Ex-Whitefish student staring at TDF title
Like water and oil, Sunday's eighth stage of the Tour de France separated the contenders from the pretenders.
Today is a rest day. Tuesday's ninth stage will be more grueling than Sunday's, which featured three category 1 climbs and a mountain top finish at the ski resort of Tignes at 6,784 feet above sea level.
Former Whitefish High School student Levi Leipheimer, who grew up in Butte before transferring to Whitefish in 1991 to train in the Super G on Big Mountain, has vaulted from 33rd place to 12th place in the Tour's mountain stages the past few days.
Leipheimer, the Discovery Channel's lead rider two years removed from the Lance Armstrong era, was a teammate of Armstrong's from 2000 to 2001 on the U.S. Postal Service team. For the past five years, two European cycling teams had Leipheimer as their lead rider. But American's big team signed him back right after last year's TDF to be its leader.
Even though Leipheimer wasn't a teammate of Armstrong's during his final four title rides, the two trained together in the offseasons and Leipheimer was forged into a major contender to win the Tour.
Coming into the race, VeloNews - in its official Tour de France guide - had Leipheimer as the race's co-favorite with Alexander Vinokourov. Vinokourov crashed early last week and is racing with a stitched-up knee now. Leipheimer was given grades of 9-out-of-10 in three categories: climbing ability, time-trail prowess and tactical sense. His lowest grade (8) was in team strength.
Leipheimer, who used cycling as an offseason training regimen for skiing before a terrible Super G wreck took him off the slopes, has three top 10 finishes at the Tour. He was sixth in 2005. He suffered greatly last year in the time trails and finished in 13th place, his only sub-top 10 placing. He blamed his poor performance on stomach problems, which he's become known for after being kicked by a horse in the stomach and hospitalized as a child. During the offseason, he concentrated on his TT performance. Wind-tunnel testing in November convinced him to raise the position of his hands. The strategy proved its worth in the Tour de Georgia and Tour of California, which he won.
And so now, in his sixth Tour appearance, Tuesday's ninth stage could set the tone for Leipheimer and the rest of the race because it is a little unusual to have climbing stages so early in the race.
Tuesday's stage features the Tour's highest mountain pass, the Col de I'Iseran (9,085 feet) right at the start, and a very long ascent via the Col du Telegraphe to the rugged Col du Galibier (8,678 feet). After descending Galibier, the stage finishes with a 2-kilometer climb.
Look for Leipheimer, the 1992 Western States Super G race winner on Mount Hood, to keep climbing the ranks. Even if he doesn't climb into the yellow jersey after the ninth stage, there's still three more grueling climbing stages.
Stage 14 is another two hors-category (above category) day. Stage 15 has an HC, two category 1s and two category 2s. Stage 16, which climbs into Leipheimer's offseason home of northern Spain, has two HCs and two category 1s.
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Carl Hennell is a sports reporter for the Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached at chennell@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4446.