Astarloza top dog in Bourg-Saint-Maurice

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At the 2009 Tour de France, the art of the breakaway is being mastered by men of strength and courage.

In recent Tour history, rarely have there been so many successful escape attempts. With our without the controversial team radios, such men, when they attack, do not care how outnumbered they are or how remote the possibility of victory may be. They simply attack because it's in their nature, it's in their blood. It's the only thing they know how to do.

On the first of two giant mountains both named Bernard,  Mikel Astarloza felt his name being called.

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Mountains classification leader Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) and Vladimir Karpets (Katusha) were some way ahead, but the Euskatel-Euskadi rider, along with fifteen other chasers, chose to persist. Sixty kilometres from the finish their effort was rewarded, where they met with the lead duo to form a front group of 18.

The rather dubiously-named Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard, a 22.6-km category 1 ascent that rose 2,188-metres-high, gradually withered the 18-man break to four by its summit – Pellizotti, Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Silence-Lotto), Amael Moinard (Cofidis) and Astarloza.

Hurtling down the 31-km descent to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, a town at the foot of some of the world's most acclaimed ski fields and situated at the gateway to the Haute-Tarentaise and the Mont Blanc, Astarloza, a gangly 29-year-old from Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country, began to do a quick calculation.

"I really like math," Astarloza told Cyclingnews, "so it was an easy calculation: I had a 25-percent chance of victory today. When the odds are that good, you really have to go for it."

Two Tours de France ago in 2007, he finished ninth overall to compatriot Alberto Contador, the current race leader. For him, that was a dream run. But without a big victory for some time – if our records are correct, his last win of significance was the 2003 Tour Down Under – he came to La Grande Boucle vying for stage honours.

For two-and-a-half weeks, he had bided his time. The moment was now his.

2.8 kilometres from the line, Moinard was first to attack. Just as he was caught, Astarloza put in a power-packed surge down the left-side of the Rue de la Libération, and when he did so, he was free.

By God, did he feel liberated!

Punching the air so many times you’d think he’d dislocate his shoulder, the boy from the Basque country on a Basque team was immersed in delight. Six seconds later, Sandy Casar (Française des Jeux), part of a four-man chase group that tacked on after Astarloza launched his winning move, sprinted home to earn his sixth second place at the Tour ahead of Nicolas Roche (Ag2r La Mondiale) and Pierrick Fedrigo (BBOX Bouygues Telecom).

"I have a lot of victories, but this one is amazing – it's certainly the biggest moment of my career," Astarloza told Cyclingnews. And by virtue of his stage win, he leapfrogged eight spots to now sit 11th overall, 4:38 behind overnight leader Alberto Contador of Astana, who had little difficulty to finish tenth on the stage among a star-studded group of 16 riders, 59 seconds behind Astarloza.

"There's a long tradition of rowing in my village," said Astarloza. "My father was a rower and I wanted to be one, but my Dad told me it was too difficult, so I decided to take up cycling, and that came from my mother's side – my [maternal] grandfather was a cyclist, and I had cousins who were cyclists."

Grinned the dark-haired Basque, "I think I made the right decision."

Except for two names, the leader board's top 10 remained largely unchanged: Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R La Mondiale, previously sixth) and Tony Martin (Columbia-HTC, previously eighth) both had bad days and are now out of contention at 14th and 34th overall, respectively. Carlos Sastre (Cérvelo TestTeam) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Slipstream) slotted into the top 10 by consequence.

Asked if the rumours are true that he's set to leave Astana by the year's end, Contador replied: "That's the first time I've heard of it. For the moment, I'm focused on the Tour. There's five difficult days to go. I'll start thinking about my future after Paris."

Finally, we saw the Lance of old

After 15 stages where just about everyone who's anyone has tried to ascertain just how far off Lance Armstrong is from his 1999-2005 self, perhaps the Texan's performance on the Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard has given the best indication so far.

He was missing from the groupe maillot jaune when Andy Schleck's dance of the devil around 8.5 kilometres from the summit dropped all but five riders. But just under two kilometres later, Armstrong put in a move that Kim Kirchen (Columbia-HTC) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Slipstream) at first managed to follow, though moments later couldn't.

Just over the crest of the Petit-Saint-Bernard, Armstrong gave one last out-of-the-saddle push to bridge to the group containing Contador. And even though the groupe maillot jaune grew in size to number 16 by the finish, the seven-time Tour champion concedes those petit, vicious, accelerations – of which we haven't seen the likes of for four years – were indeed significant as both an indicator of form and morale.

"Two days ago was certainly not my best day. I made some changes to my bike, to the position; I felt more comfortable on the bike. I felt like I was spinning more efficiently," said Armstrong.

"The quick accelerations to see if anyone is there, and then just ride a little tempo and accelerate again – that is stuff I would have done before. If I go back and look at the tapes of Verbier [Stage 15], I can tell that I was just a fish out of water. Again, tomorrow [Wednesday, Stage 17 to Le Grand-Bornand] is the real one," he said.

Did Contador find Armstrong's presence in the yellow jersey group useful?

"I value very much what he did today. He made a great effort to come up to the group, but in the end I didn't need him," said Contador.

Pellizotti clearly a man of the mountains

While the points classification's top three saw no change courtesy of the early breakaway, Liquigas' Franco Pellizotti is proving to be the consistent grimpeur par excellence. He now enjoys an almost-unbeatable lead in the mountains classification with a 159-point total.

Ever-aggressive, the Italian's ability to make the day's break and stay there for the long haul shows he's in good touch, while former polka-dot wearer and second on the classification, Egoi Martinez of Euskatel-Euskadi, is clearly waning, his widening deficit – now trailing by a massive 58 points – is proof of that.

"I preferred not to race for the [overall] classification; it would have been too difficult and I could have only achieved a top five. I preferred to aim for this jersey and I hope to take it all the way to Paris. Taking it to Paris is the same as a top five finish for me," said Pellizotti.

"Tomorrow there's some really hard climbs. I would like to go in an escape but the last two climbs, [Col de] Romme and Colombière, will be stomping grounds for the [general] classification riders."

The Tale of Big and Small Bernard

With new race leader Contador draped in yellow, the peloton set off at 5 to 1 Tuesday afternoon from Martigny, a small Gallo-Roman town with a rich historical past, also the cultural capital of the Valais region.

The bunch had just five kilometres of flat roads before beginning their ascent of the hors catégorie Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard; at 2,473 metres above sea level, the "roof" of this year's Tour.

Providing a natural platform for an attack, there were more than a few willing to get a head-start on the day's mountainous affairs. It took all of five kilometres before a sizeable posse of 17 broke clear.

Pellizotti, Aleksandr Kuschinsky (Liquigas), Jose Angel Gomez Marchante, Heinrich Haussler, Hayden Roulston (Cervélo TestTeam), Van den Broeck (Silence Lotto), Jens Voigt, Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank), Laurens Ten Dam (Rabobank), Martijn Maaskant (Garmin-Slipstream), Egoi Martinez, Gorka Verdugo (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Sandy Casar (Française des Jeux), David Moncoutie (Cofidis), Pierrick Fedrigo, Pierre Rolland (Bouygues Telecom), Jose Ivan Gutierrez (Caisse d'Epargne), Maxime Bouet (Agritubel), Peter Velits (Milram), and Simon Geschke (Skil-Shimano) gained a two minute advantage just 16km in.

A quarter-hour later, still on the first-third of the Grand-Saint-Bernard, Pellizotti attacked, taking a flying Karpets with him along with Martinez, but 22km in, the Spaniard found he was unable to hang on. At the start of the day, eight points separated Pellizotti and Martinez in the polka-dot classification, so the Italian had reason to go forward with the Russian.

Pellizotti led Karpets up and over the roof, extending his mountains lead over Martinez and picking up 5,000 Euros for being the first rider to cross the highest point of this year's Tour – also known as the ‘Souvenir Henri Desgrange'. 1:14 behind was a group of 16 chasers, the groupe maillot jaune 2:03 back.

Astana truck gets a going-over; now the Petit-Bernard

Four minutes flat of the peloton after 62km, the lead duo widened their advantage to another minute more some 30 kilometres later. Around the same time, the Cyclingnews car passed the Swiss-Franco border on the off-course route, and saw a bunch of border-patrol police rustling through the Astana truck; a search that took three hours but lead to nothing irregular being found.

Heading towards the base of the second climb, the Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard, GC contender Andy Schleck and suffered what must have been his fourth puncture of the Tour. He was duly paced back to the fold by Aussie Classics star, Stuart O'Grady. The peloton, meanwhile, four-and-a-half minutes in arrears, had passed the Arvier, home of inaugural Tour de France champion, Marice Garin.

Sixty clicks from the finish in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Pellizotti and Karpets were caught by a 16-man chase group, the other names being: Gomez Marchante (Cervelo Test Team), Van Den Broeck (Silence-Lotto), Voigt (Saxo Bank), Ten Dam (Rabobank), Verdugo, Astarloza, Igor Anton (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Casar (Française des Jeux), Fedrigo, Laurent Lefeve (Bouygues Telecom), Velits (Milram), Moinard (Cofidis), Nicolas Vogondy (Agritubel), Yury Trofimov (Bbox Bouygues Telecom), and Roche and Stephane Goubert (AG2R).

By the crest of the Petit-Saint-Bernard, also signalling 31 kilometres to go, the lead 18 had thinned considerably, to the point where Pellizotti led just three other men – Van Den Broeck, Astarloza and Moinard – over the top.

Behind them, five men, Marchante, Goubert, Roche, Casar and Fedrigo, struggled to remain clear of a 31-man groupe maillot jaune as the remainder of the break littered the mountain side.

That large peloton became just seven-strong when Schleck's scintillating attack could only be matched by Contador, Wiggins, Nibali, Klöden and Andy's brother Frank. They were joined soon by Voigt, who sat up from the break to help his team leader.

Two kilometres after Schleck the younger went, Armstrong chose to bridge alone, taking Kim Kirchen and Christian Vande Velde with him but only temporarily. When the Texan went again, it was as if out of a scene from the Armstrong of old, remarkably finding his way across to make a chase group of seven, 2:06 behind the lead quartet.

"We said were going to try to attack," said Schleck. "I don't think anyone in the media should be surprised by it, everyone knew it. If there is a chance, we have to take it."

Down, down, down…

Down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Astarloza and Pellizotti were the superior descenders but were unable to sufficiently distance themselves from Van Den Broeck and Moinard.

15 seconds behind, the chasing quartet had lost Marchante to a crash on the descent and were 1:10 ahead of the groupe maillot jaune, which had grown to 19 men with 10km to go.  Behind, Voigt had crashed badly and was carted to hospital in a concussed state.

Four kilometres out, the groupe maillot jaune was just over a minute behind. Clearly, Tuesday’s victor would emanate from the former group. A kilometre after, Moinard was the first to play his hand, but no more than 500 metres later, Astarloza’s counter was the one that stuck, finishing six seconds clear of Casar and 59 seconds ahead of the groupe maillot jaune, led home by Christophe Moreau (Agritubel).

For images of stage 17 click here