Frenchman Has Stage on National Holiday

The signs on the autoroute announced it clearly. Driving into Digne-Les-Bains was “impossible” without a pass. But on this Bastille Day, French cyclists were exempt from the rules of the road.

David Moncoutie of the French team Cofidis went to the front early and fought off all serious attacks for an emotional first-place finish in the 116.2-mile 12th stage of the Tour de France on Thursday. Sandy Casar of team Francaise Des Jeux outsprinted Spain’s Angel Vicioso for second. Another Frenchman, Patrice Halgand, was fourth. A year ago, countryman Richard Virenque, a climbing legend, won the July 14 stage in his last Tour.

Lance Armstrong, who claimed the leader’s yellow jersey Tuesday, finished 41st. The top 10 in the overall standings didn’t change, so Armstrong still leads Denmark’s Mickael Rasmussen by 38 seconds, France’s Christophe Moreau by 2:34 and Italy’s Ivan Basso by 2:40.

It was hard to pick out Armstrong, even in his bright shirt, because he was so well-protected in a silver-and-blue Discovery Channel cocoon. Even so, Armstrong’s team did suffer a loss.

Climbing expert Manuel Beltran, a quiet Spaniard who would be counted on to help take care of breakaways by any contenders in the two Pyrenees Mountain stages this weekend, had to abandon the race after crashing hard early in Thursday’s stage. Beltran suffered a concussion and was taken to a hospital in Gap, where he was being kept overnight.

It was the first time Armstrong’s team had lost a rider since Christian Vande Velde crashed in 2001 and broke a shoulder. And it’s only the second time in Armstrong’s Tour victory streak that his team won’t finish intact.

“It’s a big loss,” Armstrong said. “Everybody has his role on the team, and you just don’t replace that.”

Johan Bruyneel, Discovery Channel team director, said he didn’t know exactly what happened to Beltran. “He told me something happened to the guy in front of him. He hit his head really hard then went on another 10 or 15 kilometers, but he didn’t know where he was.”

“It was pretty bad,” Armstrong said. “And now we’ve got to be mentally tough. When you lose a man, everybody has to pick up the slack.”

Still Armstrong, 33, who is aiming for an unprecedented seventh consecutive title before retiring, was relaxed and smiling as he was draped with the yellow jersey in the daily podium ceremony. When questioned by a French television announcer about how he would beat himself, Armstrong laughed and said, “I don’t know. Ask me next Sunday.”

Going into the 12th stage, Moncoutie was in 44th place and 42 minutes 59 seconds behind Armstrong, so the peloton was happy to let the 34-year-old speed away. Casar was 31st and 17:29 behind the leader. Discovery Channel riders spent most of the day leading the peloton, but the team was not disposed to force any energy-sapping chases on a day that often belongs to French riders.

As thousands of his countrymen lined the roads for hours in temperatures that rose to well over 90 degrees, Moncoutie was able to begin celebrating in the final kilometer as he rode in alone. He had also won a stage last year, on July 15.

“When I won a stage last year it was such a big emotion,” he said. “Today I wanted to feel the same emotions again. I was feeling very bad in the Alps, but I told everyone that today it could be my stage, my chance to go.”

Beltran wasn’t the only prominent rider to pull out Thursday. Tom Boonen, the popular young Belgian who had been leading the race for the green points jersey, was forced to quit because of a right knee injury. He had fallen in Wednesday’s stage, his third crash in the Tour.

It is that narrow margin for error that keeps Armstrong cautious. “You see what can happen so suddenly,” he said. “You’re just riding along and something happens in front of you and you’re down. It’s that fast. So don’t predict anything in this race.”