2005 Tour de France: Stage 11
By Phil Liggett
You have to love an aggressor. And when you have ridden your heart out as a pre-race favorite -- cracked and lost the Tour in one day -- only to break away and win the next, it is the sign of a true champion.
Such is Alexandre Vinokourov who could not hold Lance Armstrong on the road to Courchevel on Tuesday. But on this second day in the Alps, Vino showed no signs of being tired when he launched an attack almost from the start of the 11th stage to Briancon.
Armstrong never panicked. Why should he with time on his side? But I wonder if he thought the Kazakh rider would really stage ahead all day and finish in Briançon with only Colombian Santiago Botero for company.
In the end, a gain of 1-25 over Lance is not a lot, but the satisfaction of winning one of the best stages of the race, must have given an enormous feeling of well-being. This Tour has quite a bit of fight left in it yet with more than a week to go.
OLN really went to town with their coverage, too. On air from 6.30 a.m. until the end seeing every move that mattered. The people in Times Square even had the same program and I bet many of them were late getting into work -- that’s if they went at all!
