THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING »

Get the VeloNews Email Newsletter FREE

  Learn More | Archive
Home » Top Stories » »

ONCE nails TTT; Gonzalez de Galdeano in yellow

Published: Jul. 10, 2002
Gonzalez de Galdeano - First Spaniard since Indurain to wear the yellow jersey.
Gonzalez de Galdeano - First Spaniard since Indurain to wear the yellow jersey.
Photo: Graham Watson

The yellow jersey is an elusive piece of clothing. During Wednesday’s67.5km team time trial it slipped through the hands of several riders before falling onto the shoulders of Spanish rider Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano.

Thanks to an impressive victory by his ONCE-Eroski team in the 2002Tour’s stage 4, Galdeano becomes the first Spanish rider to earn the maillotjaune since five-time Tour champion Miguel Indurain last wore it onwinning his final Tour in 1995.

CSC-Tiscali’s Laurent Jalabert seemed destined to snag the jersey thathe’s been chasing since finishing just two seconds behind Lance Armstrongin the opening prologue, but a flat tire by teammate Michael Sandstod foiledhis chances.

ONCE - Tops when it counted.
ONCE - Tops when it counted.
Photo: Graham Watson

Armstrong also had the yellow jersey in his sights for the second timethis Tour, but ONCE was just fast enough to keep him out of first placeby seven seconds.

Several teams faltered in the team time trial, when entire teams ridetogether in a race against the clock. Kelme-Costa Blanca, with climbersOscar Sevilla and Santiago Botero, and Rabobank, where former Armstrongteammate Levi Leipheimer has aspirations for the final podium in Paris,each lost more than two minutes.

ONCE grabs yellow
ONCE knows a thing or two about winning team time trials. In 2000,it edged the U.S. Postal Service to take the stage win and put Jalabertinto the yellow jersey when the Frenchman was still on the Spanish team.

This year, the team was motivated for another victory and came loadedwith strong time trialists such as Galdeano, Joseba Beloki and former worldtime trial champion Abraham Olano.

It was a heated race between ONCE, Postal and CSC-Tiscali over the undulating,technical course in France’s Champagne country. Tens of thousands of fanscrowded the roads and cheered the teams as they passed the region’s hillsidevineyards at five-minute intervals.

At the first time-check at 21.5km, CSC-Tiscali posted the fastest time,six seconds ahead of ONCE and 20 seconds ahead of Postal. Starting lastas the leader of the team classification, CSC-Tiscali was still ridingwell at 40.5km, holding a steady six-second lead over ONCE while Postalwas finding its rhythm after starting a little slow to narrow the gap to19 seconds.

At the final time check at 60 km, however, CSC-Tiscali was in troubleregrouping after Sandstod’s puncture. ONCE kept its steady pace and widenedits gap over Postal from 13 seconds at 40.5km to 38 seconds at 60km.

Postal came on strong in the closing kilometers to narrow the gap to16 seconds, but since Armstrong started the stage just nine seconds aheadof Galdeano, the jersey went to the Spanish rider instead of back to Armstrong.

ONCE came across the line with eight of its nine riders (Mikel Praderafinished more than seven minutes later) with a winning time of 1 hour,19 minutes, 49 seconds with an average speed of 50.7 kph.

Galdeano, 28, becomes the first Spanish rider to take the yellow jersey in seven years. He spoke about the last two Spaniards to win the Tour.“Names like Indurain and Delgado are mythic names,” said Galdeano, whofinished fifth last year in his Tour debut. “It is a grand satisfactionfor me to be here, but this is only the fourth stage. What those otherriders did was more important than this. We will go back to our hotel,have a nice dinner, but we will keep fighting. It’s too early to celebrateanything.”

Galdeano and Beloki have aspirations to finish on the final podium inParis. They are strong time trialists and steady climbers, but neitherhas ever attacked Armstrong in the mountains.

At the Midi Libre race in May, Galdeano beat Armstrong in an individualtime trial. Beloki, now second overall, four seconds back, has finishedthird overall in the past two Tours.

Still, the team isn’t talking of toppling Armstrong just yet.

“Armstrong is super strong, even with the time we have today, it willmean nothing in the mountains,” Galdeano said. “Of course, we are happywith the win and we will enjoy this victory, but we know the Tour is verylong. Our ambitions are to be on the podium in Paris. We won’t think aboutmore or less.”

ONCE’s directeur sportif Manolo Saiz said the team will not defend theyellow jersey unless other teams cooperate.

“We won’t defend the jersey alone. If the sprinter teams, Mapei, Lottoand Telekom, collaborate, we will help them,” Saiz said. “If not, we willnot spend all the energy because we want to be as strong as possible forthe Pyrenees.”

U.S. Postal ends up second
Armstrong said he was happy with how the team rode despite not securingthe stage win or the yellow jersey.

“It was a good race for the team. We were fluid, consistent, but ONCEwas a little bit stronger,” said Armstrong, now third overall seven secondsback. “We took some time out on some of the other teams and we didn’t haveany problems like we did last year, so I am satisfied with the performance.”

Unlike last year, when Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team suffereda crash involving two of its riders on rain-slicked roads, the team rodesmoothly over the rolling, technically difficult course.

“We wanted to win today, but we didn’t crash or have any problems, sowe have to look at the bright side,” said George Hincapie, the only U.S.Postal Service racer to ride on all three of Armstrong’s victories. “It’shard to know where we lost time. ONCE just had a super day.”

Hincapie said the team did not inspect the course, but sport directorsJohan Bruyneel and Dirk Demol had each surveyed the course in detail earlierthis year.

“It always helps to know what’s coming up, but we had good informationfrom Dirk and Johan, but that might be one factor,” Hincapie said. “Wecan’t make any excuses. We rode very strong as a team today. We were consistentand we had no problems. ONCE was just stronger.”

The team profited from hard work by Hincapie, Jose Luis Rubiera andViatcheslav Ekimov, the 2000 Olympic time trial gold medalist. Ekimov pulledhard in the closing kilometers and sat up just at the end and finishednine seconds behind the other eight.

Bruyneel said he was also pleased with the team’s performance despitenot winning the stage. “The situation is good, just like last year,” hesaid. “We made some time on some rivals and we’re close to ONCE. They havethe jersey now and they have the pressure. We just want things to stayeasy with the team.”

CSC-Tiscali’s blues
Laurent Jalabert has been chasing the yellow jersey since the Tourstarted. Just two seconds slower than Armstrong in the opening prologue,the CSC-Tiscali team captain poured everything into the tough stage 1 inLuxembourg but came up short when Lampre-Daikin’s Rubens Bertogliati surprisedeveryone to win the stage and take the jersey.

The team gave up its chase for the jersey in the second and third stagesand instead focused on winning the team time trial. Everything was goingto script until Sandstod, the double national Danish champion in the roadrace and time trial, punctured his front tire about 50km into the stage.

There was confusion within the team as the team’s course radios malfunctioned.Team boss Bjarne Riis ordered the team to stop and wait for Sandstod, theirstrongest rider for the finale, while Jalabert made the call on the roadto press on.

The miscue cost the team nearly a minute as it struggled to regroup.They waited for Sandstod – who never caught back on – and lost Jalabert’sbest chance for the jersey.

“We lost our rhythm and we lost a good opportunity,” a disappointedJalabert said, who dropped to 15th at 37 seconds. “Since the beginningof the Tour I have felt good. This makes three times I’ve been close tothe yellow jersey and it’s really too bad. I think if we had continuedwe could have won the stage.”

Sandstod said he clearly heard Riis call for the team to stop.

“The only thing we didn’t discuss before the stage was what to do itwe had a puncture,” Sandstod said. “We only discussed the team tacticsand rider positions.”

Hamilton, who left U.S. Postal Service last year to ride for CSC-Tiscalias a team leader, said radio problems contributed to the team’s bad luck.

“It was confusing. We had some radio problems and we didn’t realizehe had flatted right away,” said Hamilton, now 16th at 53 seconds back.“We started to wait and then we decided to go. It was just wasted time.We didn’t gain a rider by waiting. We soft-pedaled for a good 35 to 40seconds and we lost the rhythm. That was really the key part.”

Hamilton added, “We had a great ride going, but it’s part of the sport.I normally don’t say this, but without that flat, we would have won. Sandstodis such a strong guy, I think that the last 10-km we would have been 30seconds faster, easy.”

Jalabert, France’s most popular rider, couldn’t hide his disappointment.

“You have to count on having some bad luck, but you also have to counton having a team that’s unified and confident,” he said. “I think todayall the elements came together for us except the (expletive deleted) flattire. We knew we could finish in the top five and now we are third, butwe are still very disappointed.”

Others not so happy
Fassa Bortolo had a strong ride to finish fourth while defending teamtime trial champion Crédit Agricole struggled in more than two minutesback (it was the only team with all nine riders to cross the line together).Erik Zabel lost his yellow jersey as his Telekom team finished a disappointing12th 2:47 back. AG2R was the slowest team at 4:24.

Leipheimer’s Rabobank team finished eighth, 2:16 down and was expectingbetter things. Kelme was ninth at 2:19, a disappointment to Sevilla. “Weare not happy with how things went. We were stronger last year, but I feltstrong overall. This is not my terrain, so I cannot be too displeased,”Sevilla said, now 55th at 2:43. “The Tour is very long and I will attackin the mountains.”

Stage 4, team time trial, 67.5 km (41.85 miles), Epernay to Château-Thierry
Weather: Partly sunny, skies clearing in the afternoon, crosswindsand head winds on most of the course.
Stage winner: ONCE-Eroski
Overall leader: Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spain, ONCE) movesinto the yellow jersey after starting the stage in 12th place 26 secondsback.
Points jersey: Erik Zabel (Germany, Telekom), retained the greenjersey he won in stage 1 (there were no points awarded in Wednesday’s stage).
Climber’s jersey: Christophe Mengin retained the polka-dot jerseyhe earned in stage 3 (there were no points awarded in Wednesday’s stage).
Best young rider: ONCE’s Isidro Nozal takes the white jerseyfrom Lampre-Daikin’s Rubens Bertogliati.
Best team: ONCE moved atop the team standings.
Peloton: All 189 riders remain.

UCI jury decisions
Tacconi Sport, not respecting the rule of staying 10 meters behind the riders; a 20-second penalty for every rider on the team and 200 SFfine for the directeur sportif.

Injury report
No injuries today; 54 riders from six teams (Alessio, FDJeux.com, Kelme,Rabobank, CSC-Tiscali and U.S. Postal Service) were blood tested by theUCI before the start of Wednesday’s stage from 7:20 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. Noneof the riders was deemed unfit to race.
 

Photo Gallery