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| | Thursday, July 13 Rodriguez grabs American spotlight for a day | ||||||
| By Andrew Hood ABC Sports Online VILLENEUVE-SUR-LOT, France - While all the attention centers on Lance Armstrong in his pursuit to win a second consecutive Tour de France, there are eight other Americans in this year's race. In Saturday's demanding four-climb stage across the Dordogne region of south central France, it was U.S. champion Fred Rodriguez making his own highlight reel.
The profile of Saturday's eighth stage was one of those "easy" stages that proved a lot more difficult. Three of the four rated climbs in the stage came in the first 85 kilometers. The day's hardest challenge -- the Category 3 Côte de Petit Puy-Mathieu -- came at 11 kilometers. The rolling, hilly stage with narrow roads was perfect for a breakaway, and several riders tried early to jump off the front early. Dekker attacked in the first kilometer and 18 other riders quickly bridged out. Moves that early don't make many friends in the peloton. France's Laurent Jalabert was livid on Thursday when he lost the maillot jaune leader's jersey after a rider attacked early while Jalabert was off on the side of the road taking care of the call of nature. U.S. Postal quickly checked Dekker's first move. Other riders tried in vain to lose the peloton in the opening hour, but none could get away. At the day's first points sprint 49k into the stage, Dekker and three other riders charged through the line and kept going. Ten more bridged out and away they went. Working together, they quickly built up a lead. They had a one minute at 76k and by 118k, they had more than 10 minutes on the lead group. In the meantime, three other riders bridged up, including Rodriguez, Michael Sandstod (Memory Card) and Gilles Maignan (AG2R). Credit Agricole's Jens Voigt was the best-placed rider in the break (24th, 6:58 back) and became the "virtual" yellow jersey while the break was out. "At one point, we were about a minute and a half, and the feed zone was coming. I said if we can't catch them by then, we're going to give up. So we just put our heads down and went as hard as we could. Luckily, we caught them right after the feed zone. It took a lot out of me. It took me awhile to recover, but I had strong legs today," Rodriguez said. "When I went out, that wasn't the idea to catch the break. I was hoping the whole field would come and we would catch them all together. Two guys came with me. At one point, I was like, this is not going to work." Break is broken With about 30k to go in the stage, Dekker made a move off the front and the breakaway group splintered. Several riders dropped back, including U.S. Postal's Frankie Andreu. Johan Bruyneel, directeur sportif of the U.S. Postal team, said the break played into the hands of the team. With Andreu in the break, it forced the other teams to do much of the work in the main bunch. "We weren't looking for a stage-win today. It was a good thing we had a guy in there to cover the break. It made the other teams chase to do the work," Bruyneel said. Telekom and Mercatone Uno did much of the work to bring back the riders to within a reasonable amount of time. With Dekker off the front, only Rodriguez and five other riders managed to follow. With 25k to go, Dekker was the first over the day's final climb -- the Category 4 Côte de Monflanquin -- 15 seconds ahead of the Rodriguez chase group. "Dekker decided to go with about 25 kilometers. It wasn't really that he attacked, he just rode through and we all sat up for a second and he got the initial gap," Rodriguez said. "We didn't start working together. Guys started attacking, which at that point was not the right thing to do. I tried to keep it together to see if it would come down to a bunch sprint and see if we could catch Dekker in the last couple of kilometers. It just didn't happen. I did everything I could to control the group." Dekker to the finish In bike racing, it's all about trying and trying again. Dekker nearly won in Wednesday's stage in a similar breakaway, but he was caught by the peloton just 500 yards from the finish line. "I told my teammates this morning I was going to attack from the beginning," Dekker said. He obviously followed his own advice, attacking in the first kilometer. He tried again and it stuck. "The first break didn't work so well. The second time was easier. Coming into the finish, I was giving it everything I had. I knew Rodriguez was a better sprinter than me, so I knew I had to try to go alone," Dekker said. In the end, Dekker came across the line 52 seconds ahead of Xavier Jan while Rodriguez crossed the line fourth, 58 seconds back. Dekker's win is the second in three days for the Rabobank team. | ALSO SEE Tour de France results Dekker takes Tour's 8th stage; Armstrong looms Lance relaxed so far Rodriguez diary #5 AUDIO/VIDEO   Erik Dekker secures Stage 8 for Rabobank. (Courtesy: ABC Sports)avi: 1649 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 | ||||||
