MORZINE, France, 13 July 2003 — Former Festina bad boy Richard Virenque claimed his sixth career stage victory on the Tour de France here yesterday after winning the 230.5km seventh stage from Lyon to here.
The 33-year-old Frenchman also took hold of the race leader’s jersey from US Postal rider Victor Hugo Pena of Colombia, and the polka dot jersey which he is aiming to win for what would be a record-equaling sixth time.
Virenque, who rides for the Quick Step team, joined up with an early breakaway and together with teammate Paolo Bettini and German Telekom rider Rolf Aldag surged ahead of the peloton to build a significant lead.
As the peloton struggled with baking temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius, forcing a couple of the big names to the back, Virenque’s attack did not let up and he eventually left Aldag to go it alone.
After crossing the summit of the Col de la Ramaz with a 3min 55sec lead over the peloton, around 20km from the finish, Virenque was simply unstoppable as he raced toward Morzine.
Virenque, a five-time winner of the polka dot jersey for the Tour’s best climber but who was thrown out of the 1998 Tour de France along with his then Festina team because of systematic drug abuse, won his last stage on the Tour last year at the Mont Ventoux. He also won at Morzine the last time the Tour passed through here, in 2000.
A quick breakaway in the first kilometer kicked the stage into life and it lasted for most of the day as some of the big names in the peloton struggled to get over the five medium-difficulty climbs.
Italian champion Paolo Bettini was at the front most of the day, the 29-year-old Quick Step rider riding away from the peloton alongside Rolf Aldag and French duo Benoit Poilvert and Frederic Clain.
They were soon joined by Virenque and by the 85th kilometer of the 230.5km stage had built a lead of over eight minutes on the peloton which was being led by Lance Armstrong’s US Postal team.
After leading for most of the day Virenque and Bettini made a decisive move at the start of the 1619-metre Col de la Ramaz, the first category one climb of the race whose summit was only 20km from the finish.
At the foot of the 14.3km climb Virenque and Bettini held an eight-minute lead over the peloton. Since both Virenque (1:52) and Bettini (1:39) started the day at less than two minutes behind Pena, the peloton had a vested interest in closing the gap and soon kicked into life.
However their reaction, which left a group of around 50 riders trailing, also claimed some notable names, with world time trial champion Santiago Botero and Giro winner Gilberto Simoni finding the going tough.
At the front meanwhile Virenque countered a sneaky attacking move by Aldag, who upped and left while the Frenchman had been back at his team car asking for a water bottle. The Moroccan-born son of a French army officer wasn’t about to be upstaged and soon caught the German and made him pay by surging ahead alone. At the front of the peloton meanwhile Alexandre Vinokourov, the 29-year-old Telekom rider who won this year’s Paris-Nice, Amstel Gold and the Tour of Siwtzerland, surprised Armstrong by sprinting away ferociously.
At the back, Simoni, the Giro winner who had promised to give Armstrong a run for his money on the climbs, dropped off the back. Botero, who won a mountain stage on the Tour last year, also found the going tough and was seen struggling to turn the pedals.
Virenque meanwhile was on a mission at the front and had found a second wind by the time he reached the Ramaz climb’s summit, which he passed alone with a 1:30 lead over Aldag. Poilvet was next over the summit, the young Credit Agricole rider maintaining an impressive pace as the peloton followed suit at 3:55 behind Virenque.
