Returning to the Tour de France after a doping ban, Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan won the 13th stage on Saturday, while Andy Schleck of Luxembourg kept the yellow jersey.
Vinokourov led a bold solo breakaway at the end and was followed in a mass sprint headed by Mark Cavendish of Britain and Alessandro Petacchi of Italy. They and the main pack finished 13 seconds behind Vinokourov.
Schleck retained the overall lead by keeping pace with his closest challenger — two-time Tour champion Alberto Contador, who trails the leader by 31 seconds in second place.
PHOTO: EPA
Vinokourov looked backward at the trailing pack and thrust his arms skyward at the end of the 196km course from Rodez to Revel over five low-level climbs. He finished in four hours, 26 minutes, 26 seconds and hugged Astana teammate Contador.
Vinokourov got out of the pack within the last 10km, overtaking an earlier breakaway rider, Italy’s Alessandro Ballan, and then held off the pack on a late descent. Vinokourov said he hadn’t planned on attacking after Astana managers recommended a “calm” ride on the day — but that he saw an opportunity and took it.
“It was a beautiful victory, a beautiful reward,” Vinokourov said after the fourth Tour stage victory in his career. “I heard fans shouting Vino at the start ... that gave me a lot of motivation.”
Contador tweeted: “I am happier than if I had won.”
Vinokourov, a 36-year-old veteran who won the Tour of Spain in 2006, was kicked out of the 2007 Tour de France for blood doping in one of the biggest scandals of the doping-marred race that year. The stage victory on Saturday would have been his sixth, but his two stage wins in the 2007 Tour were nullified after his disqualification.
Vinokourov, who faced a grilling from reporters about doping after he won the Liege Bastogne Liege in Belgium in April, said being able to ride in the Tour this year was “already a big victory for me.”
After the Belgian race, one of the pro-cycling competitions known as the Classics, Vinokourov said he knew he had to regain the trust of fans and that he wanted to prove that he could win through hard work.
With Saturday’s win, “I showed I worked hard in these two years.”
The top standings didn’t change because the main contenders crossed in the same pack.
“It was a good day for my team,” said Schleck, the Saxo Bank leader. “We didn’t have to work ... Today was calm — tomorrow is the battle. We’re going to have a nice stage tomorrow.”
Samuel Sanchez of Spain is third, two-minutes, 45 seconds back.
With his third-place finish, Petacchi took the green jersey, which is awarded to the best sprinter, from Norway’s Thor Hushovd, who was eighth. The Italian won the first and fourth stages in Week One.
Seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong cruised in a late-arriving bunch, and finished four minutes, 35 seconds back in 100th place — the fourth straight day he’s lost time to the leader. The 38-year-old American has said his victory hopes are finished. He’s 36th overall, 25 minutes, 38 seconds back.
After the pack had finished, Armstrong was shown on TV smiling and chatting with RadioShack teammate Yaroslav Popovych while on a leisurely ride under a canopy of trees along French roads.
The American didn’t respond to questions from reporters before or after the stage. He has been plagued by crashes at this year’s Tour, coming down at least three times and getting delayed by at least two others.
His latest crash on Saturday bizarrely came before the start line during the warm-up ride. The Tour pack usually rides a few kilometers before a regular stage officially begins.
RadioShack spokesman Philippe Maertens said Armstrong believed he simply bumped a teammate and fell, scraping up his left elbow. He returned to the race quickly.
Armstrong, in response to a Twitter posting saying that he might be planning “a big surprise” for yesterday, replied: “I like the sound of it.”
The race was to enter the Pyrenees yesterday — the first of four days of punishing climbs in the mountains that will play a key role in who wins the three-week race at the July 25 finish in Paris.
The 184.5km ride from Revel to the ski station of Ax-3 Domaines will lead riders up two extreme climbs, first the Port de Pailheres — one of the toughest ascents in cycling — and an uphill finish.
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