Armstrong impressive on first Pyrenean stage won by Totschnig
July 16, 2005

AX-TROIS-DOMAINES, France (AFP) - Austria's Georg Totschnig of the Gerolsteiner team won the 14th stage of the Tour de France here on the first day of three in the Pyrenees.

American Lance Armstrong retained the race leader's yellow jersey he is aiming to win for a seventh consecutive time ahead of his retirement, when the race climaxes on July 24, after finishing second on Saturday at just under a minute.

Italian Ivan Basso finished a few metres behind, with another yellow jersey contender, 1997 winner Jan Ullrich, finishing at around 10secs behind Armstrong.

Armstrong holds a lead of 1min 41sec over Dane Michael Rasmussen.

Ullrich's teammate Alexandre Vinokourov was one of the biggest losers on the day, the Kazakh finishing at nearly three minutes behind.

Totschnig meanwhile wins his first Tour de France stage at the age of 33 years old, and it is also Austria's first win on the Tour in the post-war period.

Armstrong, whose closest real challenger Basso is third overall still 2min 46sec behind, has struck another blow to his rivals, although it was small and he will however have to be on his guard in Sunday's stage from Lezat-sur-Leze to St-Lary-Soulan.

Held over 205km, it has a total of 49.2 km of climbing over five cols before arriving at the summit finish of Pla d'Adet and is a potential race decider.

Armstrong managed the first of the three days in the Pyrenees with relative ease - although at the foot of the day's main difficulty, the 15.1km climb over the Porte de Pailheres, he was abandoned by his Discovery Channel team mates.

An earlier attack by a small group of riders had ultimately left Totschnig and Italian Stefano Garzelli with a four-minute lead on Armstrong's chasing group at the foot of the last, 7.9km climb to Ax-Trois-Domaines.

Earlier, on the climb to the summit of Pailheres, some of whose average gradients were a muscle-crunching 10.5 percent, a battle of nerves was held between Armstrong and all his main rivals for the yellow jersey.

Vinokourov was left trailing early on the climb, and it was left to Armstrong, Ullrich, Basso, and Floyd Landis to keep an eye on each other for any attacks.

As expected, there were no real attempts from either Armstrong or Ullrich to attack on the day's second last climb. That was more expected to happen on the climb to the Pyrenean ski station at 1337 metres altitude.

Armstrong's group came over the summit of the Pailheres col with nearly a four-minute deficit to Totschnig, who had left Garzelli in his wake in the final kilometres of the day's penultimate climb.

However after just a few kilometres of the last climb Basso, perhaps the most quiet of the yellow jersey challengers so far in the race, decided to increase the pace.

Armstrong, with whom the Italian CSC rider had been speaking earlier on the stage as Ullrich sat behind them, jumped quickly on his wheel and was followed by Ullrich.

Basso's brief burst of speed proved too much for Landis, Armstrong's former US Postal team-mate but now at Phonak, and with only four kilometres from the summit it was Basso, Armstrong and Ullrich who were racing behind Garzelli and Totschnig.

Totschnig was all on his own, but he did well to hold on to his lead.

Behind him, Armstrong's acceleration a kilometre from the finish proved too much for Ullrich who was left trailing.