Italy's Guerini Wins 19th Stage of Tour

LE PUY-EN-VELAY, France (AP) _ Italy's Giuseppe Guerini won Friday's 19th stage of the Tour de France, with overall leader Lance Armstrong riding safely behind in the main pack. <br/><br/>The six-time

Friday, July 22nd 2005, 8:49 am

By: News On 6

LE PUY-EN-VELAY, France (AP) _ Italy's Giuseppe Guerini won Friday's 19th stage of the Tour de France, with overall leader Lance Armstrong riding safely behind in the main pack.

The six-time champion maintained his comfortable advantage of 2 minutes, 46 seconds over Italy's Ivan Basso, and 3:46 on Denmark's Mickael Rasmussen heading into Saturday's final time trial.

That race against the clock should determine the top riders' standings ahead of Sunday's final ride into Paris, where Armstrong is expected to collect his seventh straight Tour title before retiring.

``Big day,'' Armstrong said. ``I'll give it everything I have.''

The 33-year-old Texan calculated Friday that he has just ``five more hours in my career as a cyclist. I'm not terribly sad about that.''

Guerini zoomed away from Sandy Casar of France, Franco Pellizotti of Italy and Spain's Oscar Pereiro with about a half mile to go in the 95.4-mile stage.

Guerini covered Friday's hilly route from Issoire in 3 hours, 33 minutes and 4 seconds. Armstrong's group, which included Basso, Rasmussen and other leading riders, came in 4:31 later.