June 8, 2006, Stage 4: Tain-l’Hermitage to Le Mont Ventoux, 186km

The 2006 Dauphiné Libéré has gone according to plan for American Levi Leipheimer of Team Gerolsteiner.  Though he finished 48th in the 4.1km prologue, short, flat time trials are not his strength and being down 16 seconds to stage winner David Zabriskie was nothing to be alarmed about.

The first big test of this race was the Stage 3 long individual time trial around Bourg-de-Péage.  At 43km and hilly, this "race of truth" was just the ticket for Leipheimer.  Though Zabriskie won again, Leipheimer's third place (Floyd Landis was second) rocketed him up the standings to fourth overall behind Philippe Gilbert (winner of the previous stage in a long breakaway), Zabriskie, and Landis.  Though 4:20 in the overall behind Gilbert, the real climbing remained ahead, none more important than the climb to Mont Ventoux the very next day.

Recall that Leipheimer had been there before, just the previous year in fact.  In 2005, he wore yellow on the stage to Mont Ventoux, riding up the "Giant of Provence" in the company of Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis.  Leipheimer controlled that stage perfectly to retain yellow, only to see it all slip away the next day when his team allowed a breakaway containing eventual race winner Inigo Landaluze to gain too much time.

Leipheimer was not about to let such a prestigious race as the Dauphiné slip away again.  Noting that Armstrong had demonstrated in the past that you could choose to come here to train for the Tour or you could come here to win, or both, Leipheimer chose the Mont Ventoux stage to announce his intentions.  He was here to win.  With just over 3km before the summit finish, Leipheimer looked back (photo above) and saw only Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Christophe Moreau (AG2R) on his wheel.  Gilbert, Zabriskie and Landis had all been dropped earlier in the climb and that meant that Leipheimer had only to control Menchov and Moreau and yellow would be his.  Menchov took the stage win, his second career victory on Ventoux and a resurging Moreau took second, to leap into the top 5 overall.  Third on the day 15 seconds behind Menchov and Moreau was all Leipheimer needed to grab the yellow jersey, 28 seconds ahead of Menchov in the overall standings.

But could he keep the lead this time?

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