Page "2003 Tour de France, Stage 10 to Stage 20" Paragraph 130

Just 162 riders started the stage.

There was a very early break of seventeen riders, including Richard Virenque, Gilberto Simoni, Jakob Piil and Manuel Beltran.

The group steadily increased their lead over the US Postal led peloton in the early part of the race.

By the first category two climb they were over nine minutes clear, by the Col de la Core over twelve minutes.

When the deficit hit almost fifteen minutes the teams of USP and Euskaltel joined together at the front of the peloton, later they were joined by Telekom and then Bianchi.

By the Col du Portet d ' Aspet the lead was reduced to around eleven minutes and on the Col de Menté the leading 17 were showing signs of fatigue and began to drop riders, a group of twelve being led by Virenque over the summit.

Over the Col du Portillon the leading group broke up with a leading trio of Dufaux, Simoni and Virenque leading the pelton by seven minutes over the summit.

The trio remained ahead up the Col de Peyresourde as the field behind them split under repeated attacks, while Armstrong stuck close to Ullrich Vinokourov broke away.

Dufaux, Simoni and Virenque kept their lead ; they were joined by Peron and fought out the finish, Simoni winning the sprint.

Vinokourov led in two others was 41 seconds down and Armstrong and Ullrich came in 1 ' 24 " later.