Tour de France, Day 1

July 2nd, 2005

Filed under: General

The Tour started off well for the Americans in general and Dave Zabriskie and Lance Armstrong in particular.

Today’s first stage was a 19 km (12 mile) individual time trial. In individual time trials, riders start one minute apart and race for the best time. Dave Zabriskie won the stage with a time of 20:51 and Lance Armstrong finished second, just 2 seconds behind. Lance looked strong and had a great race. He managed to catch — and pass — his main rival Jan Ullrich at the 15 Km point (this is key in time trial stages because it means Armstrong was able to make up the minute time difference). That puts Ullrich 1:06 behind Armstrong, but will be an even bigger blow to the ego, particularly this early in the event.

Overall, Americans (racing for 3 different teams) took 4 of the top 6 places.

Tomorrow is a 181.5 Km (112.5 mile) mostly flat stage.

Whatever happened to Tyler Hamilton? He was another big name in American racing. He had a bad Tour last year, and ended up dropping out. A few months ago, he was accused of blood doping (a charge he denies). I didn’t see his name as one of this year’s participant in the Tour, so I wonder what happened.

American Racers

Name
Team
Time
1.
Zabriskie
CSC
-
2
Armstrong
DSC
+0:02
4.
Hincapie
DSC
+0:57
6.
Landis
PHO
+1:02
11.
Julich
CSC
+1:07
14.
Leipheimer
GRL
+1:13
53.
Horner
SAD
+2:01
63.
Rodriguez
DVL
+2:09
178.
Trenti
QST
+3:21

 

Discovery Channel Team Racers

Name
Country
Time
2.
Armstrong
USA
+0:02
4.
Hincapie
USA
+0:57
16.
Rubiera
Spain
+1:16
17.
Popovych
Ukraine
+1:18
22.
Noval
Spain
+1:28
31.
Padrnos
Czechoslovakia
+1:34
32.
Savoldeli
Italy
+1:35
34.
Azevado
Portugal
+1:39
70.
Beltran
Spain
+2:14

4 Responses to “ Tour de France, Day 1 ”

  1. N
    July 3rd, 2005 at 12:56 am

    Only tangentially related to this post, I have been meaning to ask you, Scott:

    How do you make time for being a DOCTOR of all things, watching yr favorite TV shows (JLU and House, for example) and other points of interest (like the Tour), and blog?

    Is there some secret to being so productive? Seriously.

  2. GruntDoc
    July 3rd, 2005 at 7:09 am

    Thanks for this. Please keep it coming (if the doctoring doesn’t interfere).

  3. hcduvall
    July 3rd, 2005 at 9:58 am

    Tyler Hamilton got a two-year suspension for blood doping in April, and I’m sure he’s appealing it. But that would take months to process, even if he won an appeal. So no cycling for a while.

  4. Aaron Sapp
    July 3rd, 2005 at 1:39 pm

    On a wacky medical note related to Tyler Hamilton,
    The evidence has apparently shown that some of the blood in his body had a set of chromosomes that weren’t his (I believe). It has been suggested that maybe early in gestation Tyler had a twin that never survived to term and that he is carrying around some cells from that twin that are resposnible for the odd DNA.

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