Zabriskie bows out of competition

Salt Lake's David Zabriskie is no longer in the 2007 Tour de France after dropping out following Stage 11.

Zabriskie had struggled to keep pace with the tour leaders for much of the race, choosing to save his energy for individual time trials after doing lots of leg work for his team leaders on most stages. During the mountain stages last week, he dropped considerable chunks of time and finally bowed out of the competition — his third Tour de France.

"After the Galibier day I really struggled to try to get better," Zabriskie told VeloNews.com after rolling across the finish line more than 31 minutes after the stage winner. "I was hoping these few flat days I could nurse it back to health, but the Tour is not the kind of race where you can fix yourself. Today was a really hard day and my knee couldn't handle it."

Riding with a surgically-repaired left knee, injured in a 2003 car accident, Zabriskie said a Team CSC-mandated change in shoes was partially to blame for the pain in his knee.

While Zabriskie's Tour is over, Levi Leipheimer's is just about to get interesting.

The former Salt Lake resident saw his overall position improve from ninth to seventh on Thursday. With a flat stage today, the Discovery Channel leader is expected to throw his all into Saturday's time trial and then mount his charge into the Pyrenees on Sunday.

Leipheimer is 3:53 behind the yellow jersey.

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