PASCAL Lino wiped away French humiliation yesterday in the Tour de
France with a superb display of attacking flair to win the fourteenth
stage at Perpignan.
Since the Tour started 15 days ago, no Frenchman had won a stage. Fans
and the media were baying for blood, fearing a repeat of the 1926 race
which produced no domestic winners.
''I wanted to stop the critics who were saying we were too well-paid
and that we didn't attack enough,'' Lino said after his triumph in the
224-km stage from Montpellier.
Lino shared in a break of almost 200km with four other riders who
gained more than a quarter of an hour on the pack. But he had the
strength for another attack with just under 15km left and only Italian
Giancarlo Perini was able to follow.
The Frenchman, who was fifth in last year's Tour after having worn the
leader's yellow jersey for 10 days, just held on in the sprint to beat
Perini by the width of a tyre, clocking 5hr 28min. 51sec.
The three others in the breakaway, Belgian Johan Bruyneel and Italians
Mario Chiesa and Gianni Faresin, followed 13 seconds later, with the
peloton more than 16 minutes down.
Spain's Miguel Indurain retained the yellow jersey with a lead of
3min. 23sec. over Colombian Alvaro Mejia before the race moves on for
three days in the Pyrenees.
The only big change in the overall standings favoured Bruyneel, who
jumped up from twenty-sixth to eighth.
Lino and Perini, eighth in last year's Tour, had shown little this
year after a disastrous showing in the Alps.
Their breakaway came after Swiss Tony Rominger and Italian Claudio
Chiappucci blew the field apart on the Mont St Clair climb just outside
the port of Sete.
The climb is only 1.6km long but goes from sea-level to an altitude of
190 metres at an average gradient of 11.3%, the steepest of the entire
Tour. Only a few riders could keep in touch with Rominger and
Chiappucci, and five of them got away together on the downhill and kept
moving steadily away from the pack.
With none of them in a threatening position in the standings,
Indurain's Banesto team decided it was not worth chasing too hard to
avoid exhaustion before the mountains.
Today's fifteenth stage takes the race about 140 miles to Andorra over
three first-category and four second-category climbs in one of the
toughest sections of the Tour. Results:
Fourteenth stage -- 1, Pascal Lino (France) Festina 5hr 28min. 51sec.;
2, Giancarlo Perini (Italy) ZG Mobili same time; 3, Johan Bruyneel
(Belgium) ONCE 13sec. behind; 4, Mario Chiesa (Italy) Carrera; 5, Gianni
Faresin (Italy) ZG Mobili all same time; 6, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov
(Uzbekistan) Lampre 16min. 19sec.; 7, Laurent Jalabert (France) ONCE; 8,
Christophe Capelle (France) GAN; 9, Francois Simon (France) Castorama;
10, Giovanni Fidanza (Italy) Gatorade; 11, Max Sciandri (Italy)
Motorola; 12, Frederic Moncassin (France) Wordperfect; 13, Franck Pineau
(France) Chazal; 14, Stefano Colage (Italy) ZG Mobili; 15, Johan Museeuw
(Belgium) GB MG; 16, Laurent Pillon (France) GB MG; 17, Mario Kummer
(Germany) Telekom; 18, Jens Heppner (Germany) Telekom; 19, Jacky Durand
(France) Castorama; 20, Peter de Clercq (Belgium) Lotto all same time.
Other stage placings -- 44, S Roche (Ireland) Carrera 16-19 behind;
79, R Millar (GB) TVM; 92, S Yates (GB) Motorola both same time.
Overall standings after 14 stages: 1, Miguel Indurain (Spain) Banesto
64hr 27min. 59sec.; 2, Alvaro Mejia (Colombia) Motorola 3min. 23sec.
behind; 3, Zenon Jaskula (Poland) GB MG 4-45; 4, Tony Rominger
(Switzerland) Clas 5-44; 5, Bjarne Riis (Denmark) Ariostea 10-26; 6,
Andy Hampsten (USA) Motorola 11-02; 7, Claudio Chiappucci (Italy)
Carrera 14-09; 8, Johan Bruyneel (Belgium) ONCE 14-30; 9, Vladimir
Poulnikov (Ukraine) Carrera
14-35; 10, Eric Breukink (Netherlands) ONCE 15-08; 11, Pedro Delgado
(Spain) Banesto 15-46; 12, Oliviero Rincon (Colombia) Amaya 21-31; 13,
Antonio Martin (Spain) Amaya 22-21; 14, Gianni Faresin (Italy) ZG Mobili
23-10; 15, Gianni Bugno (Italy) Gatorade 23-46; 16, Jean-Philippe Dojwa
(France) Festina 23-54; 17, Roberto Conti (Italy) Ariostea 24-02; 18,
Alex Zuelle (Switzerland) ONCE 24-14; 19, Alberto Elli (Italy) Ariostea
25-14; 20, Federico Echave (Spain) Clas 25-45.
Other overall standings -- 21 Roche
25-50 behind; 34, Millar 34-32; 66, Yates 57-20.
Mountains leaders -- 1, Rominger 191pts; 2, Indurain 136; 3, Mejia
117.
Points leaders -- 1, Abdoujaparov 228pts; 2, Jalabert 186; 3, Ludwig
177.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article