reportedly extremely annoyed about this, saying that "it was a lack of professionalism" that made the other teams not chase. "If I had not made my teammates work, the 17 man break on Saturday would have gained 20 minutes!". He backed this up the following day, saying that there is likely to be a winner in Paris who is not at the "level of the Tour."

The stage tomorrow from Dax to Hautacam, 205 km is the only real Pyreneean mountain stage of this year's Tour. Three serious climbs have to be tackled, the Col de Marie-Blanque (Cat. 1), the Col d'Aubisque (Cat. HC) and Lourdes-Hautacam (Cat. HC) to finish. The last climb is 13.5 km long, and 7.9 % average gradient, and has seen victories in past years from Luc Leblanc (1994, with Indurain) and Bjarne Riis (1996, who went on to win the Tour).

This stage is but one of five mountain stages where the Pirate and the other climbers can make their mark, given that they will lose some time in the final time trial. The Pirate's tactics for tomorrow, will be to attack on the final climb of the Hautacam after weighing up his adversaries. That is according to Mercatone Uno president, Felice Gimondi in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Gimondi is optimistic about Pantani's chances, as he believes the Pirate has a good chance of making up the 5 minutes separating him from Armstrong, Ullrich and co. in the coming week. The first test will be the Hautacam, but the more important stages will be 14 and 15, to Briançon and Courchevel at the end of the week. The plan is to wear down his rivals on the Izoard (stage 14), and deliver the telling blow on stage 15 to Courchevel. According to Gimondi, Pantani is in good spirits, calm and not suffering from the pressure. He may produce a surprise on the Ventoux as well.

Wüst's view

Marcel Wüst could not manage to keep his green jersey today from the clutches of Erik Zabel, who managed to win the bunch sprint and take enough points to lead that classification. Wüst was a little disappointed with the way things turned out, as he related afterwards.

"There where two roundabouts in the closing 1.5 km and I got caught behind a crash, lost Zabel's wheel and I couldn't move back up ... that was it. Having the team chase the break all day and then not be able to finish it off is a real bummer but it was nice having the green jersey for two days," he explained.

He will now have to cope with the Pyrenees and the Alps, but he is not such a bad climber, having won that classification in the Sun Tour a few years back. Maybe we won't see him in polka dots again, but he remains the most likely man to challenge Erik Zabel for the green jersey in the coming two weeks.

Dekker's best

With his victory in stage 8, Rabobank's Erik Dekker finally pulled off the win that he has been trying for all week. In doing so, he also took the mountains jersey and the most aggressive rider classification for a time. This comes after a torrid nine months, commencing in October last year when he was excluded from the World Championships for having too high a hematocrit. He was cleared by his team and the Dutch Federation after they found that there were irregularities in the testing procedure (the tourniquet had been too tight), and started the year afresh. However, at the beginning of the year he fractured his elbow in Paris-Nice and it took some time before he was back in racing condition again.

Dekker took 2nd in the Olympic Games road race in 1992 and turned professional shortly afterward with Jaan Raas' Buckler team. Raas has remained his directeur sportif and mentor ever since. Dekker has been moderately successful in his career, winning 27 times (including on Saturday), however he is more known as a workhorse for the team. According to Hennie Kuiper (Rabobank), he suffers from a chronic lack of confidence, but that might change a little now with this victory.

Palmares

1987 2nd in World Road Championships (juniors)
1992 2nd (behind Fabio Casartelli) Olympic Games Barcelona

Professional since 1992 with 27 victories.

1992 September (Buckler) 0 victories
1993 (WordPerfect) 0
1994 6 incl. stage in Tour of Basque, 2 stages and overall winner in the Tour of Sweden
1995 (Novell) 6 incl. Rund um Köln, 2 stages and overall winner in the Tour of Sweden
1996 (Rabobank) 4 incl. Dutch champion time trial
1997: 4 incl. stage and overall winner in the Tour of the Netherlands.
1998: 0
1999: 4 incl. GP Eddy Merckx.
2000: 3: 2 stages in the Tour of Sweden and one stage in Tour de France

Weather bad for Hautacam?

The weather forecast for tomorrow is not brilliant for the stage from Dax to Hautacam. Rain and moderate 30 km/h winds are predicted for the stage start, with less favourable conditions on the mountains. The Col de Marie Blanque will probably be ridden in the fog, with more rain and a strong Westerly wind. Storms are predicted for the Aubisque, and winds may be up to 60 km/h. The final ascent of the Hautacam will be also in fog and heavy downpours. The temperatures there are predicted to be around 8 degrees Celsius.

333 km of up

In the next 9 days, the riders will have to climb 333 kilometres spread mainly over 5 stages. The biggest days will be on the massive Alps, with 105.3 km of climbing in just one stage, the 14th from Draguignan - Briancon (249 km). The day after, from Briancon - Courchevel, there is a mere 79 km of climbing...

The climbing to come

July 10 - Dax - Lourdes Hautacam 205 (43 km climbing)
July 13 - Carpentras - Le Mont Ventoux 149 (42 km climbing)
July 15 - Draguignan - Briancon 249,5 (105,3 km climbing!)
July 16 - Briancon - Courchevel 173,6 km (79 km climbing)
July 18 - Courchevel - Morzine 106,5 km (57,3 km climbing)

Total: 333 km

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