Marco Pantani is making a habit of coming back from adversity.
In 1995, he was in a severe car accident that broke a leg in two places. He had a curtailed 1996 season, but returned to a full schedule this year.When the weekend began, he was thinking of quitting the Tour de France because he has bronchitis. Since then, he has won two of the toughest stages of this year's race, with four major climbs in all.
The Italian won the 15th stage Monday by making a late charge up the final mountain. He took off with about 101/2 miles to go on the final climb up the peak of Joux Plane, which is nearly 5,600 feet high.
On Saturday, he won with another late charge up the famed l'Alpe d'Huez summit.
Pantani said he was on the verge of giving up Sunday night.
"I still have bronchitis. I suffered a lot yesterday," Pantani said Monday. He was more than three minutes behind on Sunday after winning Saturday's stage. "Yesterday was awful, really awful."
Pantani tried to come back strong, and he succeeded.
"I went to see the doctor of the Tour de France. He gave me some advice and some medicine," Pantani said.
A pep talk from his team manager also helped.
"I wanted to give up. I had a discussion with my team director and he told me, `Don't give up like that. Try tomorrow.' "
Pantani went on to win by more than a minute over the top two cyclists in the overall standings, Jan Ullrich and Richard Vireqnue, who have been dominating the mountain stages in the Pyrenees and Alps.
Virenque finished second in the stage, with Ullrich third, losing no time to Virenque. The German maintained a 6-minute, 22-second margin over Virenque in the overall standings, with six days to go.
Both of the leaders battled over the final stretch, with Ullrich refusing to let Virenque pull away.
Pantani moved into third place overall, but is still more than 10 minutes behind Ullrich. Last year's winner, Bjarne Riis, dropped to fourth, almost 12 minutes back.
The riders are coming down out of the Alps today, with one more mountain rated "first category" on a scale measuring height, steepness and difficulty.
The 16th stage today goes from Morzine to Fribourg, Switzerland.