MORZINE, France - Written off as hopeless just a day earlier, Floyd Landis
needed a once-in-a-lifetime ride Thursday to revive his sagging chances of
victory in the Tour de France.
Did he ever deliver. With a sensational display of brio and guts in the style
of seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong, the American put himself back in
the title hunt with a solo win in the last Alpine stage.
The astonishing rebound silenced nay-sayers - including Landis
himself - who believed his chances to win on Sunday were doomed after he
lost more than 8 minutes to the race leader in a punishing stage just 24 hours
earlier.
"I was very, very disappointed yesterday for a little while," Landis said.
"Today I thought I could show that at least I would keep fighting.
"No matter what - whether I win or lose - I wanted to prove to my
team that I deserved to be the leader," he said. "I didn't expect it to work
quite that well."
Sensing his rivals would be relatively depleted, Landis pedaled like a man
possessed - going all out for his Phonak squad.
In the first climb, Landis brashly spurted ahead of Oscar Pereiro, wearing
the yellow jersey, and other key Tour contenders - catching then overtaking
a breakaway group that had gotten ahead earlier.
"I took a long shot," he said, "but after all those hard mountain stages you
can usually assume that people are tired and chasing doesn't work so well."
One by one, he left them all behind.
Landis, who rides with an injured hip, pumped his right fist in celebration
as he crossed the finish of the 124.3-mile ride - the last stage in the
Alps - in 5 hours, 23 minutes, 36 seconds.
He began the day in 11th place, trailing Pereiro by 8 minutes, 8 seconds. By
the time he finished, he had jumped to third, and had closed the time gap to an
incredible 30 seconds.
The 30-year-old from eastern Pennsylvania's Mennonite country slashed the
deficit by finishing 7:08 ahead of Pereiro. He also trimmed an extra 30 seconds
by earning bonus points for winning the stage and placing well in sprints.
It was a striking, stirring reversal from Wednesday, when Landis withered
almost pitifully in an uphill finish to the Tour's hardest Alpine stage and lost
the leader's yellow jersey to the Spaniard.
Race director Jean-Marie Leblanc said Landis had given "the best performance
in the modern history of the Tour" - adding that only a day earlier, he was
"gone, finished, condemned."
Spain's Carlos Sastre finished second - 5:42 after Landis - and
held second overall, 12 seconds behind Pereiro. France's Christophe Moreau was
third, 5:58 behind.
