CYCLING / TOUR DE FRANCE : Frenchman Has Lead After Climb

Frenchman Richard Virenque took the overall lead Monday when the Tour de France bicycle racers pedaled from Spain into France.

Virenque, a second-year rider for RMO, was part of a 143-mile breakaway through the Pyrenees, and finished second in the third stage, earning the yellow jersey as tour leader. Javiar Murguialday of Spain won the stage by three seconds, moving ahead of Virenque in the final mile. The winning time was 6 hours 41 minutes 56 seconds.

Among those left behind was three-time winner Greg LeMond, who struggled on the tour’s first serious climb--the 3,395-foot Col de Marie-Blanque, a Category 1 ascent. Climbs are categorized according to degree of difficulty from unrated to four, unrated being the toughest.

LeMond is 10th, 5 minutes 6 seconds behind Virenque, but only 32 seconds behind second-place Miguel Indurain of Spain, the defending champion who remained the favorite after the 158-mile stage ended in Pau, France.

The only American to win the tour, LeMond, 31, has had a slow start this year after dominating the first week in 1991. LeMond was stranded in Belgium on Friday, the day before the race began, because of a French truckers’ protest that blockaded highways leading south and east from Paris. He eventually took a train and said he was exhausted by the time he reached northern Spain.

“It took me more than 36 hours to get to San Sebastian from Courtrai (Belgium, his European home),” he told the French sports daily L’Equipe. “That’s fate. But it’s true, I have some heavy legs.”

It is still too early, though, to discount LeMond, whose strategy this year is to take the first week easy without losing too much time.

“Last year they started too quick and couldn’t hold off all the attacks,” J.P. Pascal of LeMond Enterprises said Monday.

Still, LeMond had to rally after being left behind on the mountains between France and Spain. His problems were compounded by two flats.

LeMond was most concerned with a second breakaway group--led by Indurain, Gianni Bugno of Italy, second last year, Claudio Chiappuci of Italy, third, and Charley Mottet of France, fourth.

Chiappuci, an aggressive mountain climber, made the first move during the 5.5-mile ascent of Marie-Blanque after Virenque and Murguialday built a 22-minute lead.

LeMond and a large pack eventually regained much of the lost time on the descent into Pau. One who fell off the pace was Alex Zuelle, the Swiss rider who began the day with the yellow jersey.