Tour de France : Marie, Only 2nd Frenchman to Win, Takes 20th Stage

Frenchman Thierry Marie won the 20th stage of the Tour de France by two seconds over Jean-Paul Van Poppel of the Netherlands Friday, while Spaniard Pedro Delgado maintained his comfortable overall lead as the race began its final weekend.

Marie, only the second French rider to win a stage of this year’s Tour, broke away from a large pack in the final half-mile of the 139-mile stage from Clermont-Ferrand to Chalon-sur-Saone. His time was 6 hours 3 minutes 45 seconds.

Delgado, who was told Thursday that he would not be penalized despite twice testing positive for drugs, maintained his overall lead of 4 minutes 58 seconds over Dutchman Steven Rooks. Both finished in the pack.

Delgado, facing a 10-minute penalty that would have dropped him to fourth place, was cleared because the substance found in his specimen--probenecid--has yet to be banned by the International Cycling Union. Probenecid can be used to mask the presence of anabolic steroids.

Delgado said he is confident he will win the Tour, which ends Sunday in Paris, even though he is “not a great specialist” at individual time trials. Today’s 21st stage will be a 28.5-mile time trial around Santenay.

The 153 cyclists who began the 20th stage delayed the start for a 10-minute strike Friday morning to protest Tour officials’ handling of the drug situation involving Delgado and Gert-Jan Theunisse of the Netherlands.

Theunisse, who was penalized 10 minutes for failing a drug test, was given an additional two-minute penalty Friday for punching the sports director of another team. Theunisse, who began Thursday’s stage fourth in the overall standings, dropped to 12th by Friday evening.

He allegedly punched Paul Koechli, the Swiss sports director of the Weinmann-LaSuisse team. Tour officials, who said Theunisse was upset that Koechli did not join the strike, was fined $654, bringing his total fines to $1,448.