2002 Tour de France participating team ONCE
Race overview
The Prologue was won by Lance Armstrong with Laurent Jalabert and Raimondas Rumšas coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Armstrong and his incredibly dominant US Postal team were not concerned with defending the Yellow Jersey in the early flat stages and it changed hands a few times. First it went to Rubens Bertogliati who wore it during Stage 2 and Stage 3, where Robbie McEwen defeated Erik Zabel in the sprint gaining enough time for the latter to wear the maillot jaune in Stage 4, which was a Team Time Trial. Team ONCE–Eroski won the TTT and their rider Igor González de Galdeano took over the overall lead. At this point in the Tour all of the Top 10 overall riders were either members of team ONCE or US Postal Cycling Team, but with two more ITT's and the Mountain stages to come this meant nothing as far as the overall standings, although it did make clear the fact that these two teams were in command within the Peloton.
The ensuing flat stages were won by Jaan Kirsipuu, Erik Zabel, Bradley McGee and Karsten Kroon and by the end of Stage 8 places 1-7 were all riders for ONCE with Gonzalez leading his teammate Joseba Beloki by :04 for the overall lead as the next riders from other teams were Armstrong in 8th and Tyler Hamilton of team CSC in 9th.
Stage 9 was an Individual Time Trial won by Santiago Botero and perhaps surprisingly seven riders finished within one minute of the stage winner when it was assumed by pundits that very few riders would keep Armstrong (who finished 2nd) that close and nobody would beat him. Following the ITT Gonzalez was still in Yellow leading the GC with Armstrong in 2nd overall, Beloki in 3rd and because of their strong performances in the ITT Serhiy Gonchar and Botero moved into 4th and 5th place in the General Classification.
Stage 10 was a hilly stage with a sprint finish won by Patrice Halgand of team Jean Latour. In places 2-11 were Jérôme Pineau of team Bonjour, Stuart O'Grady of Credit Agricole, Ludo Dierckxsens of Lampre, Pedro Horrillo of Mapei, Andy Flickinger of AG2R, Nicolas Vogondy of FDJ, Nico Mattan of Cofidis, Constantino Zaballa of Kelme, Enrico Cassani of Domo and Unai Extebarria of Euskadel.
Spanish team ONCE with Beloki, Gonzalez and Abraham Olano, and American team US Postal with Armstrong, a young Floyd Landis, Viatcheslav Ekimov and the dominant Spanish rider Roberto Heras, a former Vuelta a España champion, would have the battle for the 2002 Tour de France in the mountains.
In Stage 11 Laurent Jalabert lead the stage from kilometer 6 all the way until kilometer 155 when Armstrong caught and dropped him 3 km from the finish. US Postal controlled the pace of the Peloton for most of the race. Heras lead the way setting such a high pace that most of Armstrong's rivals were dropped before Armstrong even had to put in any work of his own, but when Armstrong finally did attack only his own teammate Heras and Beloki could stay with him, but before long Armstrong was on his own headed for the Yellow Jersey.
In Stage 12 Jalabert attacked early again with Isidro Nozal and Laurent Dufaux going with him. About halfway through the stage the chase-1 group was about 3:00 behind with Richard Virenque, Eddy Mazzoleni and Alexandre Botcharov while once again US Postal with George Hincapie at the front dictated the pursuit of the main field/peloton just over 4:00 behind Jalabert, who was once again caught less than 10 km from the finish after leading the race for most of the day.Once again Heras fractured the group of the final ten elite riders left with only Armstrong and Beloki able to match his pace and once again when Armstrong launched his attack neither Heras or Beloki could go with him as they finished 2nd and 3rd to him 1:04 behind. Botero and Gonzalez were able to get within seven seconds of Heras and Beloki while Rumsas and Carlos Sastre finished about a minute and a half behind Armstrong.
Stage 13 was an intermediate stage and in the green jersey sprinters competition Erik Zabel and Robbie McEwen were only separated by one point. Laurent Jalabert's relentless attacks and combative riding was paying off as not only was he in the Polka Dot Jersey as King of the Mountains but he had also moved into a top 10 position in the overall standings. The stage was won by David Millar as the GC situation remained the same.
Armstrong would only build on his lead as the race progressed and by the time the Tour crossed Mont Ventoux, the Alps and arrived in Paris Beloki was still 2nd more than 7:00 behind as Rumsas completed the podium with Colombian rider Botero in 4th and Gonzalez in 5th. White Jersey winner Ivan Basso would finish 11th overall and would become one of the only serious challengers to Lance Armstrong in the coming Tours.Following the USADA decision ten years later, which was confirmed by the UCI, Armstrong had this, and every result after 1998 vacated. It was also decided it was best for the sport and as an example to riders of future generations that the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place riders would not be moved up to 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
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