Tyler gets a tonic with breakaway victory

AMERICAN cyclist Tyler Hamilton yesterday produced the biggest successful solo breakaway of the centenary Tour de France to post a win in the 16th stage that will go down as one of the most courageous in the 100-year history of the race.

Hamilton, the team leader of the CSC outfit, has been racing with a broken collarbone since being caught up in a pile-up at the end of the first stage on July 6, but he has not shirked even the toughest climbs in the Alps and Pyrenees.

The man had tearfully informed journalists he was out of the race after that crash only to reconsider just 45 minutes before the start of the second stage, now lies sixth overall, some 6mins 35secs behind race leader Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong remains in the leader's yellow jersey with a 1min 07secs lead over his closest challenger Jan Ullrich with neither man making a significant move yesterday.

Germany's Ullrich, who won the 1997 Tour while Armstrong was fighting for his life against cancer, is giving the Texan a real run for his money and his toughest Tour since his run of victories began in 1999.

With a temporary truce in the battle for overall honours the stage was set for Hamilton, from Marblehead, Massachusetts, to take the limelight.

Hamilton was a US Postal team-mate of Armstrong for his first three Tour wins before joining Danish outfit CSC at the end of 2001.

And He prevailed on the day with a marathon 142.5km breakaway in the 197.5km stage that starting deep in the Pyrenees in Pau with the last 95km being a solo effort as his fellow escapees fell by the wayside.

Some 1:55 behind, German sprinter Erik Zabel finished second ahead of Ukraine's Yuriy Krivtsov who completed the podium in third.

It was the third stage win in this year's race for CSC after earlier triumphs for Denmark's Jakob Piil and Spain's Carlos Sastre.

Hamilton would have won even more convincingly had he not slowed down over the last 300m to emotionally clasp the hand of CSC team boss and Denmark's 1996 Tour winner Bjarne Riis.

"Bjarne Riis told me to stay focused and to remember that everything was possible and that's what I did and so did my team-mates," said Hamilton.

At one point he had a five-minute lead over the peloton yesterday he had started the day 9:02 adrift of Armstrong but he revealed that he had never really harboured any hopes of building a lead that would have threatened the leaders.