Climbers fall into two categories: those who turn the pedals with almost effortless grace and those for whom every metre seems a painful penance. The latter category definitely includes Fernando Escartin, the little man from Aragon who moved into second overall by winning the stage here yesterday, just over the mountains from his home area of Spain.

The great mountain men of the past bore nicknames such as the Condor and the Eagle; Escartin climbs with the grace of a Jack Russell shaking a mouse. He looks as comfortable on his bike as a man on the rack, his nose and chin almost meeting as his face contorts, his shoulders hunching with each pedal stroke.

It is not easy on the eyes but it works. Escartin has finished seventh, eighth and fifth in three of his last four Tours and, if his Kelme team had not pulled out with the rest of the Spanish at the height of last year's drug scandals, he would have finished in the first four. He wept bitterly as his team quit last year; yesterday's tears were joyful ones as he won his first stage in seven starts.

To his great credit the little man has done his utmost to make life difficult for the race leader Lance Armstrong every time this Tour has entered the mountains. In the Alps Escartin and his band of diminutive climbers put Armstrong under pressure on the heights of the Galibier Pass, and again on the climbs to the finish at Sestriere and L'Alpe d'Huez.

Escartin's men buzzed out of the peloton like a bunch of angry yellow and green striped wasps whenever the road went uphill. Their objective was to wear out Armstrong's US Postal footsoldiers and to provide their leader with what support they could when he finally escaped from the Texan.

They were actually of little help after Escartin made his move on the Col de Peyresourde, third of the five major climbs in the latter part of the stage; he was simply going too fast for them to offer any help in making the pace. During the remaining 35 miles Armstrong turned to damage limitation as ahead the Spaniard was roared to the finish by coach-loads of fans who had flocked through the Tunnel de Bielsa from his home province, brandishing Aragon's yellow and red vertically striped flag.

The green, red and yellow ikurrinas were out in force as well, but yesterday held a bitter taste for the Basque hero Abraham Olano. The ONCE team leader crumbled on the penultimate climb, the steep drag at Val Louron, and then fell on the descent. By the finish he was seven minutes back and he slipped from second to eighth overall.

Val Louron is where Miguel Indurain took the Tour's yellow jersey for the first time and Big Mig was waiting at the finish a few kilometres later. There was something of the great man's confidence in the way in which Armstrong toyed on the climb with the best climber Richard Virenque and the Swiss Alex Zulle, who began the day second overall and dropped a place to third.

He permitted the pair to sprint for second and third with the disdain of a man who knows the worst is behind him. Armstrong's only worry yesterday was a report in the Le Monde newspaper that he has used a corticosteroid, which was apparently found in diminutive quantities in his urine; he denied all knowledge of the allegations.

As expected, it was a grim day in the gruppetto, the bunch of nonclimbers looking to ride through inside the day's time limit. No fewer than 71 men finished together with only 90 seconds to spare. Only two were eliminated but, cruelly, they included Jay Sweet of Australia, who rode alone for more than 80 miles and was a mere five minutes outside the cut.

Yesterday's series of short, steep climbs offered virtually no respite in the second half of the stage; today the race covers the Pyrenean giants, the 6,300-feet Col du Tourmalet and the equally spectacular Col d'Aubisque.