1996 Tour de France
Stage 7 - Les Arcs
Stage 7 saw several high-profile abandonments,
including the wearer of the maillot jaune, Stéphane Heulot,
and the former world champion Lance Armstrong, and the peloton reached
the final climb to Les Arcs bedraggled and strewn out along the route.
The stage was won by Luc Leblanc, and was notable for the cracking of Miguel
Indurain. These photos were taken at the 5km-to-go banner.
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Stage 8 - Val d'Isère time trial
Stage 8 was a mountain time trial to the ski station of Val d'Isère.
Although it stayed dry, it was still a cold day, and spectators had to
wrap up warm, especially at the top of the mountain. These photos were
taken much further down, at about 35km to go. The stage was won by the
new
maillot jaune, Evgeni Berzin, and it looked as if he would go
on to dominate the race, after Indurain's failure the day before.
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Our trip to see the 1996 Tour should have included Stage 9, which was
to cross the Cols de l'Iséran, Télégraphe and Galibier
on the way to Sestrières in Italy. Unfortunately, the wet weather
of the first week became snow on that day, the stage was shortened, and
we only saw the riders go past us on the Télégraphe in their
team cars.
This shortened stage saw Bjarne Riis attack Berzin, win the stage and
claim the maillot jaune, and keep it all the way to Paris. When
we looked back at our photos, we realised that between the 3 of us (Les
Kennedy, Ian Boult and myself), not one of us had a decent picture of Riis!
Doh!