Horner climbs into top-10 overall

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An eighth place finish from Chris Horner (RadioShack) today during the Tour de France's final day in the mountains was enough to move the affable American into 10th place on general classification. Despite the fine performance, Horner downplayed the result while recovering from his efforts on summit of the Col du Tourmalet.

"I don't have any personal ambitions," Horner told Cyclingnews. "I just have ambitions for the team. I'm trying to benefit the team the best and what benefited the team most was the team classification so that was what I was going for."

When reflecting on his ride up the monumental climb in the Pyrenees Horner was typically effusive. "It took me a bit of time to get a rhythm going but once I got a rhythm that was a bit more comfortable. The bottom hurts but nothing hurts like the top. That was inhuman, but that's the Tour. That's what everybody wants to see and it's what everybody wants to do.

"At this level, with this calibre of riders, you have to have something like this in order to explode the field. That's what the Tour is all about: exploding the field and really pushing riders to their limit to see what they can do both physically and mentally."

The 38-year-old American has had a strenuous Tour de France, the fourth in his career.

"You've got to dig really deep to get through the three weeks and stay motivated, and get through all the aches and pains," said Horner. "I've certainly had my share of aches and pains, a lot of them because I'm almost forty and a lot of them because we're three weeks in the Tour. The combination of both of them has certainly been hard."