German sprinter Erik Zabel of Bjarne Riis’ Telekom team took his second win of the 1996 Tour de France and snatched the green points jersey from GAN’s Frederic Moncassin as summer sunshine finally warmed the Tour peloton. It was the German team’s second successive stage win and their leader Riis, currently clad in yellow, even had the cheek to act as Zabel’s lead-out man in the stage’s final few hundred meters.
With the Tour crossing back into France via the same mountain pass, the Col de Montgenevre, over which it had entered Italy on yesterday’s stage to Sestrieres, the first news on the race radio was of French hero Laurent Jalabert’s abandon, perhaps tactfully on Italian soil, after 69 km. "I thought I could recover," he said of the gastroenteritis that had sapped his strength. "With the sunshine, I felt that things might get better, but I was wrong there’s no room for sick people on the Tour." Ahead of him, the day’s racing was taking shape as Motorola’s Laurent Madouas, Roslotto’s Piotr Ugrumov, Festina’s Richard Virenque and Telekom’s Jan Ullrich attacked on the climb and, with Madouas falling back towards the summit, opened up a gap of 3:10 on the peloton.
With Mapei chasing and Ullrich inheriting his team leader’s yellow jersey on the road, despite his refusal to assist the break, the three breakaways began to bicker. Then, after some debate with their directeur sportifs, Virenque and Ugrumov sat up and allowed the peloton to close the gap. Soon after the passage of Embrun, where Zabel won his second intermediate sprint of the day, 15 riders attacked at Savines le Lac, some 44 km from the finish. In the group were Luc Leblanc of Polti, Festina’s Laurent Dufaux and Rabobank’s Danish co-leader Rolf Sorensen. Both Leblanc, 12th overall, and Dufaux, 10th overall, were close enough to race-leader Riis to quickly ensure a reaction from Telekom and Mapei.
It was as that reaction had its effect, 26 kilometers from Gap, that Sorensen jumped clear alone to bid for his first stage win since 1994. On the summit of the col de la Sentinelle, the day’s final difficulty, the 31-year-old Dane had a lead of just 12 seconds on the main field, and his flying descent was fast enough to see him speed into the streets of Gap still well clear of the peloton.
But the sprinters were in full cry on the three-kilometer approach to the finish in the avenue d’Embrun and just 300 meters from the line, as his strength finally faded, the courageous Sorensen was overtaken by Zabel, who held off a surprising lunge from Djamolidine Abdujaparov to take the fourth Tour stage win of his brief career.
RESULTS
1. Erik Zabel (Ger), Telekom 208.5 km in 5:08:10
2. Djamolidine Abdujaparov (Uzb), Refin
3. Andrea Ferrigato (It), Roslotto
4. Fabio Baldato (It), MG/Technogym
5. Emmanuel Magnien (Fr), Festina
6. Alessandro Bertolini (It), Brescialat
7. Francesco Frattini (It), Gewiss
8. Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus), Rabobank
9. Maurizio Fondriest (It), Roslotto
10. Laurent Dufaux (Switz), Festina all s.t.
Abandons: Laurent Jalabert (Fr), ONCE; Johan Bruyneel (Belg), Rabobank; Mario Traversoni (It), Carrera; Pascal Lino (Fr), Roslotto; Dominique Arnould (Fr), Agrigel; Thierry Marie (Fr), Agrigel
Points Classification: Erik Zabel (Ger), Telekom
Mountains Classification: Richard Virenque (Fr), Festina
General Classification:
No change