|
Home>News Center>Sports | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Aussie McEwen strikes once more
Robbie McEwen won his second stage victory of the Tour de France in a nail-biting finale to the 160-km ninth stage from St Leonard de Noblat to Gueret yesterday. The Australian, leader of the points classification and winner in Namur eight days ago, surged in the last dozen metres to narrowly beat Norwegian Thor Hushovd and Australian Stuart O'Grady, both also former stage winners this year. The overall lead was retained by France's Thomas Voeckler who is nine minutes 35 seconds ahead of five-times champion Lance Armstrong in sixth place. McEwen's win was tight and thrilling as the main bunch only caught two breakaway riders with 20 metres left in the shortest stage distance so far. Italian Filippo Simeoni and Spaniard Inigo Landaluze attacked from the 38th km and the bunch, gearing up for a gruelling 10th stage to St Flour on Wednesday, did not budge at first. The two held a maximum lead of 10 minutes five seconds before the pack started to react, finally catching them about 50 metres from the line and helping Voeckler retain his race leader's yellow jersey. To see Simeoni fail so close to home must have pleased Armstrong since the Italian Domina Vacanze rider is one of the American's bitterest rivals. There was other good news for Armstrong ahead of Wednesday's tough 237-km stage, the longest in the Tour. Armstrong's leading rival, German Jan Ullrich, had managed to avoid crashes and incidents since the Tour start in Liege. But yesterday he was troubled by mechanical problems halfway through the stage and had to be brought back into the peloton by his T-Mobile team mates. Estonia's Jaan Kirsipuu, winner of the first stage in Charleroi, called it quits on the first climb of the day. |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
