TOUR DE FRANCE : For Indurain, Maintaining Lead a Birthday Tradition

Miguel Indurain celebrated his birthday Sunday the same way he has done so the last few years--in the lead of the Tour de France.

Indurain, who turned 31, came in third in the 14th stage on the 101-mile leg from St. Orens de Gameville to Guzet-Neige to maintain his yellow jersey.

The Spaniard hopes to join Belgian Eddy Merckx and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as five-time winners, but Indurain would be the first to do it in consecutive years.

Italy’s Marco Pantani took the stage as the race came to the edge of the Pyrenees with a rest day today before the Tour starts two days in the mountains.

Pantani, 25, was third in last year’s Tour and had won the hard L’Alpe d’Huez stage earlier in the week.

He attacked as the pack started the last 25 miles with four climbs of varying degrees left.

He built a lead of almost three minutes over the pack entering the final climb, rated the hardest on the Tour’s definition of steepness, length and difficulty.

With rain and fog over the last hour of the race, Pantani won by 2 minutes 31 seconds over Laurent Madouas of France.

Indurain was in the main pack until the last 2 1/2 miles then speeded up to almost catch Madouas at the finish. Alex Zulle of Switzerland ended up a couple seconds behind Indurain to drop to 2:46 behind.

Laurent Jalabert of France stayed third but lost almost a minute to fourth-place Bjarne Riis of Denmark.