Lance Armstrong crushed his rivals for the yellow jersey with another stunning climbing performance on today's gruelling 198km 12th stage of the Tour de France. The 30-year-old US Postal team leader, who pulled on the race leader's jersey the previous day, coasted calmly past team-mate Roberto Heras and ONCE rider Joseba Beloki around seven kilometres before the summit finish of the unclassified category Plateau de Beille.
The American finally crossed the line after dancing his way up the monstrous ascent, which has featured only once on the Tour before in 6hr 00min 29sec to gain a minute on his closest challenger Beloki. Beloki came third with climbing specialist Heras second, both at 1:04 behind Armstrong. The Texan increased his lead over Beloki, who again kept pace with the formidable American team for most of the day, from 1:12 on Thursday to 2:28.
Former race leader Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, of ONCE, is in third place overall at 3:19 behind Armstrong as he again found the going tough on the most difficult of the two Pyrenean stages.
In almost a carbon copy of Thursday's final climb up La Mongie, Frenchman Laurent Jalabert, who had escaped from the peloton early on in the day, was caught by Armstrong and Heras as they pounded their way steadily upwards. CSC rider Jalabert was caught by the trio of leading riders with just under 10km to race.
Heras, who had set the pace for his team leader the previous day thus allowing him to coast upwards towards victory, once more cleared the path for Armstrong on the last of the five climbs. The little Spaniard, who was brought to the US Postal team with the explicit intention of helping Armstrong in the mountains, stayed with Beloki as Armstrong surged ahead with 7km remaining. Heras the left Beloki and chased Armstrong but the three times winner held firm to claim his 14th stage victory on the Tour.
Filed by Shane Murray
