Armstrong Climbs Hard to the Front

Lance Armstrong earned the yellow jersey Sunday at the Tour de France.

Iban Mayo celebrated.

Armstrong sprinted for a few meters at the end of the eighth stage, at the end of an intimidating pull upward on a brutal day, just to get third place and the eight bonus seconds that come with it. This was, perhaps, a concession that winning his fifth consecutive Tour will not be easy.

Mayo rode alone for the final few kilometers, looking from side to side, savoring the robust cheers. Just to make sure he looked his best, Mayo even took both hands off his bike and zipped up his shirt.

And then Mayo, 25, smiled for the cameras and became the second Spaniard to win the stage that includes the dizzying climb through the 21 hairpin curves from Bourg d’Oisans to the top of L’Alpe d’Huez, and in so doing marked himself as dangerous to Armstrong and everybody else.

Admitting that he didn’t feel his best, Armstrong nevertheless pulled on the leader’s yellow jersey.

Another Spaniard, Joseba Beloki, is in second place overall, 40 seconds behind Armstrong. Mayo is third, 1:10 behind.

If Armstrong did not make jaws drop or intimidate his rivals as he had done here two years ago by throwing a steely stare over his shoulder and leaving a stunned Jan Ullrich staring at his back, Armstrong and his United States Postal Service teammates did knock Ullrich back in the standings. Ullrich, the 1997 Tour winner, fell 2:10 behind Armstrong, in eighth place.

However, Mayo and Beloki, the 2002 runner-up, would not be put away.

Neither would Tyler Hamilton, the 32-year-old from Marblehead, Mass., who broke his collarbone a week ago and has defied all predictions that the mountains would be the end of his Tour. Hamilton, who rides for the Danish Team CSC, stuck with Armstrong and even attacked his former teammate on the way up Sunday’s final climb. Hamilton is in sixth place, 1:56 behind the leader.

Armstrong, who is trying to tie Miguel Indurain’s record of winning five consecutive Tours, said, “I didn’t have the greatest legs today. I could tell I wasn’t on a great day.”

That day had begun in Sallanches, another Alp village perched on a mountaintop. When the riders took off, the sun was hot and high and in front of them were 135.78 miles and climbs of 5,137 feet to Col du Telegraphe; 5,085 feet to Les Verneys; 8,677 feet to Col du Galibier and finally the fiendishly, breath-sapping, lung-busting 21 turns and 6,102 feet to L’Alpe d’Huez.

And in between, the riders had to come down those hills. The descents are so fast and the wind so ferocious that many of the men, who had unzipped their shirts on the way up, stuffed newspapers in their shirts to keep the sweat from turning cold and icy on the way down.

When the field arrived at the foot of L’Alpe d’Huez, the noise of nearly 400,000 resonated through the Isere Valley.

Each of the 21 sharp curves forms a little stadium, a place in the road where fans can congregate, five, six, seven deep. They were standing on campers, running into the road waving flags or spraying water on a rider or shouting encouragement into the ear of Armstrong or Beloki, Mayo or Hamilton or Ullrich.

Frenchman Richard Virenque, who had earned the yellow jersey and become a national hero Saturday, said he had hoped to wear yellow one more day. “But I couldn’t match the speed at the top,” he said.

The USPS team seemed content to pace itself up the early climbs. When Armstrong arrived at signpost No. 21, signifying the start of the climb to L’Alpe, there was a sense of anticipation.

And indeed, Spaniard Manuel Beltran, the newest addition to Armstrong’s team, made an early move that Armstrong called “supersonic,” and which, Armstrong said, ultimately wasn’t helpful. “If you’re not having the greatest day,” Armstrong said, “you don’t have to make a show. That’s why the attack by [Beltran] wasn’t a good thing.”

Even earlier, while other teams seemed hesitant to attack USPS, there was nearly a disastrous glitch. Armstrong and teammate Roberto Heras touched wheels. Both came off their bikes but recovered quickly and sped back to the lead group.

While Hamilton and Beloki impishly attacked Armstrong up L’Alpe d’Huez, it was Mayo, who rides for Euskaltel, and Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan and the Telekom team, who burst ahead in an attack Armstrong couldn’t counter.

“I was hoping for a Tour stage,” said Mayo, who had finished second to Armstrong earlier this spring at the Dauphine Libere. “I went for it and I made it. It’s a great joy.”

Today’s ninth stage, 114.39 miles from Bourg d’Oisans to Gap, includes two major climbs. But both come early in the race.

Chris Carmichael, Armstrong’s trainer, said he doesn’t expect major movement among the leaders until Friday’s first individual time trial.

With four mountain stages to come in the Pyrenees, home to Basque cycling fans who will come out to root for Mayo and Beloki, plus two telling individual time trials, Armstrong knows it is a long way until July 27, when the Tour ends at Paris.

“If you’d asked me a month ago if I was going to suffer this much on L’Alpe d’Huez,” he said, “I would have said, ‘No way.’ I have the yellow jersey now, but it’s a three-week tour. The race is certainly not over.”

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At a Glance

Highlights from Stage 8:

* Stage: Morzine to L’Alpe d’Huez, 135.78-mile climb up the Tour’s second alpine route; includes the Col du Galibier, which peaks at 8,728 1/2 feet.

* Winner: Spain’s Iban Mayo in 5 hours 57 minutes 30 seconds.

* How Others Fared: Four-time winner Lance Armstrong finished in third; Germany’s Jan Ullrich, a 1997 Tour winner, was 13th; home favorite Richard Virenque finished 35th; American Tyler Hamilton, riding with a fractured collarbone, placed seventh.

* Yellow Jersey: Armstrong leads the field with an overall time of 35:12.50.

* Quote of the Day: “If you’d asked me a month ago if I was going to suffer this much on L’Alpe d’Huez, I would have said, ‘No way’ ” -- Armstrong.

* Next Stage: Bourg d’Oisans to Gap, a 114.39-mile trek, the final of three Alpine climbs; includes the Col d’Izoard, a 7,788-foot uphill grind.

* On the Web: For live updates of each day’s Tour de France stage, complete standings, cyclist profiles and course information, go to: latimes.com/tour.