Cycling: Armstrong happy for Vinokourov to take stage

BRIANCON, France - Lance Armstrong was content to let Alexander Vinokourov take the glory on the 11th stage after deciding the Kazakh was not a threat to his bid for an unprecedented seventh Tour de France win.

Vinokourov, who was badly beaten by the American on Tuesday won the 173-km 11th stage from Courchevel to Briancon.

Armstrong finished sixth, one minute and 15 seconds behind Vinokourov and so retained the leader's yellow jersey. He heads Denmark's Michael Rasmussen by 38 seconds in the overall standings.

"Vinokourov definitely wasn't our concern today. Our main concern today was to keep the team together," Armstrong said.

"Vino was six and half minutes behind in the overall standings at the start and we can't chase down everybody.

"We have to prioritise and he isn't on our list of priorities for now, so we let him go out there and kept the team together, controlled the tempo and controlled the pace," the 33-year-old added.

Armstrong said he and his Discovery Channel team mates were always in control on the tough mountain stage that had two 'without category' climbs.

"If the objective (of Vino's attack) was to win the stage then it was mission accomplished. If the objective was to blow up the Discovery Channel team, it was mission not accomplished," he said.

The American also pointed out that questions about the team's rapid turn around after their poor performance in last Saturday's eighth stage when he was left isolated were misplaced.

"A lot of people talked about what happened on Saturday's stage but the climbs that we're doing in the Alps now are very much different to Saturday's final climb," he said.

"On the contrary to all of the questions on how the team turned around so quickly, we can ask the same question about the guys that were in the front on Saturday.

"Why aren't they on the front now?"

- REUTERS