Vinokourov wins 11th stage

Badly beaten by Lance Armstrong in the previous stage, Alexander Vinokourov reacted with class when he won the second high mountain leg of the Tour de France on Wednesday.

The Kazakh joined forces with Colombian Santiago Botero, who also made amends after a pedestrian start to the Tour, to snatch victory in the 173-km 11th stage from Courchevel to Briancon.

But the second and last stage in the Alps this Tour was tarnished before its start when Italian rider Dario Frigo was detained by police after performance-enhancing substances were found in a car driven by his wife.

Vinokourov had lost more than five minutes to Armstrong on the final climb in Courchevel on Tuesday and was but his fighting spirit allowed him to add to his previous Tour stage win in Gap two years ago.

Six-times Tour champion Armstrong, who finished with the first chasing group, retained his overall lead of 38 seconds over Dane Michael Rasmussen.

France's Christophe Moreau took third place in the stage, one minute and 15 seconds behind Vinokourov, and moved to third overall, 2:34 adrift of Armstrong.

Seen as one of the main threats to the American's bid for a seventh Tour victory, Vinokourov struck back to show he had not won Liege-Bastogne-Liege and a gruelling Dauphine Libere stage at Mont Ventoux this season by chance.

FINISHING JOY

The way Vinokourov shook his fist in joy on crossing the line showed how intent he was on setting the record straight after his performance on Tuesday.

"I had breathing problems yesterday, my pulse went too high and I just could not follow Lance's team. Maybe the rest day had broken my momentum," the T-Mobile rider said..

"Today, I had decided to attack to show I was still in the game," he added.

The 31-year-old attacked in the first "beyond category" climb this year, the Madeleine pass, and quickly found himself in front with Botero and his Phonak team mate Oscar Pereiro of Spain.

Armstrong and his Discovery Channel team were content with maintaining a steady pace and keeping the breakaway's lead within reasonable limits.

In the classic Galibier pass, one of the steepest and most famous climbs in Tour history, Vinokourov dropped the two Phonak riders.

He held a maximum lead of some three minutes at the top of the Galibier, but the gap was reduced to 1:15 on the 38 km of descent towards the finish.

On the downhill, Botero made it back to "Vino" and the two were left to battle it out for stage victory in the last kilometre.

The Colombian, winner of a stage in Briancon in 2000, could not react when Vinokourov surged for victory.

The race proper was partly overshadowed by a doping related incident before the start of the stage.

Frigo, suspended for nine months in 2001, was arrested by French police in his Courchevel hotel and held for questioning.

The Italian had been banned after the 2001 police raids on the Giro d'Italia when various doping products were found in his hotel room.

"It's a shame. We had an exciting race with moves and action everyday, with the arrival of a new generation and then this happens. It's a real shame," said Armstrong's team chief Johan Bruyneel.