Armstrong and all the rest

KARLSRUHE, Germany – They have seen it so often now, seen Lance Armstrong take control of the Tour de France with a grip that appears unbreakable, that even with nearly 1,500 miles and all the mountains to go, there is a note of resignation drifting into the voices of his rivals.

Some of the better American riders have been through this even longer than the others. They know about the drive and competitiveness that dates back to their days as amateurs and junior racers, long before Armstrong beat cancer and then humbled the Tour de France.

“Having known Lance as long as I have, there’s no one on the planet that would accept failure at this juncture less than he would,” said Bobby Julich, riding in the Tour for CSC but a Motorola teammate of Armstrong a decade ago. “He wants it all.

“Michael Jordan had six rings. (Armstrong) wants seven. He wants to be considered the best ever. I know Lance, and this is the end, and he wants to go out on top.”

After the first week of the three-week Tour, Armstrong is already on top, even though the opening stages have been mostly flat and made for the sprinters in the pack. Armstrong fashioned nearly all of his lead with a devastating individual time trial on the first day of the race.

Attention was briefly diverted from Armstrong to Dave Zabriskie of CSC, who held the yellow jersey until he crashed Tuesday. Zabriskie, a promising young American from Salt Lake City, has now faded to the back of the pack, and Armstrong could wear the leader’s jersey until the end of the Tour.

Considering how strong Armstrong looked in the time trial and mindful that he has always excelled in the mountains, there is a reasonable question to ask: Is it still a race?

“Sure, sure,” said Levi Leipheimer, the native of Butte, Mont., who rides as the leader of the German team Gerolsteiner. “But I think that Lance has to have a bad day, his team has to have a bad day, and then the other riders have to capitalize on it. That’s what has to happen.”

Racing luck has usually been with Armstrong, and, as in any sport, the good ones usually seem to be the luckiest. Still, crashes and illnesses have taken out favorites before. The peloton knows it will need help to bring down Armstrong, and not everyone believes there is any doubt left. Is it still a race?

“For second (place),” Julich said. “Anything can happen, of course, but I think everyone pretty much realizes that right now. It’s going to be very difficult to beat him this year, especially seeing him with those sort of legs he had in the (opening time trial). That’s frankly terrifying – once we get to the mountains if he has those legs.”

The mountain stages of the Tour begin today with a climb of the Category 1 Le Ballon d’Alsace, but it’s unlikely Armstrong and his Discovery teammates will try to lengthen his lead until Tuesday, when the stage finishes with a 14-mile climb to the Alpine ski town of Courchevel.Armstrong’s supposed rivals have to somehow make up the time gaps in stages in which Armstrong has always been the least vulnerable. After another hard day in the Alps on Wednesday, there will be a short breather before the three stages in the Pyrenees – two with mountaintop finishes – that figure to coronate Armstrong for a seventh time.

Walter Grodefoot, the team director of T-Mobile, which went into the Tour once again hoping that Jan Ullrich could challenge Armstrong, says that it may take a concerted effort by several teams taking turns attacking the leader. Maybe that would wear out Discovery and expose Armstrong.

“How do you beat Lance Armstrong?” Julich said, repeating a question asked by a television reporter. “No one’s figured that out for six years. It’s going to be a lot of trial and error, but most of the time, from what I’ve seen in the past, people who try to beat him end up beating themselves, and that’s what he’s waiting for.”

The wait is all but over now. When the road goes up, it says here that everyone else goes down for good.