Hamilton gets his first stage win with broken collarbone

BAYONNE, France -- Riding with the pain of a broken collarbone, veteran American racer Tyler Hamilton won his first ever stage in the Tour de France on Wednesday after a brave solo breakaway effort.\nLance Armstrong retained his 67-second overall lead, with four days of racing left. He finished 24th in Wednesday's stage, 1 minute 55 seconds behind Hamilton.\nHamilton applauded himself as he crossed the line at the end of the 16th stage, a 122.5-mile trek from Pau to Bayonne and the last punishing day in the mountains.\n"It was incredible, incredibly difficult," Hamilton said. "I knew I had to give it everything. I really can't believe it."\nArmstrong leads Jan Ullrich, his German archrival who won the Tour in 1997. After Wednesday's stage, Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan was third overall, 2 minutes and 45 seconds behind Armstrong. Hamilton was 6 minutes, 35 seconds behind Armstrong but closed in on fourth-placed Haimar Zubeldia, at 5:16 and fifth-placed Iban Mayo of Spain, at 5:25.\nWith the win, Hamilton was propelled one notch in the overall standings to sixth and now has a good shot at finishing in the top five when the race ends Sunday in Paris. He said winning the 16th stage made up for the disappointment of two weeks of pain.\n"To win a stage of the Tour de France is fantastic. It's beyond my wildest dreams," Hamilton said. "After today, I'll forget about the disappointment."\nHamilton broke his collarbone in a crash on the second day of the three-week race but continued riding. Armstrong gave him a hug at the finish Wednesday.\n"I think this is the biggest day of the Tour," Armstrong said. "Incredible."\nHamilton was long Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service teammate but now races against him as the star rider for Team CSC.\nDuring Wednesday's stage, Hamilton broke away and raced alone at the front for much of the race, finishing in 4 hours, 59 minutes and 41 seconds. Afterward, he said his collarbone, which was broken in two places, is still sore but better than it was.\n"The first week was just brutal, both on and off the bike I was suffering," he said. "It's probably been my most difficult race ever."\nHamilton was viewed as one of a handful of cyclists capable of denying Armstrong a record-tying fifth-straight Tour victory before he was injured in the crash involving 35 riders.\nArmstrong had been having a troubled Tour until Monday, when he rebounded in the 15th stage with a dominant win in the mountains after two weeks of problems.\nHe and Ullrich will battle for the Tour title in a time trial Saturday, the day before the finish in the Champs-Elysees.\nUllrich beat Armstrong in the last time trial, taking 96 seconds out of the 31-year-old Texan's overall lead. If the 29-year-old German does so again Saturday, he has a good chance of winning overall.\nArmstrong was dehydrated during that event last Friday and, while finishing second, was far from his best. If he holds Ullrich off in Saturday's race against the clock, his slim lead will probably be enough to give him his fifth successive Tour win, tying the record of Spanish racer Miguel Indurain.\nThe other remaining three stages are relatively flat and favor specialist sprinters, which Ullrich and Armstrong are not. Because it's easier for riders to stay together on the flat, such stages do not offer Armstrong nor Ullrich easy chances to gain time on each other.