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2000 Tour De France 3 Hr DVD |
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$49.95 You Save $20.00!
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$29.95! |
Lance Armstrong is back, he's still angry, and he proves the naysayers wrong as he crushes the Tour de France field for a second year in succession. The climb to Hautacam in the Pyrenees is where this turns into "Tour de Lance" as the cancer survivor hero puts in a ride worthy of the greats, perhaps the most stupendous piece of bike riding since Miguel Indurain's supersonic time trial at Luxembourg. In the chilling rain and dank mist, Marco Pantani, Alex Zulle and Jan Ullrich are left trailing as Armstrong displays the finest climbing form of his career.
As Ullrich struggles grimly to make second place his own, Pantani's comeback blossoms, with two stage wins -- the first gifted by Armstrong in the windswept wasteland atop the classic finish at Mont Ventoux, the second an attack in the best "Pirate" style to the tough finish at Courchevel. But he falls out with "Big Tex," and their feud blows the race apart as it crosses the Alps to Morzine. Pantani's move is a daring but suicidal lone attack, and Armstrong falters for the only time in 20 stages as hunger knock bites on the final steep hairpins of the Col de Joux-Plane.
For half an hour, the superhuman Texan's Tour is in jeopardy as Ullrich and the rest of the field ride past and leave him groveling, but he weathers the crisis and survives what he will term the toughest day he has ever spent on a bike. Three days later, he gains revenge on the German, with a flying performance in the Telekom leader's Black Forest backyard to win the longest time trial of the Tour on the Franco-German border, defying the massed ranks of Ullrich's vehement home supporters to come in with the fastest speed ever in a Tour time trial of this distance.
It's a Tour that favors the brave, with the feisty young Briton David Millar fighting the "cramps from hell" to pip Lance by just two seconds in the opening time trial at Futuroscope. The team time trial is buffeted by gale-force winds, and there are nervous moments for Lance's US Postal team as they fight to stay in one piece on the exposed bridge across the river Loire.
There's a happy return for Laurent Jalabert, back in the yellow jersey -- temporarily -- as ONCE win the team time trial, five years after he last shone in the Tour, and the genial German Marcel Wüst scores his first stage win in the Tour as the race enters the battlemented town of Vitre. But Jalabert's spell in the maillot jaune lasts only until he makes an unfortunately chosen stop to answer nature's call, and then the veteran Alberto Elli takes over until Armstrong makes his move.
There are other stars: the Dutchman Erik Dekker, off the front for most of the flat stages of the race, and rewarded with an incredible triple of stage wins, the third snatched at Lausanne from under the nose of Germany's Erik Zabel - who breaks Sean Kelly's record for green jersey wins with five on the trot. A Colombian, Santiago Botero, takes the King of the Mountains prize with a stunning ride in the wheel marks of Coppi and Bobet over the Vars and Izoard passes. He prevents Richard Virenque from equaling Federico Bahamontes and Lucien Van Impe with a sixth mountains prize win, but "Ricardo" bounces back with a brave - and lucky - stage win at Morzine as the little Spaniard Roberto Heras misjudges a corner and smashes into the crowd barriers.
None can equal Armstrong, who bestrides his second Tour with the confidence of Miguel Indurain. In a Tour that favors the brave, Lance is still the bravest of them all.
Approximately 8-hours. Commentary by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen.
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