June 12, 2005, Stage 7: Morzine-Avoriaz to Sallanches , 128km

When the 2005 Dauphine Libere began with a prologue in Aix-les-Bains, any number of riders would have been good guesses for an eventual overall winner.  The previous three years had been won by logical winners (Lance Armstrong in 2002 and 2003 and Iban Mayo in 2004).  But with Armstrong having decided after his difficult 2003 Dauphine win to no longer go too deep in June, and Mayo having gotten caught in the venus flytrap that this race can be (particularly for winners who don't handle the inevitable pre-Tour increase in media pressure well) and having decided not to return in 2005, and 2004 runner-up Tyler Hamilton serving a suspension for doping, there certainly was no clear rider who'd be the one to succeed Mayo.

Americans had dominated the prologue, won by George Hincapie.  (Levi Leiphimer finished second by just 1 second, Floyd Landis was fourth at 5 seconds, with Lance Armstrong 5th at 6 seconds.)

A clearer picture started to emerge after the long stage 3 time trial of 47km.  Or so we thought.  Though Santiago Botero won this time trial, Leipheimer, again finishing second by just 1 second, this time grabbed the yellow jersey.  Fans of Leipheimer's Gerolsteiner team raised team flags in the wind on the next day's stage to Mont Ventoux and Leipheimer controlled the stage perfectly to retain the leader's jersey.  Armstrong for that matter was also impressive on Ventoux, where he never won during his career, and used the stage, won by Alexandre Vinokourov, to move into second place overall behind his former teammate, just 21 seconds back.  Leipheimer was glued to Armstrong's wheel up the "Giant of Provence," before the latter got a little gap in the final 100 meters.

It all fell apart for Leipheimer on the next day's stage.  When a break was allowed to get away, it included a rider by the name of Inigo Landaluze of Mayo's Euskaltel-Euskadi team.  Landaluze had finished 10th overall in 2004 and was not someone you wanted to allow to get too far up the road.  But allowed he was and he grabbed the yellow jersey.  Making matters worse, Leipheimer crashed during the stage.

But it still wasn't obvious that Landaluze would be able to keep the race lead to the finish.  First of all, he'd started the race with only five teammates instead of the allowed seven.  That decreased to four teammates after stage two. (before he had the race lead)  It was down to three teammates at the end of stage 5 when he grabbed the race lead.  By the time Landaluze crossed the finish line in stage 7 in Sallanches (photo), he had no teammates left in the race!  But he'd managed to win the overall, by just 11 seconds over Botero.

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