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The first time trial was today, and Lance finished 2nd, 2 seconds behind the leader, and over a minute ahead of his biggest competitors. There are, however, several things working against him this year. He is one year older, and age 33, is getting a little bit old to be able to keep up with the younger bikers. He also wasn't in as good as shape as he usually was in earlier in the year, and he may still be not quite where he wants to be as a biker. Also, since this is his final tour, and everybody knows it, Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, and the others are going to be eagler to take one last shot at the 6 time defending champion.
However, Lance has two things working in his favor. First, he is the "King of Pain." He can gut out any race and finish, and despite taking spills in the 2003 tour, and once getting so dehydrated that he lost 13 pounds in a single stage, he once against managed to come out on top. This is because he is so darn tough mentally that he can overcome virtually any obstacles that he may encounter. This may also lead to him intimidating some of his main competitors in the tour.
The second thing is that he's a mountain goat. Once in last year's tour, he was four minutes behind going into the mountains. In a single stage, he turned the four minute deficit into a 3 minute lead which he held until Paris. He also won 3 or 4 stages in the Pyrenees and Alps, and 1 or 2 time trials. He may not be the best on the flats, but he is more than good enough to keep pace until the mountains come.

So with all this in mind, even though his chances are fleeting, he is still the favorite to win the 2005 Tour de France, and I think he'll pull it off. What does everybody else think?

i think Lance will take this one...he'll retire and no one will match his record 7 wins for a good 30 years...

Lance takes a 55 second lead after the 4th stage and wears the yellow jersey for the 67th time!! His closest competition is a rider on his team, don't look for him to attempt to pass Lance - look for him to protect Lance.

It is still early in the race. The winner will be determined in the mountains.

Wear Yellow! Live Strong! Go Lance!

http://www.laf.org

With this early led, it is hard to imagine anyone beating him.

He is the king of the mountains (no pun intended). I may be wrong but I don't remember him in the lead going into the mountain stages in past years. So if he does have the lead going into those stages the rest of the field will be chasing that yellow jersey clear to the Arc de Triumph.

Lance Armstong is very strong in individual time trial riding. Truest test of whom is the best rider. You against the clock with no drafting help. Having the first stage a time trail definitely has Lance off to a great start.

Lance has maybe the best team in the race. In past Tours, there have two team time trial stages. This year, and starting with last year's Tour, there is only one Team Time Trial. Many think this was done to take away the strength of Lance's team. CSC was only two seconds behind which shows how strong they are as well.

Do not be surprised if Lance loses the Yellow Jersey in the early stages. Every rider is strong right now and wants to win a stage. This also leads to stupid riding and crashes. In 2003, Tyler Hamiliton was a definite threat to Lance till he broke his collarbone in an early stage crash. Crash avoidance is a big part of early race strategy. Lance will let attrition, aches and pains settle the race down. It would be the bomb if he leads the rest of the way.

I look for Lance to lose the lead and then retake it in the mountains but, in 2003 I believe he had the yellow jersey this early and wore it until he rode into Paris.

what was the controversy over Lance not wearing the yellow jersey? i'm not quite sure i understand what happened. The previous leader crashed so Lance chose to not wear the yellow jersey? and then what happened? they said on sportscenter some guy made him wear it or something along those lines...

A tour tradition, is for the new Tour Leader to not wear the Yellow Jersey in the next stage because the previous leader lost the overall lead because of a crash. The race director noticed Lance was not wearing the Yellow Jersey during the warmup ride. The director told Lance if he did not wear the Yellow Jersey during today's (July 6) stage he would not be wearing it for tomorrow's stage. In other words, he would have been kicked out of the race.

Armstrong's call to not wear the yellow jersey smacked of royal nobility. He explained that doing so would not be right as he won it through the misfortune of the previous leader, his countryman Zabriskie, who crashed near the end of Tuesday's stage 4 team time trial.

"I decided not to wear the jersey today in respect of tradition and in respect of Zabriskie," said Armstrong. "I watched television [after winning the team time trial by two seconds over CSC] and I had a sick feeling.

"CSC were very close and without this crash they would have had a good chance of winning the stage. It would have been a matter of tenths or hundredths of seconds.

"There is a tradition in the Tour not to wear a yellow jersey when you take it from a mishap. The last I can remember is when Greg LeMond didn't wear it when Rolf Sørensen crashed [in 1991]."



Lance takes the Tour traditions very seriously. Odd, how he does not get treated better by the French press.

A good site for coverage of the Tour and other cycling is http://www.velonews.com

The International (Tour de Altoona) gets covered by Velo news.

It is odd how he isn't treated better by the French press, but perhaps they just don't like an American dominating their race. lol. I don't understand all the fuss about Armstrong not wearing the yellow jersey either, but when the race director threatens to kick you out if you don't wear it, you generally wear it.

As far as right now, I think Lance will be able to hang onto to the yellow jersey. He has a 55 second lead, and most of the serious threats he has to worry about are in the mountains. Since he's finishing in the main pack for the flat stages, and the main pack is only a few seconds behind the race winner (generally speaking for this year's tour), he doesn't really have to worry too much. If somebody on his radar screen (a threat) makes a break for it now, Lance would probably go with them so as not to lose too much time. He probably wouldn't try to win it, but to keep within striking distance. Three or four minutes could be very hard to make up in the mountains, especially to a guy like Ivan Basso.