LINTHAL, Switzerland, 18 June 2004 — Phonak’s Swiss rider Niki Aebersold won the 185.4 km sixth stage of the Tour of Switzerland yesterday as Jan Ullrich extended his lead in the event.
German Ullrich, using the event to prepare for the Tour de France, came home in fourth place on the stage in the main chase pack, three minutes behind runaway stage winner Aebersold.
Oscar Camenzind, also of Phonak and in second place overnight two seconds down on Ullrich, finished 12th, a further one minute and 13 seconds adrift, and dropped to seventh overall.
Saunier Duval’s Fabian Jeker is now in second place, with the same six-second deficit to T-Mobile’s Ullrich that he started the day with.
Austrian Georg Totschnig of Gerolsteiner lies third, 25 seconds behind the leader.
Aebersold dominated the first real test of the event as he mastered two mountain passes to take the honors ahead of Rabobank’s Dutchman Thorwold Veneberg and Vini Caldirola’s Roger Beuchat of Switzerland.
He opted to go alone for the second pass and completed the stage two minutes and 51 seconds ahead of Veneberg as the tough mountain stage had a major effect on the leaderboard. Despite his win, Aebersold is 34th overall, however, and is more than 20 minutes behind Ullrich.
Former Armstrong Masseuse Reaffirms Doping Claims
In Paris, Emma O’Reilly, a former masseuse with five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong’s US Postal team and the key source in a book which alleges the American used EPO (erythropoietin), appeared on French television to reassert her claims yesterday.
O’Reilly worked with Armstrong for three and a half years from 1998 and was in almost constant contact with his close-knit team.
In the soon-to-be-released book, “LA Confidential, 17 June 2004 — The Secrets of Lance Armstrong” O’Reilly claims that she was asked to carry out a number of dubious tasks by the US Postal team.
Despite admitting that she knew her revelations would cause “controversy” the Irishwoman said she felt it was time to speak out.
“I’ve got a nice quiet life here and I know what I’ve said is going to cause a lot of controversy, but I just felt that with the way the sport had become, it was time to speak out,” she told France 3.
O’Reilly was filmed at her home in England, but footage was also shown of her while she worked with the American team after Armstrong had returned to racing in 1998 following his successful battle with cancer.
