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Favorites Lose Ground In Tour De France
| Favorites Lose Ground In Tour De France |
| Written by Administrator | |||
| Wednesday, 07 July 2010 15:00 | |||
Fabian Cancellar of Switzerland regained the overall lead with the stage 3 victory going to Thor Hushovd of Norway. Armstrong is now 2 minutes and 30 seconds behind Cancellar and 50 seconds behind defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain. Armstrong has already said that this will be his final Tour de France and tried to maintain a positive attitude despite the setbacks: "They dropped today, no doubt about it. We've got to keep our head up and take our chances on the climbs. It was bad luck today. We're not going home but it's very frustrating. I'm not going to make any excuses. We came in here today in good position. First there was a crash that split the group, we hung tough, and then got the flat tire right at the wrong moment. It's the nature of the sport. Sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail. Today I was the nail." He also talked about the flat tire that was the big misfortune of the day: "I got the flat. A 45-second wheel change at that point was bad luck. For a little bit, [teammate Yaroslav] Popovych came back and gave me a hand but after the seventh section of cobblestones, I went at it alone. I was eating dirt. It's the nature of racing." Former competitive rider Thierry Gouvenou competed in six Tour de France events and gave his perspective on the controversial cobblestone segments of the course: "It's like holding a jackhammer, your arms, judder, judder, judder. When you go through here, you always ask yourself: 'How did my bike not fall apart?'" Tour organizers have been unapologetic about the course selection, and they included the following blurb on the official website: "There is always the possibility of punctures or falls. This stage will frighten everyone and the race favorites may lose precious minutes.” The challenge for favorites Armstrong and Contador now becomes making up enough time on the mountain stages to pull back into contention. Both men are considered the best in the world in the mountains, and they’ll be looking forward to Saturday’s first mountain stage which begins in Tournus and finishes at a ski summit in the Alps, Station des Rousses.
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The cobblestoned streets of Arenberg, France are a very picturesque setting for fans watching the 97th Tour de France but the riders in the race aren’t quite as fond of the jagged and uneven surface. In particular, Lance Armstrong could probably have done without the concession to aesthetics as he suffered a flat tire during the third stage of the race which dropped him from 5th in the overall standings to 18th. 
