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upright and rejoin the race.
I continued to ride slowly, waiting for Ullrich to catch up. This was what racing custom dictated. It s not
something American audiences necessarily understand, but it s an intrinsic part of the sport and any other
top rider would have done the same for a respected opponent.
Ullrich deserved the respect of the entire peloton. He had never broken; he fell back, but he always
fought to the head of the pack again, and I could never completely ride away from him. No matter what,
he was always there, next to my shoulder, unwilling to concede the race. You should always honor your
fiercest opponent: the better your opponent, the better you have to be.
He caught up to me. I said,  You okay? He nodded.  I m fine, he said. We accelerated up the road.
We resumed race pace, and stayed shoulder to shoulder, dead-even until the last 3.7 miles.
The final climb, to Pla d Adet, was one that I knew well: I d rehearsed it three different times in the
spring, studying the steep parts. It was a slope where you could put some time between yourself and the
other riders, and now I was ready to. Much as I admired Ullrich and was glad he was all right, I wanted
to get rid of him now. I wanted that yellow jersey, and a stage win would give it to me. I thought,Yo-yo
Daddy.
When we hit the final climb, I jumped out of my seat and charged. Ullrich made no real attempt to
follow. Within seconds it seemed like I was 100 yards ahead of him. Behind me, he put his head down
and kept on.
 I rode on alone, and within a half-mile I passed the last cyclist ahead of me, Laurent Jalabert ofFrance.
Later Jalabert said,  He made it look so easy that it was beautiful.
But Jalabert was wrong, it wasn t easy. It hurt, deep inside where muscle met bone. I simply pretended
it didn t hurt, controlling my demeanor. I understood how demoralizing it was to spend a day like that on
a bike and get passed by a rider who doesn t seem to suffer. It s a mental and physical defeatedness that
no one else knows except the cyclists themselves.
Of course it hurt. If you looked closely you could see that it did, in my bloodshot eyes. The truth is that
there s no such thing as riding effortlessly in the Tour. It simply didn t hurt as much as it could have,
because all the training I had done through the year paid dividends. I was well prepared, I knew which
parts of the mountain were the worst, and I d learned to use even, consistent efforts, and avoid crises.
But it still hurt.
I crossed the finish line alone, and toppled off the bike, spent, the new leader of the Tour de France. We
had done what Johan asked, and attacked at every opportunity and the result was that we had won
three of the last four stages, and made up 35 minutes and 24 places in the standings. In two days alone,
we d made up 22 minutes. It set a record for the biggest deficit ever overcome.
Johan pulled up in the team car, exultant. That day, he had a passenger, Phil Knight, the co-founder of
Nike. Knight had been to virtually every great event in the world, and witnessed countless thrilling
moments, but he had never seen a Tour de France stage before, and now as he climbed from the car, he
looked stunned by it all: the rainbow colors of the peloton jet-streaming by, the wrecks and recoveries,
the precipitous climbs under scorching sun. I looked at his face and knew we d created another cycling
enthusiast.  That is the single greatest day in sport that I have ever seen, Knight raved.
At last I pulled the yellow jersey over my shoulders. It was a relief to wear that garment I d been chasing
so hard.
Ullrich and I continued our epic battle through the rest of thePyrenees, sweat pouring off our chins in the
high heat of the mountains. On the last of the mountain stages, after we had mounted the massive
6,874-foot Col du Tourmalet, Ullrich slipped ahead of me across the finish line, to win the stage. As he
did so, he dropped a hand and trailed it behind him, reaching out for mine. I grasped it.
I didn t know exactly what he meant by it, but I guessed it had something to do with companionship. We
had ridden hard together. He may have meant it as a kind of congratulations, too, because afterward, he
conceded the race. I had a five-minute lead, which now seemed safe all I had to do was stay upright
until we reachedParis.
 I m finished, Jan said.  I had no chance this year against Lance. I m not sure I did anything wrong. I
left the other guys behind me. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]