Montana boy could win Tour

Levi Leipheimer is now the top returning finisher after Friday's doping suspensions

A former Whitefish High School student could win the Tour de France, which starts today.

That's right - a quasi local boy.

I'm not going out on a crazy limb here. His name is Levi Leipheimer. He grew up in Butte and I've been covering him as a sports reporter in Butte for the past three years. He has raced in the Tour de France the past four years and finished in the top 10 three times. The only time he didn't finish in the top 10 was in 2003, when a major crash in the opening stage fractured the "sit bone" in his pelvis.

He finished sixth last year and after Friday's news of the Nos. 2 through 5 finishers from last year's race not being able to compete, Leipheimer is the top returner.

He should now be considered the favorite to win the race.

Last year, Sports Illustrated had him at 6-to-1 odds to win the Tour de France. VeloNews, in its 2005 Official Guide for the Tour, had him at 7-to-1 odds. This year, Sports Illustrated didn't have him at odds and neither Norm's News nor Borders in Kalispell had VeloNews's 2006 Official Guide.

Nobody seems to know the Montanan who splits his residence between Northern California and Spain and trained with Lance Armstrong last offseason - even with the credit that Armstrong gives him.

Three weeks ago, the 32-year-old won the eight-day Criterium du Dauphine Libere in France. The Dauphine is considered the top primer for the Tour and Armstrong won it the majority of the time he was going through his unprecedented Tour victories.

While racing at the Tour of Georgia last year prior to winning that seventh Tour, Armstrong sized up his American rivals (Bobby Julich, Floyd Landis and Leipheimer) and said Leipheimer is the one he is most concerned with in taking his seventh Tour victory away from him.

"To me the best Tour rider (of the three) is Levi, only because he's proved it - besides Bobby being third in 1998," Armstrong told VeloNews in the 2005 Tour de France Official Guide. "In recent years Levi has really been consistent in the Tour, aside from the year he crashed. I think he'll be there again. I'm impressed with how hard he works. He's a tough guy. You can go out on five-, six- or seven-hour rides and he never complains … I could see him being top five - top three."

Armstrong was close with his prediction. Leipheimer is known as an extremely strong climber but last year in the climbing stages, he never dominated. Leipheimer told me he was overcompensated with water and discussed how hard it is to find the balance between consuming and burning calories each day during the month-long race.

"The bad day on the mountain stage was an energy problem," Leipheimer said. "I hadn't been able to eat enough food. It wasn't as though I forgot, it's just that there wasn't enough room in my stomach for more. You have to have a strategy of what amount you can eat on which stage without getting stomach problems and then you just eat as much as you possibly can.

"In L'Alpe d'Huez, I didn't arrive at the start in time and wasn't able to warm up properly. It was during the third week of the Tour, so your body is hyper-compensated with water. You have to sweat it out before you can perform at your best, especially in events such as the mountain time trial."

Since last year's Tour, Leipheimer has improved his game. He beat Jan Ullrich fair and square at the Tour of Germany last August, and a few weeks ago he dominated the Dauphin/ Lib/r/. He was in the top three in the long time trial and easily the strongest climber on its stiffest test, Mont Ventoux.

So now that you know how good he is, let me tell you of his background and how he connects to the Flathead Valley.

Leipheimer was born and raised in Butte. He started racing bikes competively in 1987 as an offseason workout for his true passion - snow ski racing. In 1991, he transferred to Whitefish High School in order to train at Big Mountain for Super G races. He transferred to St. Mark's School in Salt Lake City his senior year and won the Western States Super G Ski Race on Mount Hood in 1992. Then a terrible Super G wreck put him out of the sport and into cycling full-time.

Like I said before, Leipheimer is known for his work ethic.

Olle Larsson, Leipheimer's former Alpine skiing coach at Big Mountain and in Salt Lake City, said Leipheimer is incredibly self-motivated. While training in Salt Lake City, Larsson allowed Leipheimer to train on his own, because he was so far beyond the others.

"He was way too tough for our training program," Larsson said during Levi Leipheimer Day in Butte in October.

Leipheimer started cycling professionally in 1996. In 2000 and 2001, he was Armstrong's teammate on the United States Postal Service Team. In 2002, Rabobank Professional Cycling Team signed him to a contract to be its lead man. He rode for the Dutch team for three years and became frustrated with its racing philosophy and signed with German-based Gerolsteiner (the country's leading bottled water company) in late 2004.

The 5-foot-7, 135-pounder with 27 professional victories since 1997 is having an all-star career. On Friday night after the doping scandal, velonews.com released updated odds and put him as the second favorite to win the race at 7-to-1.

Alejandro Valverde is the favorite to win.