July 19/97 10:41 am - Pantani Wins Alpe d'Huez, Canada Cup #5 Preview

Posted by Editor on 07/19/97
 

Marco Pantani has just won the Alpe d‚Huez stage, for the second time in his career. This in itself is not so surprising, however, what is equally impressive is the second place finish of race leader Jan Ullrich, only 47 seconds behind. The race did not really begin until the final 20 kilometres. Sure, there had been an early breakaway of two riders (Aus and Loda) that reached a maximum time gap of 4 :20 and was away for 132 kilometres, but as the race approached the Alpe d‚Huez climb the two were easily gobbled up. The first attack on the climb was by former race leader Cedric Vasseur. This was immediately countered by Pascal Herve, and then the racing began in earnest. The front group quickly dropped to Ullrich, Riis, Virenque, Escartin, Casagrande and Pantani. Pantani increased the pressure at the second bend (of 21), dropping Casagrande and Escartin. A short while later the Italian climber pushed the pace up another notch, losing Riis. Another two jumps and Virenque was gone, and then, finally, Ullrich was dropped also with about 8 kilometres to go. After that it was every rider for himself, with Pantani slowly increasing his lead over Ullrich, who inturn gradually put space between himself and Virenque. Behind, Riis was joined by Casagrande, with the latter taking fourth place. Pantani has moved into 3rd place overall with his victory, and has to be considered a strong threat with the remaining 4 days of mountains to follow.  Stage 13, to l‚Alpe d‚Huez, 203.5 km  1. Marco Pantani (Ita) 5:02:42 2. Jan Ullrich (Dui) at 0:47 3. Richard Virenque (Fra) 1:27 4. Francesco Casagrande(Ita) 2:27 5. Bjarne Riis (Den) 2:28 6. Beat Zberg (Zwi) 2:59 7. Udo Bölts (Dui)  8. Roberto Conti (Ita)  9. Laurent Madouas (Fra) all s.t.  10. Laurent Jalabert (Fra) 3:22 11. Marco Fincato (Ita) 3:26 12. Abraham Olano (Spa)  13. Jose-Maria Jimenez (Spa) all s.t.  14. Manuel Bertran (Spa) 3:55 15. Fernando Escartin (Spa) 4:14 16. Davide Rebellin (Fra) 4:24 17. Peter Luttenberger (Oos)  18. Oskar Camenzind (Zwi) all s.t.   GC  1. Jan Ullrich (Dui) 66:26:10 2. Richard Virenque (Fra) at 6:22 3. Marco Pantani (Ita) 8:24 4. Bjarne Riis (Den) 9:43 5. Abraham Olano (Spa) 10:38 6. Francesco Casagrande,Ita 12:56 7. Fernando Escartin (Spa) 14:36   Specialized Canada Cup, Whistler, B.C.  Canada Cup Number 5 is underway this weekend, with the Downhill and Dual Slalom today, and the Cross-Country tomorrow. We will be bringing you updates each evening. In the Dual Slalom qualifier last night, Pete Zablotny was the fastest, his time of 25.05 seconds just beating out Andrew Shandro by 15 one-hundreths. Aleisha Kline (29.40) finished first for the women, ahead of local favourite Elladee Brown (29.51).