2005 Tour de France: Crisis in D.C. averted?

At the start of this year's tour, there were reports that Lance wanted to wear the yellow jersey from day 1 up to Paris. The last cyclist to do so was Eddy Merckx, who also incredibly won the sprint and mountain jerseys that year.

But was 2 seconds short on stage 1 to don the yellow jersey. After getting it after stage 4, I thought it was his jersey to lose. How wrong I was! Now, it's Jens Voights jersey, although temporarily. This amiable and hardworking German deserves this jersey, even for a couple of days but he knows he's not a contender for the overall.

In the past 6 years, Lance never had a crisis of this magnitude, when his team exploded. Or so many well prepared foes that had the numbers. If you had read all the pro-Lance comments on the net today and yesterday after that disastrous stage 8, the spin doctors are trying hard to earn their pay. They are all saying that Lance and the team has finally gotten over the hump (actually an almost 20k mountain hump) and that the team was perfectly working nicely today (stage 9) in spite of Lance losing 3 minutes to Voight (and the yellow jersey) and France's number 1 stage racer Cristophe Moreau.

Was Lance really bluffing? Was the team under orders to back off during stage 8? Was it part of the plan to make T-Mobile feel good? Or was the team just had a "un jour sans", one bad day? Or where they overextending themselves in week 1 trying to defend the jersey needlessly? Are they really back?

All these questions that can be answered tonight on the road to Courchevel, the 22K, 6% climb to the alpine monster, the first mountain top finish of this year's tour. Imagine riding your bike to the 1k-plus long Cebu Plaza, with the same gradient, only it's 22K. At the end of the stage, Lance will either be the "vanquieur" or the vanquished.

In 1996, Bjarne Riis drove Miguel Indurain out of his throne. Ullrich did the same thing to Riis in 1997. Ullrich succumbed to Marco Pantani the next year. In 1999, APntani did not ride because of doping allegations resulting in Lance's first win. Who'll do Lance today?

REST DAY Rest days are not really rest days. There are team transfers from one city to another by plane or by bus which adds stress to the body, meeting the media, team sponsors and the fans. Up to this point, the body is used to a certain amount of stress on a daily basis. Any deviation will lead to a dip in performance the next day. That's why riders will go out on a 3-4 hour ride that simulates racing conditions to avoid a meltdown.

IN other words, rest days are actually stress days.