jersey holders

David ZABRISKIE

David ZABRISKIE
worn by Lance ARMSTRONG

Fabian CANCELLARA

THE RACE LIVE

The film of the stage

From One American To Another

If you believed that the American influence on the Tour de France is going to wane because of the retirement of one particular rider at the end of this year’s race, think again. The young time trial protégé Dave Zabriskie has landed on Planet Tour in spectacular fashion. He won the stage, relegating six-time champion Lance Armstrong by two seconds, and has earned his CSC team its first yellow jersey.

Zabriskie had to be quick to beat a determined Armstrong on the flat, straight course to the island of Noirmoutier. That’s exactly what he was.

The 26-year-old was so fast in fact that he stole the record speed for a time trial in the Tour de France from another celebrated American.

Zabriskie burst out of the start house, slipped into his aero tuck and covered the 19km stage at an average of 54.676km/h – it was fast enough to eclipse the efforts of Greg Lemond’s famous victory on the Champs Elysees at the end of the 1989 Tour.

It was a long wait before the rider from Salt Lake City realized that his effort would relegate Armstrong. Zabriskie was the 19th rider to begin the stage. In less than 22 minutes his job was done but he had to wait over three hours to see if he’d done enough.

“It was stressful to watch on TV,” said the softly spoken Zabriskie after the stage. “I’m glad it worked out in my favor.”

Although he’s said to be quite a comedian in a relaxed environment, there wasn’t a great deal of humor in the post-stage press conference. Perhaps the surprise of beating Armstrong hindered his natural ways. “I never thought this would happen. Never ever.

“I’ve had some bad luck in the past. I got hit by a car in 2003… perhaps that’s why a lot of you haven’t seen many results from me in the past.”

It’s obvious that a lot more results will come in the future but Zabriskie doesn’t believe there is any expectation on him. Even though his arrival as a star of the Tour comes at the end of the Armstrong Era, he insists that nothing will change. "I’m just Dave Zabriskie. I’m happy with that." And why not?

Zabriskie is now a part of Tour history and although he is coy about how he’ll cope defending his two second advantage over Armstrong, there’s no doubt we’ll see more of him in the future.

In the past 10 months he’s won a stage of the Vuelta A Espana while part of the US Postal team, then a time trial at the Giro d’Italia with CSC. Now he’s in charge at the Tour de France.

The time trial is what Zabriskie excels in. This is also the discipline in which Jan Ullrich has extracted time from Armstrong during the tight competition in 2003, but the German failed today. After just 19km, he is over a minute behind his main rival.

It’s possible for weakness to be hidden in a short prologue but Armstrong gained a major psychological advantage on Ullrich today by catching him with just under four kilometers to race. The German has the excuse of an accident on the eve of the opening round of the 2005 Tour. He crashed through the rear window of his team’s car while doing a reconnaissance ride of the course in the Vendee. But he insisted that his injuries were minimal. If that’s the case, then it’s now clear that he needs to find some form in the coming week if he’s to challenge Armstrong for the title – 12th place isn’t exactly what was expected from Ullrich.

The more likely scenario for the latter stages is that the main challenge will come from Armstrong’s compatriots. The time trial was a good gauge of form. No one could afford to hide their strength, but some big pre-race favorites simply didn’t have any answer to the speed of Zabriskie and Lance.

Alexandre Vinokourov was third at 53 seconds, George Hincapie fourth, Laszlo Bodrogi fifth and Floyd Landis sixth. Dave concedes that he doesn’t expect to hold onto the yellow jersey for long. Lance has every intention of wearing it again. ‘Vino’ never ceases to surprise and he must be eyeing the prize. George is faithful to his captain. Laszlo is a ‘chrono man’ who won’t get over the mountains. And Floyd is determined to prove that there’s even more depth in American cycling.

There’s a lot more yet to come but we’ve now got a taste of who the heroes will be this July. And it looks like there’s going to be a strong American flavor in the 2005 Tour.

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