Vinokourov shines as Bernucci rides his luck
Lorenzo Bernucci of Italy was the unexpected victor of a dramatic sixth stage of the Tour de France in Nancy as Alexander Vinokourov threw down the gauntlet to race leader Lance Armstrong.
Vinokourov of Kazakhstan cut Armstrong’s overall race lead to 53 seconds with his second-placed finish on the day and the experienced rider can consider himself unlucky not to have made further gains on the six-times winner from the United States.
Vinokourov, who had been seventh overall at the start of the day and made up 28 seconds on the American to go second, looked poised to win the sixth stage as he closed in on long-time stage leader Christophe Mengin.
However, the Frenchman slipped in the closing 500 metres and the Kazakh was forced to take evasive action which cost him time and momentum.
That allowed the unheralded Bernucci, riding for the Fassa Bortolo team, to claim the honours on the day and his first ever race win after the 199km ride from Troyes with a winning time of 4hrs 12min 52sec.
Mengin was left needing treatment on a day when he came close to a spectacular coup but it was Vinokourov who had fired the first real warning shot of the 2005 Tour at Armstrong, who is bidding to quit cycling on the back of a seventh victory in the race he has made his own.
Robert Forster of Germany completed the podium in third while Armstrong escaped involvement in the pile-up that followed Mengin’s fall and retained the race leader’s yellow jersey.
“I can’t believe it,” Bernucci told Eurosport after the race. “This is the best cycle race in the world and it is great to win a stage.”
It was a five-man breakaway that brought the race alive as it left Troyes in the Champagne region for the Lorraine city of Nancy.
Mauro Gerosa launched the breakaway and was quickly joined by Mengin.
Jaan Kirsipuu, Stephane Auge and Karsten Kroon then made it a five-man breakaway and after 43.5km the escapees had a 2minute 30seconds lead on the peloton.
The lead continued to grow and soon the gap had grown to 8min 20sec at the 77km stage.
The peloton, notably the Quickstep and Davitamon-Lotto teams, decided belatedly to react to the breakaway and the gap slowly fell to 6min 50sec.
Quickstep’s Tom Boonen and Davitamon’s Robbie McEwen had between them won the three regular stages to be contested so far in the 2005 Tour.
Estonian Kirsipuu, a former yellow jersey wearer in Tours gone by, saw his progress impeded by a puncture but, aided by his mechanics, quickly rejoined the others in the leading group.
The gap had further dwindled when the leaders came within 75km of home with it now standing at 5min 45sec.
As the rain deteriorated conditions, Armstrong and many other riders donned raincoats but the Texan still had time to laugh and joke with a motorised camera crew that was shadowing his movements.
Slowly but surely the lead came down and with 40km to go it stood only at 2min 55sec.
As the race entered its final 15km Mengin made a bid for glory as he stepped up the pace to pull clear of his fellow escapees.
They were caught by the peloton but as the race entered its final 10km Mengin still had a lead of half a minute.
Dario Cioni pulled clear of the peloton in a bid to catch Mengin but the Frenchman was still in the lead as the race entered its final 1km.
Cioni soon gave up and now it was Vinokourov who took it upon himself to catch the fading Frenchman who slipped while still leading.
Bernucci was eventually the man to celebrate but it was Vinokourov who showed Armstrong that his farewell Tour will not necessarily be a formality.
Friday’s seventh stage, a 228.5km race, will see the race travel from Luneville to the German town of Karlsruhe.
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