Cycling: Hincapie caps season with Tour mountain win

PLA-D'ADET, France - George Hincapie crowned a long and successful season when he won the 220.5km 15th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Lezat-sur-Leze and Pla-d'Adet overnight (NZ time).

Lance Armstrong's best friend and closest team mate outsprinted his breakaway companion, Spain's Oscar Pereiro, for victory in the hardest mountain stage of this Tour.

Hincapie, winner of Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in April, second in Paris Roubaix the same month and winner of two Dauphine Libere Stages in June, showed his team leader that it was possible to shine all year round.

But the Tour is Armstrong's only goal and the American, on course for a record seventh victory, comfortably controlled his two leading rivals, Italy's Ivan Basso and Germany's Jan Ullrich.

While the early breakaways battled it out for stage victory, Armstrong, Basso and Ullrich spent most of the two final climbs together, fighting their own personal battle for places on the Tour podium in Paris next weekend.

Overall, the Texan leads Basso by two minutes 46 seconds with Dane Michael Rasmussen third, 3min 09sec behind.

Inspired by Austrian Georg Totschnig's victory in Ax-3 Domaines the previous day, 14 riders broke away early on, hoping to take a sufficient lead to resist the Tour favourites on the final climb to Pla-d'Adet.

The break included strong riders like Hincapie, Rabobank team leader Michael Boogerd, Spaniards Pereiro and Oscar Sevilla, Italian Pietro Caucchioli and former world champion Laurent Brochard of France.

They held a maximum lead of 18 minutes over the main bunch, headed by Basso's CSC team.

After the first three first category climbs, Mente, Portillon and Peyresourde, Boogerd, Pereiro, Sevilla, Hincapie and Brochard retained an 11-minute lead while the chasing pack was reduced to about 20 riders, which included all the Tour favourites.

The real fight began on the penultimate climb, the Val Louron, when Basso attacked sharply.

Armstrong was the only one to react while 1997 Tour champion Ullrich, at first dropped, made it back at his own pace. As in the previous stage, the big trio of Armstrong, Basso and Ullrich were left locked together.

In the first steep turns of the final climb, Pereiro surged to drop Brochard and Sevilla.

Behind them, Basso stood up on his pedals for a blistering attack. Armstrong struck back and Ullrich struggled, receiving the help of team mate Sevilla in the finale.

In the last two kilometres, only Hincapie and Pereiro were in contention for a prestigious Pyrenees stage victory.

The New Yorker had made fewer efforts in the climb and he outmuscled the Spaniard in the last 300 metres. Caucchioli was third, 36 seconds behind.

Hincapie's win was the first by an Armstrong team mate since 1999.

Armstrong and Basso crossed the line together, some five minutes adrift. Ullrich lost 1:24 to his two rivals, Rasmussen and Francisco Mancebo finishing on his heels.

The Tour takes a halt tonight with a second rest day in Pau, before a last mountain stage between Mourens and Pau on Tuesday.

* Tour de France - Latest General Classification

1 Lance Armstrong (United States/Discovery Channel) 62hr 09min 59sec
2 Ivan Basso (Italy/Team CSC) +2min 46sec
3 Michael Rasmussen (Denmark/Rabobank) +3min 09sec
4 Jan Ullrich (Germany/T-Mobile) +5hr 58sec
5 Francisco Mancebo (Spain/Illes Balears) +6min 31sec
6 Levi Leipheimer (United States/Gerolsteiner) +7min 35sec
7 Floyd Landis (United States/Phonak) +9min 33sec
8 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan/T-Mobile) +9min 38sec
9 Christophe Moreau (France/Credit Agricole) +11min 47sec
10 Andreas Kloeden (Germany/T-Mobile) +12min 01sec

- REUTERS