Lance Does the Dance

Lance Armstrong distroyed his rivals' Tour hopes when he beat his normal challenger, a great time trialist, Jan Ullrich, by 61 seconds in just 15.5 km (about 9 miles), putting the German 7:44 back, and Ivan Basso, Lance's closest challenger this year, who is not a good time trialist, is now 3:38 behind Lance.

The time trial was up the legendary Alpe d'Huez, which turned out to be a bad idea because of the 900,000 screeming and crazy fans lining the 15.5 km route. "I don't know that that is such a good thing for the Tour de France. I don't think it is safe. I think you'd agree. I'm sure the organizers agree," Lance said, and the organizers did agree.

Lance's time up the Alpe was the 2nd fastest in history, just one second off Marco Pantani's record.

Robbie McEwen, the sprinter's competition leader, did a wheelie when he crossed the finish line, which was a strange sight.

Lance goes hard.


Ullrich goes all out, but it wasn't enough.


Basso loses a lot of time.


It does look like Lance has the Tour in the bag, but he says the deciding day is tomorrow, a tough mountain stage.