Mishaps, mistakes, missteps mark 2010 Tour de France (Feature)

By Siegfried Mortkowitz Jul 21, 2010, 6:02 GMT

Paris - It may be that the winner of the 2010 Tour de France will be the only rider not to have crashed, fallen ill or suffered a mechanical breakdown.

With three competitive stages left in the race - plus the ceremonial ride into Paris on July 25 - Spain's Alberto Contador looks likely to be the last man standing.

He leads Andy Schleck of Luxembourg by a mere 8 seconds, with another Spaniard, Samuel Sanchez, in third, 2 minutes adrift.

Contador owes his lead over Schleck to one of the numerous mishaps, mistakes and missteps that have characterized this dramatic Tour.

During Monday's 15th stage, the 25-year-old Schleck suffered misfortune at the worst possible moment. The chain of his bicycle popped out of the derailleur just as he sought to distance himself from Contador on a long, grueling climb 25 km before the finish.

The two-time Tour winner did not think twice. He raced past his rival and left him behind as the hapless Schleck waited for a replacement bicycle, gaining 39 seconds at the finish and the race leader's yellow jersey.

A Tour de France mechanic told the daily L'Equipe that Schleck had made a beginner's mistake by standing up in the bicycle just as he changed gears.

'That's exactly what you learn in cycling school never to do,' the mechanic said.

The rider who arguably has suffered the greatest series of misfortunes during the three-week race is Lance Armstrong, who was riding in his final Tour de France and, perhaps significantly, his 13th.

The seven-time Tour champion came to the race in excellent condition and with serious ambitions for another championship.

But he fell, along with dozens of other riders, on the rain-slick pavement in the second stage, suffered a flat tyre on the cobblestones of the third stage, then crashed in a roundabout and was slowed by two other crashes during the eighth stage.

The crashes bruised and bloodied Armstrong and, along with the other incidents, cost him a great deal of time. As a result, he was out of contention after only one week of racing.

'I had a lot of luck all the other years, when I never crashed,' Armstrong told France 2 television. 'Maybe it just caught up to me.

To illustrate his bad luck, Armstrong also fell before the start of the start of the 12th stage, again in a roundabout, which damaged nothing but his pride.

This prompted him to declare on Twitter: 'Whoever invented roundabouts and traffic islands must have hated bike racing.

But, of course, Armstrong was not the only rider to suffer. World road race champion Cadel Evans crashed heavily in the eighth stage and suffered a stress fracture of his left elbow while he was leading the Tour.

He lost the leader's yellow jersey to Schleck in the very next stage and has continued to lose time while riding with his injury.

A number of riders have criticized Tour organizers for the route they have chosen, charging they ignored the well-being of the riders.

One of the hashest critics was Schleck's elder brother Frank, who crashed on the cobblestones of stage 3 and suffered a triple fracture of his clavicle.

'Whoever plans the route of the Tour has no right to play with the health of the riders just because they want a spectacular race,' he told the Danish daily Ekstra Blaten.