I found the website with all the supposed times for Alpe d'Huez including the never before heard of time caption photography at the bottom and top ?!?! WTF I think that OLN or someone just might have mentioned or known this... certainly Ligget of Sherwenilpirata said:Guerini always has been a great climber. One has to wonder what he might have been able to do as a team captain with aims at a gc placement in a grand tour. But i believe he has always been a leutenant.
At any rate, the major point when you are riding the Alpe as the finishing climb in a stage race you ride it to either win the stage (Guerini) or put time into your rivals (Lance 2001). Of course Lance wanted the stage win bigtime as well. He also wanted to put on a big show. He had told Chechu during the flat stages on the way to the Alpes that year...just wait till we get to the Alpes, you are gonna see the big show. Given his showing on Joux Plane the year before the assumtion was Lance could not sustain day after day in the big mountains...how we he do Alpe d'Huez and the mountain time trial the next day. Well he showed them and then killed everyone in the Pyrenees as well.
As Andy Hampsten said after winning Alpe d;Huez, I just rode as fast as I could in the break after we hit the Alpe thinking of GC, and that ended up putting me in a position to win the stage.