"The first live interview comes now." "At the end of the Tour de France." "Imagine how much oxygen you have left for answers." "There's this rhythm between high tension and stress and then this complete release." "Three weeks living on the extreme..." "It's like conquering Everest for a mountain climber." "For a cyclist, the goal is to race in the Tour de France." "And the peak of the mountain is to be successful in it." "Nine years and no stages won." "It'd be great to say I'd almost made it a couple of times." "Winning a stage makes you a little immortal in cycling." "That's what you're measured by." "The first goal is, of course, to make it all the way to Paris, because it's the toughest race there is for professional cyclists." "Anyone who hasn't ridden a bike for so long themselves can't understand how it is..." "Only the best survive." "That's for sure." "The Tour really gets going after 14 days, that's when it splits up." "Anyone can hold out 10 or 14 days... giving it everything." "But that's when it really takes off." "Then the best come shining through." "The Tour de France is the biggest sporting event in the world." "Bigger than the Olympic Games or the soccer World Cup." "The Tour de France is bigger than them both." "The Games are nothing in comparison." "Which Olympics?" "Los Angeles?" "Berlin?" "Paris?" "Tokyo?" "Mexico City?" "Nobody knows." "The Tour de France has existed in France since 1903." "Ninety times." "It has roots." "The Olympics doesn't exist." "The World Cup doesn't exist." "The Tour does." "That's why we love cycling." "We saw the Tour de France as kids and with our kids." "Passing down that passion for it makes it unique." "It is France: the mountains, the plains, Brittany..." "It's the ideal venue for great endeavors." "HELL ON WHEELS" "Three... two... one..." "Go!" "Up there, you usually have a minute." "The guy in front starts and you start a minute later." "For me, that's the longest minute of the tour, that minute when you're up there, pulling on your suit, opening your zipper, pushing back your helmet, pulling up your pants and pulling up your socks." "You open and close the velcro on your shoes four or five times..." "That's the stuff you kinda keep yourself busy with up there." "But as soon as you hit that asphalt down below nothing else matters..." "Your pulse is skyrocketing, towards 200." "...eight minutes and seven seconds." "That is Rolf Aldag's time." "Behind him..." "And there, 50 meters before the finish line, the German champion Erik Zabel." "The prologue..." "for me it's just a kind of warm-up 'cause I know I can only lose and that I will lose." "So you just say to yourself," "I'll try to keep the gap as small as possible." "...First winner of the tour, Australian wins prologue, 7.26 is the yellow jersey." "For Telekom, Columbian Botero ninth." "So, Rolf, you want our rank?" "It'll take three more text messages." "The Tour is three weeks of hard work." "Stress, fun... suffering, all at a time." "Some days it's really fun, 'cause it's going well, maybe you're having some success and those are the nice days." "And on other days..." "Suddenly you have a bad moment and you go through hell." "But you never know first thing." "On some mountain stages you think it's gonna be hard, gonna be tight." "Other times, you can have a great day and you ride right over without any stress at all." "Other days, you think, "Flat stage." "No problem."" "And they're all going so fast and you just have to hold on." "That's what's nice about the Tour." "It's unpredictable." "France is shaped like a hexagon which is a synonym for..." "Erik Zabel has bike problems!" "10 km from the finish!" "The worst possible moment for Erik Zabel to face such a thing." "They're coming together... is it too late for someone to make a break?" "Any moment now someone could try and go it alone, to break from the field." "We've got a real magenta express here." "They're working together for their best man on the flat stretch, their captain..." "Here he comes, led by Nardello..." "They're all there." "And a fall!" "But Zabel's still there!" "He's okay!" "Pollack is still there in the back." "Haselbacher's there at the front." "sprinting with Gerolsteiner..." "Zabel is third from right." "Zabel's coming!" "Unstoppable!" "Erik Zabel!" "No, it was Petacchi, the winner of 6 Giro stages." "Here's a look at the fall that's holding the field up." "It's Jimmy Casper." "He really hurt himself." "Could be the nasal bone." "What's this?" "The zygomatic bone?" "Yeah, zygomatic or nasal bone..." "It's easy to do." "On the Tour de France it always happens on the first stage." "It's so dangerous with all the stuff lying in the middle of the road." "Yes." "Yesterday Walter said we want to get through with all nine." "So, Kloedi..." "I was at the back and got a little of what was happening." "I managed to climb round on the right." "As they say in Flemish, I had to admire the battle victims." "Of course, it wasn't pleasant." "Kloedi was out of it on the fence but..." "Kloedi's got cotton in his nose now." "Yes, a little cut on his head, but..." "His head hit the wires at 50." "As you can imagine, that's not very nice." "Then you know that poor bugger Kloedi's got a hard night ahead of him." "It hurts everywhere." "You can only sleep on your front." "It hurts when you roll over." "You mess up the sheets." "It's really bad." "I really wasn't trying to keep up with the sprint." "I got pulled into the crash which makes it even more annoying." "My face is all bruised now and a cut back there and stuff..." "Like I've had a run-in with a boxer." "I should be happy that I even..." "I have bruises everywhere, back there on my shoulder and here and on my leg." "I look like a piece of meat, but..." "Everyone taking part knows the risks." "You can't calculate or plan it." "It's just there." "Yeah..." "But you always think you're going to get away with it." "Lance Armstrong consoles Hamilton, a good friend of his, who's broken his collarbone." "He's earned a big applause!" "Yesterday he got hurt in the crash..." "Today he's riding again..." "You check your body 'cause it stings everywhere." "If it was a normal race I'd pull out." "It'd be better for my health and I could heal." "It only gets worse riding every day." "The healing process takes longer." "But when you're on the Tour one's riding with a broken collarbone, another with a broken coccyx." "That's the Tour." "It's too important." "You didn't have this kind of mass media back then." "You could only follow the race in the papers." "They started following it in 1903." "It went through unknown regions." "Even if it was just 20 km away, it was foreign to you." "France was enormous." "It was inconceivable that they rode 2500 km!" "Like going to the moon!" "They were superhuman to us." "Jarry's ubermensch probably inspired Desgrange, who was driven by the need to sell newspapers." "He had to create an extreme challenge that the competition couldn't copy." "The Tour de France was born." "The Tour de France became a legend because it was so extreme and because it entered the unknown." "In 1903 there were hardly any cars." "For the first time 60 riders took to roads that had never been used by "civilized" people," "only farmers and their carts." "That's the adventure, the drama." "2500 kilometers in six stages, later 5000 kilometers in 13 or 15 stages as long as 400 km." "It's like going from Les Sables d'Olonnes to Bayonne!" "17 to 20 hours in the saddle, through rain, storms, the terrain." "The extremes were the essence of the Tour and the riders accepted it." "They knew it was their daily bread and it wasn't nearly as hard as the coal mines where some of them came from." "The team time trial is important to us." "Everyone's thinking about it." "It really shows if you're having a bad day." "If you do bad on the team time trial, then you have a problem." "If the other 8 have to wait for you right from the start, that's no good." "Everybody's got that in his head." "We have a lot of respect for it." "You can hide behind the front man now and then, but you gotta go back out in the wind." "That's what gets the good times." "It's really hard work." "Team time trials are hard work, you gotta admit it." "Good, Erik, good." "It's all okay." "Kloedi..." "Yes, hello." "15 seconds faster than Gerolsteiner." "We are 8 seconds faster than Team Once at the 20 kilometer mark." "A light right curve coming up." "Then a left-right combination." "...none of it's a problem." "Rolf, watch out." "Super, Mario." "Come on, let's go!" "You can ride for the win." "Really great!" "You guys can nail this thing here." "There's a highway bridge, then 200 m uphill, 200 m downhill..." "Then there's a traffic circle." "Rolf, fantastic!" "Okay, US Postal is 8 seconds slower." "Bianchi 7 seconds slower." "Good." "Thank you." "Give it everything!" "Come on!" "Go, go, go!" "You rode a great race." "Yes, it's really important to have a good relationship with your room-mate, who is Rolf in my case." "You need to be able to feel you can tell him personal stuff..." "That you can say, "Rolf, I don't know what to do."" "Like last year with McEwen." "After ten days I told him, it didn't matter what I did, I couldn't get past him." "He was faster." "Or Rolf tells me he's scared of the next stage." "And I'll say "Rolf, boy, you ride like a moped." "Who can challenge you?"" "And..." "Yeah, we've been room-mates for eleven years now." "And it's really great." "It's like a sort of marriage." "I know he doesn't snore or anything." "He breathes heavy for half an hour, but then I can get to sleep, too." "You know, things like..." "Who has the TV remote..." "He has the control." "He has the power." "It's all those things." "Jan Ullrich's big come back!" "The green jersey." "Second in the world..." "Robbie McEwen!" "The exertion is the same although it's more comfortable now." "For example, they earn more than they did 30 years ago." "In those days cycling was the worst paid professional sport." "That's really changed." "Today's comforts didn't exist 30 years ago." "But the suffering in the mountains hasn't changed." "Now you can set your watches to Tour de France time with Festina watches!" "The Tour offered the chance to excel." "These men from the mines could change their lives in a month, hit the jackpot." "Desgrange was a humanist..." "He created the Tour to ennoble muscles." "Don't run away." "I have our daughter's new picture on my screen-saver..." "You'll feel a little sting but it'll ease off." "The finale wasn't easy, of course, since..." "I only had Rolf there to help me today, and... the fact that Petacchi is so fast and really... he's so much better than anyone else almost makes it bearable." "It's worse when you're always 2nd or 3rd and a new guy wins every day." "Then you begin to despair, but if you keep on Petacchi's rear wheel, all you can be is 2nd." "Then there are the accidents..." "If you think or do something else..." "Is Finot the one that really took off on the second day?" "Yes." "He has the climber's jersey." "So..." "I'll take this one, yeah?" "You take it a bit higher, right?" "That's probably too much." "It has to be even..." "So, dear Ete..." "Thanks." "Hope you sit comfortably." "Yeah." "You wake up under pressure." "The papers, the bags..." "they have to be ready to go." "Then what's our departure plan?" "Then: breakfast, tactical discussion." "The race is in your head for the day." "Then the starting gun goes." "The Tour is so important that right away, you think, "Where's Erik?"" ""What about drinks?" "What about the opponents?"" "If ten guys break away on the Tour, it's world class." "It'll really hurt to pull them back in, so you try to avoid that by being careful from the start." "It's a pretty big mountain." "We always have a little map of the stage." "We can look at it while riding." "You get put in your place right away on the Tour." "If you have good legs, you're in front." "If not, you're in back." "Yes, 245 kilometers..." "It's all like this, poor surfaces." "You have to get 6 or 7 bottles and drink 3 or 4 liters." "The problem is when the field gets stretched out, let's say, 200 guys, the field is 2 km long." "If you have to get from the back to the front it's tough." "A guy like Erik gets taken care of, no going back and forth." "The others have to get their bottles." "It's not so nice when you're panting away and you hear, "I need a bottle,"" "and you're like, "Okay, okay."" "Sometimes you take advantage of it, take a pee and pick up a bottle." "That's the easiest way." "Hello, Doctor?" "Hello, Doctor!" "Mario Aerts for testing." "You're taller than me." "Are they catching up?" "Yes, they've caught up." "2000 meters to go." "And Erik Zabel is up in front..." "Hard day's work for the guys." "Zabel fell." "That's pretty bad." "No medical check, first left, okay?" "No check, first left." "No check, first left, yeah?" "Strong pain left elbow and right hand." "The doctor hopes nothing's broken." "He scraped up his palm, right through the leather glove." "So he couldn't hold on properly and lost a lot of time." "The other riders couldn't stop 'cause they didn't know about it..." "'Cause of his white jersey, said Aldag, who fell, too." "They were only waiting for Vinokourov who they brought back in." "Erik had to fight it out alone and finished about 5 minutes behind." "I saw something like that before." "It made him really sick to the stomach, and I had to hurry over and open the window." "I said, "Ete, can you stand it?"" "With a brush, he scrubbed his wounds open again" "under the shower, so they really bled." "They were huge." "You should see his thighs, his arms, elbows, on his hand, really deep, near the bone." "I have to say, it was really... impressive." "You take the brush and you practically" "open the cut right up again." "And then it really bleeds out." "Yes and..." "If you just put some ointment on it, to get it all out, then it takes five or six days to get it all out." "It's better that way." "I don't think it'll be as much of a problem as my hand." "It hurts like hell." "As I said, now the suffering begins." "And we're not even in the mountains yet..." "Tyler Hamilton whips his bike into shape." "He just adjusted his saddle and stayed at the car." "Richard Virenque is setting the pace, changing his rhythm now and then." "He's trying to break Rolf Aldag who's hard on his heels." "It's not easy for Richard, but it isn't for Rolf Aldag either." "Amazing to see him so far up front." "Richard rides fast in the mountains, he doesn't worry about his rival, also vying for the yellow jersey." "Virenque speeds up again." "Aldag keeps up with him." "Virenque is riding hard but still sitting down." "The German giant won't be shaken off." "They'll sort it out." "Aldag's coming." "Can he make it through?" "Where's the bus?" " The bus isn't here." "I'd have liked to have won." "Pity that Virenque came from behind." "Every team has a morning meeting and plans to start out in groups." "Someone has to be there the first 30 km." "Sometimes you're going 54, 56 km/h..." "...like in the team's time trials." "But you finish at 70 km there." "Here we had to do 230 km and cope with the cyclist's enemies:" "the mountains." "I thought I should try another 5 km, and if I haven't managed by then," "I'd better stop." "They gave up behind us and we got a bit of a lead." "But..." "For me, we could have finished there." "It would have been enough for the day." "Office of the best climber in the world, Mr. Aldag." "Yeah, we had Mr. 100 000 Volts in the leaders' group today." "It's only 230 km." "I'll pull out after 2 km or so." "Rolf?" "If he'd won today and gotten the yellow jersey, he'd be sleeping outside." "Asshole!" "I know, first he shook off Virenque." "Well, you know..." "You know the old clinger-on!" "The problem is that those dudes" "Virenque and Bettini haven't been in the mountains with Rolf much, otherwise they'd have known he..." "Right." "Rolf thought "He who laughs last."" "He has the climber's jersey tomorrow." "Every spot on this jersey probably cost me a year of my life," "I'd say." "And there are a lot of spots on it." "If I hadn't gotten this, they'd say, "What the hell were you doing?" "You fool around up front and then they lose you?"" "You can't get away with that here." "You'd get a lot of crap for it." "And I don't need any more crap." "I don't need that again." "It's not my thing." "When you realise how important this event is..." "I forgot to turn off my cell phone." "I got 27 calls while I was out." "I never get that many in a month!" "And, like, 15 text messages, too." "Yeah, that was pretty feeble." "22 minutes behind Rolf." "Behind such a weakling!" "The way he took off, I thought he'd be done after 30 km." "Barely touching the handlebars..." "It hurts just to look at it, it's a nightmare." "And he takes off, almost falling off." "That's the difference." "I didn't give a shit about your broken rib last year!" "Just you wait!" "Okay, let's pack up this shit and we'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all be just a bad dream with this polka dot shirt here." "Rolf Aldag has to pay the price for his big ride yesterday, but that's part of the game." "Jan Ullrich's determined look." "And surprisingly still up there, the man with the broken collarbone, Tyler Hamilton." "Unbelievable, but he's done this once before, in the Giro d'ltalia 2 years ago." " He rode the whole tour, won second place, and then went to the doctor." "Then they found out he'd broken his collarbone." "Tyler Hamilton's pain threshold is unbelievable." "He was in good shape then..." "Anyone who stands out in a Tour, who makes it to the end, wins a stage or wins the Tour, is told to make something of it." "He'd open a store, call it the "Tour de France" or a café, like many Belgians did, called "The Yellow Jersey."" "The Tour de France changed their lives." "On the passes they take a newspaper to protect themselves from the cold." "Then it's 90 km/h downhill." "Cycling is what it is today thanks to the Tour de France." "It has always set the standards." "The Tour determines the parameters." "It's gone past Tourmalet 70 times." "It's beyond compare." "It's an insane challenge." "Even with better conditions, it's extreme." "People are fascinated." "The Tour de France takes place in the world's biggest stadium." "Not like the stadiums of Munich or Mexico, which are very pretty, but not especially big." "The stadium for the Tour is France, the mountains, the plains, Brittany." "The ideal place for great endeavors." "He has to see where he can land." "Oh, here comes Armstrong again." "Did he get him?" " Now he's back." " This isn't good." "Oh, wow!" "He's making his mark, he's a long way off." "I always respected the mountains." "But this year I was afraid." "That's the difference." "You need to respect them... otherwise you're not prepared to torture yourself, but it's something else when you're afraid of the mountains, when you say, "I absolutely have to get over that mountain" "or I have no chance of staying in the time limit."" "Or, "Oh, God, if they take off too fast, they'll shake me off." "Then I won't be able to catch up." "And even if I make the finish line," "I'll be paying for it the next day," and so on." "As a cyclist, you shouldn't think too much." "If you worry about it all, you'll never make it." "But if you're susceptible to it, then you start thinking." "And that's not good." "Rolf overdid it yesterday with that big assault of his." "Of course the crash meant I had to give up my dreams from one second to the next." "There's no way I'll win a stage now or get the green jersey." "The crash changed all that." "It's more likely" "I'll be telling Eule or Rolf, "There's no way."" "Congratulations to the team." "Yesterday was a great performance." "About today's route:" "It's starts after about 4 km." "Goes up for 34 km." "The mountains are at 38 km." "After that, the l`lzoard is pretty horrible, 'cause it's so uneven." "The race is hard enough and then if you have problems, too, with your body, or something..." "I can barely ride standing up now and if they take off at the beginning..." "The pain is huge." "Yesterday I got a shot, but it didn't help much." "I feel my backside everyday now." "See if I make it today." "Tomorrow is a flat stage." "Then we'll see." "Wait, put it away, I'll give you another." "A trophy!" " From Alessio!" "Take a picture." "The athletes come to the audience on the Tour and treat them like nobility." "And the whole thing's free!" "The riders..." "Hinault, Lapize, Indurain and Armstrong come to you, the regular guy, the loser, the metro commuter." "Cycling is the only sport that ennobles its audience." "Did he pass any more?" "Is he with McEwen or still riding alone?" "We're here behind" "Andreas Kloeden and he's dropped out." "Right now, his back pains are so bad that... he could hardly get up the hill." "He's seen the Tour doctors twice." "They did all they could, but..." "He's not good." "He's dropped out." "We're at about 30 km and he's sitting in the clean-up van." "Okay, it's a pity, but if he can't, he can't..." "If the pain is so bad then he can't go on." "I'll tell the catering van to pick him up there." "The worst part is riding in the damn clean-up van..." "You pass all the spectators at 5 km/h." "You just want to pull your hat down so nobody sees you." "But there's no way round it." "What can I do?" "Alexandre Vinokourov is 1. 17 behind in the overall classification." "But you don't win the Tour on one day." "You can move up, bit by bit, like Alexandre Vinokourov." "20 seconds ahead of Armstrong." "Watch out on the descent." "He's an excellent time trial rider, maybe not as strong as Armstrong, but strong enough." "Maybe somebody or other will attack in the Pyrenees and then he can react..." "Beloki has fallen." "Just as you were saying, his back-wheel came out." "Armstrong's gone into the field but he's got past." "Amazing!" "Look at that!" "What's he doing now?" "He's taking a short cut across here." "He won't be penalized for that." "He's a real athlete, getting back on and back into the group like that." "The disappointment written all over his face." "The deep disappointment just before the finish in Gap, all of his chances gone." "Alexandre Vinokourov, who took his fate in his hands today..." "He's going to be the winner of the 9th stage here in Gap." "Vinokourov now only needs 20 seconds to take the lead from Lance Armstrong." "Good one, Vino." "Congratulations." "We won the stage today, but it was me who paid for it probably." "That's how it is sometimes." "Bad luck." "Thanks." "Thanks a lot." "Yes, we'll see." "This is the 1925 Tour de France." "Stay where you are!" "Watch that little girl!" "Yes, but if she goes in the street, then it's your problem." "Don't come crying to me then." "If your daughter gets run over, don't come crying to me." "Then it's your fault." " Smile, you're being filmed!" "Adults have to bear responsibilities." " She won't go in the street." "It's your problem." " It's no reason to yell at the child." "I'm yelling so you'll hear me, whether you like it or not." "Smile, you're on camera." " No problem, sir." "You'll remember me." "I wouldn't want the pressure that Erik has." "For example, on a 200 km stage, a break away group is 8 minutes ahead already, with 70 km to go." "If we want a group sprint, we have to go for it." "So when four of you are told to catch them up, it's, of course..." "You know the 4 sprinters will drop down dead into their hotel beds, and they expect you to pull it off." "I don't envy him for that." "To be a sprinter means you have to ride to the limit." "And you need self-confidence." "If you give it everything you've got and you're bold and it works out, your self-confidence grows and you say, "I'll do that again tomorrow!"" "But when you do everything you can and say, "I'm doing everything right,"" "and you still lose in the end, then you start to lose your courage and your self-confidence." "I have two more chances." "Paris..." "And maybe Bordeaux..." "I'll really have to make sure I... get myself together, so I can perform decently." "On the other hand, you need God on your side, too." "So, Ete, let's roll over, alright?" "We'll put this here." "That's okay." ""Shaving your legs."" "It's better for treating wounds if you ever hit the asphalt." "In my experience, you'll hit it 2 or 3 times a tour." "As we saw, almost everyone went down in the first week of the Tour." "It makes changing the bandages a bit easier." "It's kinda sick that I shave to be prepared for the worst, but the other reason is the massages." "They really knead you hard and if you haven't shaved for a week," "then you're gonna look all pimply because your follicles get infected." "That's unpleasant and ugly." "You get addicted or insatiable..." "You say, "God, I know you got better things to do, but gimme 1 more year."" "I've said that a few years now!" "And I wouldn't be mad if he said sometime, "Enough."" "Someone else can take the helm." "Baden Cooke or who knows who... or Petacchi..." "I wouldn't mind that so much, but I'd still love to be in the running one more time." "Theoretically, it's half-time." "But there are 2 time trials now where you can't come in later than 30% over the winner's time, not much of a problem." "Then there's the Paris stage." "It's not very stressful." "First a bit of slow riding and then..." "You don't care in Paris, anyway." "With so many spectators..." "You're so motivated, you can do anything." "If you count those 3 stages, you're already more than halfway." "And so you've just gotta believe the story you've told yourself." "You've boosted your morale." "Thanks, Erik." "Then you get fans with their flags, waiting on top of their caravans." "I'm thinking, "This really sucks, and a head wind, to boot."" ""Down in the valley," I thought, "it'll be better."" "But all the rough asphalt and stuff..." "I did get rolling, once, that was okay." "And then around the next corner, boom!" "The next damn thing..." "That gets on your nerves." "It really drains your bones." "Ete, I'll freshen you up." "You're going back now." " I thought I was gonna lose it." "Every time I got up to speed, I came up over a rise," "I pulled myself out of the saddle, down, then came the next dip." "Mind my hand." " Yes." "Y'know, every time I got up to 50, 52, 53..." "I thought, "Yes, yes!" Then down a dip... back to 38." "You know what?" " What?" " Today was the first time, the first time trial since the time Bjarne threw his bike away?" " No, when he won the Tour." "Just like that Seraing-Lüttich time trial, I thought I'd miss the limit today." "You serious?" "Yes, I was focusing on trying to keep my average speed up." "I got up to 42 km/h out there." "You keeping those pants on?" " Yes, I'll keep 'em." "An average of 42." "You know how bad that is?" "Should I tell you something?" "The worst part is that Rolf's faster even with a cold, and that's not a good sign." "Some water on the towel?" "You couldn't breathe, right?" "The coughing hurts so much." "Big guy, that doesn't sound good." "At least you can breathe again." " It's better now." "What about tomorrow in the Pyrenees?" " They'll have to go slower." "It's a long way to the mountains." "They can lose me there, but I'll make it." "You'll make it." "The day after tomorrow decides:" "can I make it to Paris or not?" "So..." "I'd say they were at their limit." "Rolf has a cold, and with the bronchitis, it's tough." "Rolf is..." "What can I say?" "I'm worried about Paris, whether he can make it." "First:" "Jan Ullrich!" "58 minutes, 32 seconds!" "Second:" "Lance Armstrong!" "I always said he'd make a comeback." "No question." "When his head's clear, he'll be fine." "It looks like he's straightened his head out and now it's okay." "Now we'll see what Vino can do..." "Go, Vino, go!" "The last 10 km!" "The last ten kilometers!" "Vino, you've already made up a minute." "One minute on Mayo." "Curve to the left now." "Watch out, left-hand curve." "Vino, congratulations." "Very good." "For me, suffering has two meanings." "Suffering can be negative." "If you try to suffer for its own sake, that's bad." "That's unhealthy." "There's something wrong in your head." "But when you talk about suffering that you must get through and that you can survive through enormous effort, that is something else." "That is positive, good and beautiful." "Beautiful because you think of courage, of stamina," "Ioyalty, the willingness to make sacrifices, modesty and love." "From this perspective, the suffering during training, during sporting competitions, while doing one's job, which all require great effort, is the same as religious suffering." "It is love." "It is beautiful." "I like that." "Starting in 1906, 1907, the riders had tire pumps with them." "But the rules forbade sharing them." "But someone like François Faber, who was a great rider, and a generous man, when he saw a competitor had no pump or no inner tubes left, he would very discreetly drop his pump on the side of the road so the other wouldn't be penalized." "These things happened." "The Tour has always been a story about men, great ones and lesser ones." "If the boss gets a flat, and everyone keeps going anyway, it's bad for his morale." "There's no question, I just have to put my own interests aside and wait." "I owe so many of my successes to Rolf, where he absolutely sacrificed himself and gave everything... everything he could in the balance." "That really binds you, and..." "Rolf is the kind of guy you can absolutely trust." "You know that when we ride, we ride right, without hesitation, he won't be looking out for himself." "You can never repay someone for that." "You can say stuff like," ""I'll never forget you for that,"" "but you can never give it back." "Sure it's our job and we're paid to ride well, but it's also true that when you're together for so long it's more than that." "Vinokourov tries to make a break..." "Ullrich tries to keep up..." "Here comes Haimar Zubeldia!" "...and now there's Carlos Sastre!" "Zubeldia goes past!" "Ullrich is coming now, he's in the last curve!" "The German has crossed the finish line." "One minute, one second!" "There's Zubeldia." "Here comes the American, Armstrong, as though it were nothing..." "Ullrich has this natural class." "We could never... never come close." "We can train as much as we want." "We train well, too." "The two of us, Rolf and I, we really train a lot and do everything for the sport and live for it." "But where we can't go further, especially in the mountains, "Ulle" is just getting started." "He just has a natural gift from God." "This gift..." "He has it, Armstrong has it, and maybe 2 or 3 others." "Actually it's nice to see he's found it in himself again." "The most important goal is to defend Vino's position." "I think this is the toughest and most decisive stage of the Tour." "The idea is to keep Vino up with "Ulle" and Armstrong..." "My God, today is hard core." "But we were born for this really." "On days like this we try to make the impossible happen somehow or other." "If I don't have a disastrous day, I'll finish the stage somehow." "I'll keep up for two mountains and with luck manage the third." "Then there's the fourth one and the fifth and I'll lose eight minutes getting up the fifth and maybe 6 minutes the one before." "I'll get in maybe 15 minutes late." "Home clean." "Today's one of those days that I can't stand, and I ask myself why..." "Look at this shit." "Oh, la la..." "Why didn't I become a surfer?" "You're always afraid that you won't finish a stage, and those are the days you start and you get out the rule book where all the coefficients are, together with the rest times, at what speed, whar percent you're allowed to have..." "Often, you get a motivational kick on those days when you calculate, "Man, 35 minutes today." "It'll be tight." And you say," ""No matter what, I have to get over this mountain."" "And when you've been left behind, 5 km from the peak, you know you gotta give it your all, everything, up and down." "You have to catch up." "If I'm not with the field at the bottom it's over." "And somehow it works." "You have to concentrate..." "Going downhill, too." "The problem is when you're so punchdrunk that your eyes cross, of course you ride down like a mouse, because you've lost your confidence and you can't manage a single turn." "McEwen was in trouble briefly, but now he's back with the field." "Virenque was up front, did you see?" "Did you see Ulle?" "Super!" "Let's get into the pub to see this!" "Vino, three kilometers to go." "Careful, the last 2 km are tough." "He's riding past..." "Super, Vino." "Nardo's there." "Nardo's waiting for you!" "45 seconds back." "You'll get behind the leaders, 1 minute, 40 seconds." "Go, Vino!" "We have 10 seconds already!" "The distance between him and Armstrong will be interesting." "Fifth place is at stake." "Vinokourov gives his all!" "The clock is ticking." "He had 40 seconds." "So now he has 30, 33, 34..." "Congratulations." "I had no legs today." "Without legs you can't stay out front." "I got some cramps already halfway." "The last two kilometers killed me." "At your speed, I could've done one kilometer, maybe." "But you just kept going like hell!" "The finale was tough, but I really admire Vino's stamina." "It's impressive when he passes you like that." "Almost like a motorcycle." "Yesterday I wanted to give up." "I was totally wrecked." "But today I was right up in front with the best, it was super." "Everybody called me." ""Super!" "It went great!"" "Good-night." "Today's great performance..." "Lance Armstrong, the yellow jersey." "...with a time of 4 hours, 29 minutes and 26 seconds." "A look at the clock..." "Vinokourov is now 2 minutes, 7 seconds behind Lance Armstrong." "Apparently an even bigger rival than yesterday," "Jan Ullrich rode a great stage under difficult conditions." "In the 1923 Tour de France, the roads weren't paved and were full of ruts." "Stones shot out from under the wheels and could shoot into your eyes." "If a rider took off his dusty glasses, the stones could do him in." "That happened to Honoré Barthélémy." "He lost his eye that way." "In the 1924 Tour, he took his eye out sometimes and those who didn't know it was made of glass, wondered what was going on." "Anytime it bothered him, he replaced it with cotton wool." "When people on the roadside saw the hole filled with cotton wool, they were shocked." "I think the older you get, the more of a wimp you become." "Sure, everybody's busted open their knees and elbows a thousand times and you know how it all hurts." "But... if you think about that in a descent, then you'll ride down badly." "You'll brake 10 meters sooner and not with the speed you really could ride with." "It's more like the other way around." "You ride down like a madman and when you're down below, you think, "Oh my God, if a car had been behind a curve somewhere 'cause someone had a flat tire..."" "or if your tire had burst or something..." "For God's sake!" "But you only think of it afterwards." "If you worry about traffic behind every corner and you sneak around and worry, the others will be 2 km ahead of you." "Sitting in the hotel room you wonder, "Is it smart going down a hill at 95 km/h on 2.5 centimeter tires with a classic wire pull brake?" You'll say to yourself," ""It's not smart."" "But in a race situation you don't worry about it." "That was one of the most impressive Tour performances:" "Tyler Hamilton, who hurt himself the first day, wins the last mountain stage of the 2003 Tour de France." "Hamilton really took off in front, like a motorcycle." "Everyone just shook their heads." "They couldn't believe it." "When I caught up with the field there were about 55 km to go." "I didn't take a radio today, 'cause I didn't think I'd be in contact with the leaders." "I asked somebody, "What's the situation?"" "They said Hamilton was up front with 5 minutes lead." "Behind him were three more." "He said we'd catch them up, they were just ahead of us." "Groups of ten kept trying to catch him and every ten kilometers they fell back, exhausted." "It was wild." "And he still came in 2 minutes ahead." "I've seen a lot, but that was really over the top today." "Vinokourov attacked at the Col de la Ramaz, first mountain stage, behind Mayo at Alpe d'Huez, in Gap, where he won, and on the Plateau de Bonascre, where he got left behind and once again in Peyresourde." "After that he was tired and just had to keep up on the Tourmalet and at Luz-Ardiden." "Vinokourow, from Kazakhstan, winner of this year's Paris-Nice stage, winner of the Amstel Gold Race and the Tour de Suisse." "It's his best professional season, even if he says 2003 is a black year because he lost his friend Andrei Kivilev." "Surprises are the order of the day on the 2003 Tour de France." "Ullrich was 2 minutes 10 behind Armstrong after Alpe d'Huez, got within 15 seconds and lost time again before Luz-Ardiden." "On the Tourmalet he passed Armstrong, but he couldn't shake him off, and in the end was passed by the American." "Here comes Lance Armstrong." "Jan Ullrich is starting, coming down the ramp in high gear to gain speed as fast as possible." "In bad weather, the rain hinders vision." "Most riders wear glasses to protect their eyes." "Lance Armstrong starts in 10 seconds." "He pointed out he's never lost the last time trial." "Here we go, 49 km Pornic to Nantes, to defend the yellow jersey." "Armstrong wants to win this stage, not just for the yellow jersey, but to show that Ullrich hasn't ridden better than him in the 2003 Tour." "Ullrich seems to want to prove the opposite the first lead, but Armstrong's coming back..." "Jan Ullrich is a little bit faster." "24 seconds." " 24 second lead over Ullrich." "21.9..." " 21.9, not quite two seconds." "...forcing him to take risks." "That must be a possibility, both of them are giving their all, a neck-and-neck race," "Armstrong slightly ahead..." "Oh, God!" "The fall didn't decide the Tour." "Now he's out of the picture." "So Armstrong's 10 seconds faster than... 10 seconds behind Armstrong?" " Yes." "War is over." "I just said to the doc, it's back to everyday life now." "The last day and then..." "If I had the choice now between going to the hotel or riding, I'd ride." "Always a good sign." "In Paris you go beyond your limits." "You think you can't go on but then..." "You really get into it." "It's the huge crowds..." "If you like, the lap is 6.5 km, the biggest race track in the world." "So many spectators and stuff..." "Crazy!" "It's an important stage, and maybe another nice chance." "Everyone says, "There'll be a breakaway group, I'll stay with it."" "Show yourself once more." "For the first three on the podium it's a real "tour d'honneur."" "And everyone else is really hoping to score the big coup." "...Erik Zabel, O'Grady and Damien Nazon..." "Hushovd tries to overtake!" "Baden Cooke," "Robbie McEwen..." "And now..." "What a finish!" "It's great." "I have my first Tour de France behind me." "It is such a great experience." "I'm overjoyed." "All of the stress of the last three weeks is gone." "I have goose bumps." "I'm calm now." "I'm really very happy." "It was hard." "As usual." " But we knew it'd be hard." "The first live interview comes now." "At the end of the Tour de France." "Imagine how much oxygen you have left for answers." "There's this rhythm between high tension and stress and then this complete release." "Three weeks living on the extreme..." "It's like conquering Everest for a mountain climber." "For a cyclist, the goal is to race in the Tour de France." "And the peak of the mountain is to be successful in it." "Nine years and no stages won." "It'd be great to say I'd almost made it a couple of times." "Winning a stage makes you a little immortal in cycling." "That's what you're measured by." "The first goal is, of course, to make it all the way to Paris, because it's the toughest race there is for professional cyclists." "Anyone who hasn't ridden a bike for so long themselves can't understand how it is..." "Only the best survive." "That's for sure." "The Tour really gets going after 14 days, that's when it splits up." "Anyone can hold out 10 or 14 days... giving it everything." "But that's when it really takes off." "Then the best come shining through." "The Tour de France is the biggest sporting event in the world." "Bigger than the Olympic Games or the soccer World Cup." "The Tour de France is bigger than them both." "The Games are nothing in comparison." "Which Olympics?" "Los Angeles?" "Berlin?" "Paris?" "Tokyo?" "Mexico City?" "Nobody knows." "The Tour de France has existed in France since 1903." "Ninety times." "It has roots." "The Olympics doesn't exist." "The World Cup doesn't exist." "The Tour does." "That's why we love cycling." "We saw the Tour de France as kids and with our kids." "Passing down that passion for it makes it unique." "It is France: the mountains, the plains, Brittany..." "It's the ideal venue for great endeavors." "HELL ON WHEELS" "Three... two... one..." "Go!" "Up there, you usually have a minute." "The guy in front starts and you start a minute later." "For me, that's the longest minute of the tour, that minute when you're up there, pulling on your suit, opening your zipper, pushing back your helmet, pulling up your pants and pulling up your socks." "You open and close the velcro on your shoes four or five times..." "That's the stuff you kinda keep yourself busy with up there." "But as soon as you hit that asphalt down below nothing else matters..." "Your pulse is skyrocketing, towards 200." "...eight minutes and seven seconds." "That is Rolf Aldag's time." "Behind him..." "And there, 50 meters before the finish line, the German champion Erik Zabel." "The prologue..." "for me it's just a kind of warm-up 'cause I know I can only lose and that I will lose." "So you just say to yourself," "I'll try to keep the gap as small as possible." "...First winner of the tour, Australian wins prologue, 7.26 is the yellow jersey." "For Telekom, Columbian Botero ninth." "So, Rolf, you want our rank?" "It'll take three more text messages." "The Tour is three weeks of hard work." "Stress, fun... suffering, all at a time." "Some days it's really fun, 'cause it's going well, maybe you're having some success and those are the nice days." "And on other days..." "Suddenly you have a bad moment and you go through hell." "But you never know first thing." "On some mountain stages you think it's gonna be hard, gonna be tight." "Other times, you can have a great day and you ride right over without any stress at all." "Other days, you think, "Flat stage." "No problem."" "And they're all going so fast and you just have to hold on." "That's what's nice about the Tour." "It's unpredictable." "France is shaped like a hexagon which is a synonym for..." "Erik Zabel has bike problems!" "10 km from the finish!" "The worst possible moment for Erik Zabel to face such a thing." "They're coming together... is it too late for someone to make a break?" "Any moment now someone could try and go it alone, to break from the field." "We've got a real magenta express here." "They're working together for their best man on the flat stretch, their captain..." "Here he comes, led by Nardello..." "They're all there." "And a fall!" "But Zabel's still there!" "He's okay!" "Pollack is still there in the back." "Haselbacher's there at the front." "sprinting with Gerolsteiner..." "Zabel is third from right." "Zabel's coming!" "Unstoppable!" "Erik Zabel!" "No, it was Petacchi, the winner of 6 Giro stages." "Here's a look at the fall that's holding the field up." "It's Jimmy Casper." "He really hurt himself." "Could be the nasal bone." "What's this?" "The zygomatic bone?" "Yeah, zygomatic or nasal bone..." "It's easy to do." "On the Tour de France it always happens on the first stage." "It's so dangerous with all the stuff lying in the middle of the road." "Yes." "Yesterday Walter said we want to get through with all nine." "So, Kloedi..." "I was at the back and got a little of what was happening." "I managed to climb round on the right." "As they say in Flemish, I had to admire the battle victims." "Of course, it wasn't pleasant." "Kloedi was out of it on the fence but..." "Kloedi's got cotton in his nose now." "Yes, a little cut on his head, but..." "His head hit the wires at 50." "As you can imagine, that's not very nice." "Then you know that poor bugger Kloedi's got a hard night ahead of him." "It hurts everywhere." "You can only sleep on your front." "It hurts when you roll over." "You mess up the sheets." "It's really bad." "I really wasn't trying to keep up with the sprint." "I got pulled into the crash which makes it even more annoying." "My face is all bruised now and a cut back there and stuff..." "Like I've had a run-in with a boxer." "I should be happy that I even..." "I have bruises everywhere, back there on my shoulder and here and on my leg." "I look like a piece of meat, but..." "Everyone taking part knows the risks." "You can't calculate or plan it." "It's just there." "Yeah..." "But you always think you're going to get away with it." "Lance Armstrong consoles Hamilton, a good friend of his, who's broken his collarbone." "He's earned a big applause!" "Yesterday he got hurt in the crash..." "Today he's riding again..." "You check your body 'cause it stings everywhere." "If it was a normal race I'd pull out." "It'd be better for my health and I could heal." "It only gets worse riding every day." "The healing process takes longer." "But when you're on the Tour one's riding with a broken collarbone, another with a broken coccyx." "That's the Tour." "It's too important." "You didn't have this kind of mass media back then." "You could only follow the race in the papers." "They started following it in 1903." "It went through unknown regions." "Even if it was just 20 km away, it was foreign to you." "France was enormous." "It was inconceivable that they rode 2500 km!" "Like going to the moon!" "They were superhuman to us." "Jarry's ubermensch probably inspired Desgrange, who was driven by the need to sell newspapers." "He had to create an extreme challenge that the competition couldn't copy." "The Tour de France was born." "The Tour de France became a legend because it was so extreme and because it entered the unknown." "In 1903 there were hardly any cars." "For the first time 60 riders took to roads that had never been used by "civilized" people," "only farmers and their carts." "That's the adventure, the drama." "2500 kilometers in six stages, later 5000 kilometers in 13 or 15 stages as long as 400 km." "It's like going from Les Sables d'Olonnes to Bayonne!" "17 to 20 hours in the saddle, through rain, storms, the terrain." "The extremes were the essence of the Tour and the riders accepted it." "They knew it was their daily bread and it wasn't nearly as hard as the coal mines where some of them came from." "The team time trial is important to us." "Everyone's thinking about it." "It really shows if you're having a bad day." "If you do bad on the team time trial, then you have a problem." "If the other 8 have to wait for you right from the start, that's no good." "Everybody's got that in his head." "We have a lot of respect for it." "You can hide behind the front man now and then, but you gotta go back out in the wind." "That's what gets the good times." "It's really hard work." "Team time trials are hard work, you gotta admit it." "Good, Erik, good." "It's all okay." "Kloedi..." "Yes, hello." "15 seconds faster than Gerolsteiner." "We are 8 seconds faster than Team Once at the 20 kilometer mark." "A light right curve coming up." "Then a left-right combination." "...none of it's a problem." "Rolf, watch out." "Super, Mario." "Come on, let's go!" "You can ride for the win." "Really great!" "You guys can nail this thing here." "There's a highway bridge, then 200 m uphill, 200 m downhill..." "Then there's a traffic circle." "Rolf, fantastic!" "Okay, US Postal is 8 seconds slower." "Bianchi 7 seconds slower." "Good." "Thank you." "Give it everything!" "Come on!" "Go, go, go!" "You rode a great race." "Yes, it's really important to have a good relationship with your room-mate, who is Rolf in my case." "You need to be able to feel you can tell him personal stuff..." "That you can say, "Rolf, I don't know what to do."" "Like last year with McEwen." "After ten days I told him, it didn't matter what I did, I couldn't get past him." "He was faster." "Or Rolf tells me he's scared of the next stage." "And I'll say "Rolf, boy, you ride like a moped." "Who can challenge you?"" "And..." "Yeah, we've been room-mates for eleven years now." "And it's really great." "It's like a sort of marriage." "I know he doesn't snore or anything." "He breathes heavy for half an hour, but then I can get to sleep, too." "You know, things like..." "Who has the TV remote..." "He has the control." "He has the power." "It's all those things." "Jan Ullrich's big come back!" "The green jersey." "Second in the world..." "Robbie McEwen!" "The exertion is the same although it's more comfortable now." "For example, they earn more than they did 30 years ago." "In those days cycling was the worst paid professional sport." "That's really changed." "Today's comforts didn't exist 30 years ago." "But the suffering in the mountains hasn't changed." "Now you can set your watches to Tour de France time with Festina watches!" "The Tour offered the chance to excel." "These men from the mines could change their lives in a month, hit the jackpot." "Desgrange was a humanist..." "He created the Tour to ennoble muscles." "Don't run away." "I have our daughter's new picture on my screen-saver..." "You'll feel a little sting but it'll ease off." "The finale wasn't easy, of course, since..." "I only had Rolf there to help me today, and... the fact that Petacchi is so fast and really... he's so much better than anyone else almost makes it bearable." "It's worse when you're always 2nd or 3rd and a new guy wins every day." "Then you begin to despair, but if you keep on Petacchi's rear wheel, all you can be is 2nd." "Then there are the accidents..." "If you think or do something else..." "Is Finot the one that really took off on the second day?" "Yes." "He has the climber's jersey." "So..." "I'll take this one, yeah?" "You take it a bit higher, right?" "That's probably too much." "It has to be even..." "So, dear Ete..." "Thanks." "Hope you sit comfortably." "Yeah." "You wake up under pressure." "The papers, the bags..." "they have to be ready to go." "Then what's our departure plan?" "Then: breakfast, tactical discussion." "The race is in your head for the day." "Then the starting gun goes." "The Tour is so important that right away, you think, "Where's Erik?"" ""What about drinks?" "What about the opponents?"" "If ten guys break away on the Tour, it's world class." "It'll really hurt to pull them back in, so you try to avoid that by being careful from the start." "It's a pretty big mountain." "We always have a little map of the stage." "We can look at it while riding." "You get put in your place right away on the Tour." "If you have good legs, you're in front." "If not, you're in back." "Yes, 245 kilometers..." "It's all like this, poor surfaces." "You have to get 6 or 7 bottles and drink 3 or 4 liters." "The problem is when the field gets stretched out, let's say, 200 guys, the field is 2 km long." "If you have to get from the back to the front it's tough." "A guy like Erik gets taken care of, no going back and forth." "The others have to get their bottles." "It's not so nice when you're panting away and you hear, "I need a bottle,"" "and you're like, "Okay, okay."" "Sometimes you take advantage of it, take a pee and pick up a bottle." "That's the easiest way." "Hello, Doctor?" "Hello, Doctor!" "Mario Aerts for testing." "You're taller than me." "Are they catching up?" "Yes, they've caught up." "2000 meters to go." "And Erik Zabel is up in front..." "Hard day's work for the guys." "Zabel fell." "That's pretty bad." "No medical check, first left, okay?" "No check, first left." "No check, first left, yeah?" "Strong pain left elbow and right hand." "The doctor hopes nothing's broken." "He scraped up his palm, right through the leather glove." "So he couldn't hold on properly and lost a lot of time." "The other riders couldn't stop 'cause they didn't know about it..." "'Cause of his white jersey, said Aldag, who fell, too." "They were only waiting for Vinokourov who they brought back in." "Erik had to fight it out alone and finished about 5 minutes behind." "I saw something like that before." "It made him really sick to the stomach, and I had to hurry over and open the window." "I said, "Ete, can you stand it?"" "With a brush, he scrubbed his wounds open again" "under the shower, so they really bled." "They were huge." "You should see his thighs, his arms, elbows, on his hand, really deep, near the bone." "I have to say, it was really... impressive." "You take the brush and you practically" "open the cut right up again." "And then it really bleeds out." "Yes and..." "If you just put some ointment on it, to get it all out, then it takes five or six days to get it all out." "It's better that way." "I don't think it'll be as much of a problem as my hand." "It hurts like hell." "As I said, now the suffering begins." "And we're not even in the mountains yet..." "Tyler Hamilton whips his bike into shape." "He just adjusted his saddle and stayed at the car." "Richard Virenque is setting the pace, changing his rhythm now and then." "He's trying to break Rolf Aldag who's hard on his heels." "It's not easy for Richard, but it isn't for Rolf Aldag either." "Amazing to see him so far up front." "Richard rides fast in the mountains, he doesn't worry about his rival, also vying for the yellow jersey." "Virenque speeds up again." "Aldag keeps up with him." "Virenque is riding hard but still sitting down." "The German giant won't be shaken off." "They'll sort it out." "Aldag's coming." "Can he make it through?" "Where's the bus?" " The bus isn't here." "I'd have liked to have won." "Pity that Virenque came from behind." "Every team has a morning meeting and plans to start out in groups." "Someone has to be there the first 30 km." "Sometimes you're going 54, 56 km/h..." "...like in the team's time trials." "But you finish at 70 km there." "Here we had to do 230 km and cope with the cyclist's enemies:" "the mountains." "I thought I should try another 5 km, and if I haven't managed by then," "I'd better stop." "They gave up behind us and we got a bit of a lead." "But..." "For me, we could have finished there." "It would have been enough for the day." "Office of the best climber in the world, Mr. Aldag." "Yeah, we had Mr. 100 000 Volts in the leaders' group today." "It's only 230 km." "I'll pull out after 2 km or so." "Rolf?" "If he'd won today and gotten the yellow jersey, he'd be sleeping outside." "Asshole!" "I know, first he shook off Virenque." "Well, you know..." "You know the old clinger-on!" "The problem is that those dudes" "Virenque and Bettini haven't been in the mountains with Rolf much, otherwise they'd have known he..." "Right." "Rolf thought "He who laughs last."" "He has the climber's jersey tomorrow." "Every spot on this jersey probably cost me a year of my life," "I'd say." "And there are a lot of spots on it." "If I hadn't gotten this, they'd say, "What the hell were you doing?" "You fool around up front and then they lose you?"" "You can't get away with that here." "You'd get a lot of crap for it." "And I don't need any more crap." "I don't need that again." "It's not my thing." "When you realise how important this event is..." "I forgot to turn off my cell phone." "I got 27 calls while I was out." "I never get that many in a month!" "And, like, 15 text messages, too." "Yeah, that was pretty feeble." "22 minutes behind Rolf." "Behind such a weakling!" "The way he took off, I thought he'd be done after 30 km." "Barely touching the handlebars..." "It hurts just to look at it, it's a nightmare." "And he takes off, almost falling off." "That's the difference." "I didn't give a shit about your broken rib last year!" "Just you wait!" "Okay, let's pack up this shit and we'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all be just a bad dream with this polka dot shirt here." "Rolf Aldag has to pay the price for his big ride yesterday, but that's part of the game." "Jan Ullrich's determined look." "And surprisingly still up there, the man with the broken collarbone, Tyler Hamilton." "Unbelievable, but he's done this once before, in the Giro d'ltalia 2 years ago." " He rode the whole tour, won second place, and then went to the doctor." "Then they found out he'd broken his collarbone." "Tyler Hamilton's pain threshold is unbelievable." "He was in good shape then..." "Anyone who stands out in a Tour, who makes it to the end, wins a stage or wins the Tour, is told to make something of it." "He'd open a store, call it the "Tour de France" or a café, like many Belgians did, called "The Yellow Jersey."" "The Tour de France changed their lives." "On the passes they take a newspaper to protect themselves from the cold." "Then it's 90 km/h downhill." "Cycling is what it is today thanks to the Tour de France." "It has always set the standards." "The Tour determines the parameters." "It's gone past Tourmalet 70 times." "It's beyond compare." "It's an insane challenge." "Even with better conditions, it's extreme." "People are fascinated." "The Tour de France takes place in the world's biggest stadium." "Not like the stadiums of Munich or Mexico, which are very pretty, but not especially big." "The stadium for the Tour is France, the mountains, the plains, Brittany." "The ideal place for great endeavors." "He has to see where he can land." "Oh, here comes Armstrong again." "Did he get him?" " Now he's back." " This isn't good." "Oh, wow!" "He's making his mark, he's a long way off." "I always respected the mountains." "But this year I was afraid." "That's the difference." "You need to respect them... otherwise you're not prepared to torture yourself, but it's something else when you're afraid of the mountains, when you say, "I absolutely have to get over that mountain" "or I have no chance of staying in the time limit."" "Or, "Oh, God, if they take off too fast, they'll shake me off." "Then I won't be able to catch up." "And even if I make the finish line," "I'll be paying for it the next day," and so on." "As a cyclist, you shouldn't think too much." "If you worry about it all, you'll never make it." "But if you're susceptible to it, then you start thinking." "And that's not good." "Rolf overdid it yesterday with that big assault of his." "Of course the crash meant I had to give up my dreams from one second to the next." "There's no way I'll win a stage now or get the green jersey." "The crash changed all that." "It's more likely" "I'll be telling Eule or Rolf, "There's no way."" "Congratulations to the team." "Yesterday was a great performance." "About today's route:" "It's starts after about 4 km." "Goes up for 34 km." "The mountains are at 38 km." "After that, the l`lzoard is pretty horrible, 'cause it's so uneven." "The race is hard enough and then if you have problems, too, with your body, or something..." "I can barely ride standing up now and if they take off at the beginning..." "The pain is huge." "Yesterday I got a shot, but it didn't help much." "I feel my backside everyday now." "See if I make it today." "Tomorrow is a flat stage." "Then we'll see." "Wait, put it away, I'll give you another." "A trophy!" " From Alessio!" "Take a picture." "The athletes come to the audience on the Tour and treat them like nobility." "And the whole thing's free!" "The riders..." "Hinault, Lapize, Indurain and Armstrong come to you, the regular guy, the loser, the metro commuter." "Cycling is the only sport that ennobles its audience." "Did he pass any more?" "Is he with McEwen or still riding alone?" "We're here behind" "Andreas Kloeden and he's dropped out." "Right now, his back pains are so bad that... he could hardly get up the hill." "He's seen the Tour doctors twice." "They did all they could, but..." "He's not good." "He's dropped out." "We're at about 30 km and he's sitting in the clean-up van." "Okay, it's a pity, but if he can't, he can't..." "If the pain is so bad then he can't go on." "I'll tell the catering van to pick him up there." "The worst part is riding in the damn clean-up van..." "You pass all the spectators at 5 km/h." "You just want to pull your hat down so nobody sees you." "But there's no way round it." "What can I do?" "Alexandre Vinokourov is 1. 17 behind in the overall classification." "But you don't win the Tour on one day." "You can move up, bit by bit, like Alexandre Vinokourov." "20 seconds ahead of Armstrong." "Watch out on the descent." "He's an excellent time trial rider, maybe not as strong as Armstrong, but strong enough." "Maybe somebody or other will attack in the Pyrenees and then he can react..." "Beloki has fallen." "Just as you were saying, his back-wheel came out." "Armstrong's gone into the field but he's got past." "Amazing!" "Look at that!" "What's he doing now?" "He's taking a short cut across here." "He won't be penalized for that." "He's a real athlete, getting back on and back into the group like that." "The disappointment written all over his face." "The deep disappointment just before the finish in Gap, all of his chances gone." "Alexandre Vinokourov, who took his fate in his hands today..." "He's going to be the winner of the 9th stage here in Gap." "Vinokourov now only needs 20 seconds to take the lead from Lance Armstrong." "Good one, Vino." "Congratulations." "We won the stage today, but it was me who paid for it probably." "That's how it is sometimes." "Bad luck." "Thanks." "Thanks a lot." "Yes, we'll see." "This is the 1925 Tour de France." "Stay where you are!" "Watch that little girl!" "Yes, but if she goes in the street, then it's your problem." "Don't come crying to me then." "If your daughter gets run over, don't come crying to me." "Then it's your fault." " Smile, you're being filmed!" "Adults have to bear responsibilities." " She won't go in the street." "It's your problem." " It's no reason to yell at the child." "I'm yelling so you'll hear me, whether you like it or not." "Smile, you're on camera." " No problem, sir." "You'll remember me." "I wouldn't want the pressure that Erik has." "For example, on a 200 km stage, a break away group is 8 minutes ahead already, with 70 km to go." "If we want a group sprint, we have to go for it." "So when four of you are told to catch them up, it's, of course..." "You know the 4 sprinters will drop down dead into their hotel beds, and they expect you to pull it off." "I don't envy him for that." "To be a sprinter means you have to ride to the limit." "And you need self-confidence." "If you give it everything you've got and you're bold and it works out, your self-confidence grows and you say, "I'll do that again tomorrow!"" "But when you do everything you can and say, "I'm doing everything right,"" "and you still lose in the end, then you start to lose your courage and your self-confidence." "I have two more chances." "Paris..." "And maybe Bordeaux..." "I'll really have to make sure I... get myself together, so I can perform decently." "On the other hand, you need God on your side, too." "So, Ete, let's roll over, alright?" "We'll put this here." "That's okay." ""Shaving your legs."" "It's better for treating wounds if you ever hit the asphalt." "In my experience, you'll hit it 2 or 3 times a tour." "As we saw, almost everyone went down in the first week of the Tour." "It makes changing the bandages a bit easier." "It's kinda sick that I shave to be prepared for the worst, but the other reason is the massages." "They really knead you hard and if you haven't shaved for a week," "then you're gonna look all pimply because your follicles get infected." "That's unpleasant and ugly." "You get addicted or insatiable..." "You say, "God, I know you got better things to do, but gimme 1 more year."" "I've said that a few years now!" "And I wouldn't be mad if he said sometime, "Enough."" "Someone else can take the helm." "Baden Cooke or who knows who... or Petacchi..." "I wouldn't mind that so much, but I'd still love to be in the running one more time." "Theoretically, it's half-time." "But there are 2 time trials now where you can't come in later than 30% over the winner's time, not much of a problem." "Then there's the Paris stage." "It's not very stressful." "First a bit of slow riding and then..." "You don't care in Paris, anyway." "With so many spectators..." "You're so motivated, you can do anything." "If you count those 3 stages, you're already more than halfway." "And so you've just gotta believe the story you've told yourself." "You've boosted your morale." "Thanks, Erik." "Then you get fans with their flags, waiting on top of their caravans." "I'm thinking, "This really sucks, and a head wind, to boot."" ""Down in the valley," I thought, "it'll be better."" "But all the rough asphalt and stuff..." "I did get rolling, once, that was okay." "And then around the next corner, boom!" "The next damn thing..." "That gets on your nerves." "It really drains your bones." "Ete, I'll freshen you up." "You're going back now." " I thought I was gonna lose it." "Every time I got up to speed, I came up over a rise," "I pulled myself out of the saddle, down, then came the next dip." "Mind my hand." " Yes." "Y'know, every time I got up to 50, 52, 53..." "I thought, "Yes, yes!" Then down a dip... back to 38." "You know what?" " What?" " Today was the first time, the first time trial since the time Bjarne threw his bike away?" " No, when he won the Tour." "Just like that Seraing-Lüttich time trial, I thought I'd miss the limit today." "You serious?" "Yes, I was focusing on trying to keep my average speed up." "I got up to 42 km/h out there." "You keeping those pants on?" " Yes, I'll keep 'em." "An average of 42." "You know how bad that is?" "Should I tell you something?" "The worst part is that Rolf's faster even with a cold, and that's not a good sign." "Some water on the towel?" "You couldn't breathe, right?" "The coughing hurts so much." "Big guy, that doesn't sound good." "At least you can breathe again." " It's better now." "What about tomorrow in the Pyrenees?" " They'll have to go slower." "It's a long way to the mountains." "They can lose me there, but I'll make it." "You'll make it." "The day after tomorrow decides:" "can I make it to Paris or not?" "So..." "I'd say they were at their limit." "Rolf has a cold, and with the bronchitis, it's tough." "Rolf is..." "What can I say?" "I'm worried about Paris, whether he can make it." "First:" "Jan Ullrich!" "58 minutes, 32 seconds!" "Second:" "Lance Armstrong!" "I always said he'd make a comeback." "No question." "When his head's clear, he'll be fine." "It looks like he's straightened his head out and now it's okay." "Now we'll see what Vino can do..." "Go, Vino, go!" "The last 10 km!" "The last ten kilometers!" "Vino, you've already made up a minute." "One minute on Mayo." "Curve to the left now." "Watch out, left-hand curve." "Vino, congratulations." "Very good." "For me, suffering has two meanings." "Suffering can be negative." "If you try to suffer for its own sake, that's bad." "That's unhealthy." "There's something wrong in your head." "But when you talk about suffering that you must get through and that you can survive through enormous effort, that is something else." "That is positive, good and beautiful." "Beautiful because you think of courage, of stamina," "Ioyalty, the willingness to make sacrifices, modesty and love." "From this perspective, the suffering during training, during sporting competitions, while doing one's job, which all require great effort, is the same as religious suffering." "It is love." "It is beautiful." "I like that." "Starting in 1906, 1907, the riders had tire pumps with them." "But the rules forbade sharing them." "But someone like François Faber, who was a great rider, and a generous man, when he saw a competitor had no pump or no inner tubes left, he would very discreetly drop his pump on the side of the road so the other wouldn't be penalized." "These things happened." "The Tour has always been a story about men, great ones and lesser ones." "If the boss gets a flat, and everyone keeps going anyway, it's bad for his morale." "There's no question, I just have to put my own interests aside and wait." "I owe so many of my successes to Rolf, where he absolutely sacrificed himself and gave everything... everything he could in the balance." "That really binds you, and..." "Rolf is the kind of guy you can absolutely trust." "You know that when we ride, we ride right, without hesitation, he won't be looking out for himself." "You can never repay someone for that." "You can say stuff like," ""I'll never forget you for that,"" "but you can never give it back." "Sure it's our job and we're paid to ride well, but it's also true that when you're together for so long it's more than that." "Vinokourov tries to make a break..." "Ullrich tries to keep up..." "Here comes Haimar Zubeldia!" "...and now there's Carlos Sastre!" "Zubeldia goes past!" "Ullrich is coming now, he's in the last curve!" "The German has crossed the finish line." "One minute, one second!" "There's Zubeldia." "Here comes the American, Armstrong, as though it were nothing..." "Ullrich has this natural class." "We could never... never come close." "We can train as much as we want." "We train well, too." "The two of us, Rolf and I, we really train a lot and do everything for the sport and live for it." "But where we can't go further, especially in the mountains, "Ulle" is just getting started." "He just has a natural gift from God." "This gift..." "He has it, Armstrong has it, and maybe 2 or 3 others." "Actually it's nice to see he's found it in himself again." "The most important goal is to defend Vino's position." "I think this is the toughest and most decisive stage of the Tour." "The idea is to keep Vino up with "Ulle" and Armstrong..." "My God, today is hard core." "But we were born for this really." "On days like this we try to make the impossible happen somehow or other." "If I don't have a disastrous day, I'll finish the stage somehow." "I'll keep up for two mountains and with luck manage the third." "Then there's the fourth one and the fifth and I'll lose eight minutes getting up the fifth and maybe 6 minutes the one before." "I'll get in maybe 15 minutes late." "Home clean." "Today's one of those days that I can't stand, and I ask myself why..." "Look at this shit." "Oh, la la..." "Why didn't I become a surfer?" "You're always afraid that you won't finish a stage, and those are the days you start and you get out the rule book where all the coefficients are, together with the rest times, at what speed, whar percent you're allowed to have..." "Often, you get a motivational kick on those days when you calculate, "Man, 35 minutes today." "It'll be tight." And you say," ""No matter what, I have to get over this mountain."" "And when you've been left behind, 5 km from the peak, you know you gotta give it your all, everything, up and down." "You have to catch up." "If I'm not with the field at the bottom it's over." "And somehow it works." "You have to concentrate..." "Going downhill, too." "The problem is when you're so punchdrunk that your eyes cross, of course you ride down like a mouse, because you've lost your confidence and you can't manage a single turn." "McEwen was in trouble briefly, but now he's back with the field." "Virenque was up front, did you see?" "Did you see Ulle?" "Super!" "Let's get into the pub to see this!" "Vino, three kilometers to go." "Careful, the last 2 km are tough." "He's riding past..." "Super, Vino." "Nardo's there." "Nardo's waiting for you!" "45 seconds back." "You'll get behind the leaders, 1 minute, 40 seconds." "Go, Vino!" "We have 10 seconds already!" "The distance between him and Armstrong will be interesting." "Fifth place is at stake." "Vinokourov gives his all!" "The clock is ticking." "He had 40 seconds." "So now he has 30, 33, 34..." "Congratulations." "I had no legs today." "Without legs you can't stay out front." "I got some cramps already halfway." "The last two kilometers killed me." "At your speed, I could've done one kilometer, maybe." "But you just kept going like hell!" "The finale was tough, but I really admire Vino's stamina." "It's impressive when he passes you like that." "Almost like a motorcycle." "Yesterday I wanted to give up." "I was totally wrecked." "But today I was right up in front with the best, it was super." "Everybody called me." ""Super!" "It went great!"" "Good-night." "Today's great performance..." "Lance Armstrong, the yellow jersey." "...with a time of 4 hours, 29 minutes and 26 seconds." "A look at the clock..." "Vinokourov is now 2 minutes, 7 seconds behind Lance Armstrong." "Apparently an even bigger rival than yesterday," "Jan Ullrich rode a great stage under difficult conditions." "In the 1923 Tour de France, the roads weren't paved and were full of ruts." "Stones shot out from under the wheels and could shoot into your eyes." "If a rider took off his dusty glasses, the stones could do him in." "That happened to Honoré Barthélémy." "He lost his eye that way." "In the 1924 Tour, he took his eye out sometimes and those who didn't know it was made of glass, wondered what was going on." "Anytime it bothered him, he replaced it with cotton wool." "When people on the roadside saw the hole filled with cotton wool, they were shocked." "I think the older you get, the more of a wimp you become." "Sure, everybody's busted open their knees and elbows a thousand times and you know how it all hurts." "But... if you think about that in a descent, then you'll ride down badly." "You'll brake 10 meters sooner and not with the speed you really could ride with." "It's more like the other way around." "You ride down like a madman and when you're down below, you think, "Oh my God, if a car had been behind a curve somewhere 'cause someone had a flat tire..."" "or if your tire had burst or something..." "For God's sake!" "But you only think of it afterwards." "If you worry about traffic behind every corner and you sneak around and worry, the others will be 2 km ahead of you." "Sitting in the hotel room you wonder, "Is it smart going down a hill at 95 km/h on 2.5 centimeter tires with a classic wire pull brake?" You'll say to yourself," ""It's not smart."" "But in a race situation you don't worry about it." "That was one of the most impressive Tour performances:" "Tyler Hamilton, who hurt himself the first day, wins the last mountain stage of the 2003 Tour de France." "Hamilton really took off in front, like a motorcycle." "Everyone just shook their heads." "They couldn't believe it." "When I caught up with the field there were about 55 km to go." "I didn't take a radio today, 'cause I didn't think I'd be in contact with the leaders." "I asked somebody, "What's the situation?"" "They said Hamilton was up front with 5 minutes lead." "Behind him were three more." "He said we'd catch them up, they were just ahead of us." "Groups of ten kept trying to catch him and every ten kilometers they fell back, exhausted." "It was wild." "And he still came in 2 minutes ahead." "I've seen a lot, but that was really over the top today." "Vinokourov attacked at the Col de la Ramaz, first mountain stage, behind Mayo at Alpe d'Huez, in Gap, where he won, and on the Plateau de Bonascre, where he got left behind and once again in Peyresourde." "After that he was tired and just had to keep up on the Tourmalet and at Luz-Ardiden." "Vinokourow, from Kazakhstan, winner of this year's Paris-Nice stage, winner of the Amstel Gold Race and the Tour de Suisse." "It's his best professional season, even if he says 2003 is a black year because he lost his friend Andrei Kivilev." "Surprises are the order of the day on the 2003 Tour de France." "Ullrich was 2 minutes 10 behind Armstrong after Alpe d'Huez, got within 15 seconds and lost time again before Luz-Ardiden." "On the Tourmalet he passed Armstrong, but he couldn't shake him off, and in the end was passed by the American." "Here comes Lance Armstrong." "Jan Ullrich is starting, coming down the ramp in high gear to gain speed as fast as possible." "In bad weather, the rain hinders vision." "Most riders wear glasses to protect their eyes." "Lance Armstrong starts in 10 seconds." "He pointed out he's never lost the last time trial." "Here we go, 49 km Pornic to Nantes, to defend the yellow jersey." "Armstrong wants to win this stage, not just for the yellow jersey, but to show that Ullrich hasn't ridden better than him in the 2003 Tour." "Ullrich seems to want to prove the opposite the first lead, but Armstrong's coming back..." "Jan Ullrich is a little bit faster." "24 seconds." " 24 second lead over Ullrich." "21.9..." " 21.9, not quite two seconds." "...forcing him to take risks." "That must be a possibility, both of them are giving their all, a neck-and-neck race," "Armstrong slightly ahead..." "Oh, God!" "The fall didn't decide the Tour." "Now he's out of the picture." "So Armstrong's 10 seconds faster than... 10 seconds behind Armstrong?" " Yes." "War is over." "I just said to the doc, it's back to everyday life now." "The last day and then..." "If I had the choice now between going to the hotel or riding, I'd ride." "Always a good sign." "In Paris you go beyond your limits." "You think you can't go on but then..." "You really get into it." "It's the huge crowds..." "If you like, the lap is 6.5 km, the biggest race track in the world." "So many spectators and stuff..." "Crazy!" "It's an important stage, and maybe another nice chance." "Everyone says, "There'll be a breakaway group, I'll stay with it."" "Show yourself once more." "For the first three on the podium it's a real "tour d'honneur."" "And everyone else is really hoping to score the big coup." "...Erik Zabel, O'Grady and Damien Nazon..." "Hushovd tries to overtake!" "Baden Cooke," "Robbie McEwen..." "And now..." "What a finish!" "It's great." "I have my first Tour de France behind me." "It is such a great experience." "I'm overjoyed." "All of the stress of the last three weeks is gone." "I have goose bumps." "I'm calm now." "I'm really very happy." "It was hard." "As usual." " But we knew it'd be hard."