Tour de France:Seven-time champion Lance Armstrong today came within a whisker of recapturing the yellow jersey after Astana's team time trial success on Stage Four of the Tour de France.
The American, winner of the Tour every year between 1999 and 2005, started the
day in third position but wiped out his 40-second deficit to leader Fabian Cancellara thanks to Astana’s victory in the 39km stage at Montpellier.
Cancellara, whose Saxo Bank team finished third today, has the exact same time as Armstrong — 10 hours, 38 minutes and seven seconds — but the Swiss retains the maillot jaune heading into tomorrow’s fifth stage.
Astana, the last team out for the time trial, finished in 46 minutes and 29 seconds to oust Garmin-Slipstream into second, 18 seconds back.
Saxo Bank were third, a further 22 seconds behind, with Liquigas and Columbia fourth and fifth respectively.
Astana’s strong showing leaves them with four riders in the top five of the general classification — Tour favourite Alberto Contador moves into third, 19 seconds adrift of the joint leaders, while Andreas Kloden and Levi Leipheimer are just behind the Spaniard.
Team Columbia’s Tony Martin started the day second but drops out of the leading bunch and is now eighth, 52 seconds off the pace.
Britain’s Bradley Wiggins is sixth thanks to Garmin’s second-place finish.
Armstrong admitted he saw himself in yellow as Astana closed in on victory.
“We thought we had it based on the time splits on the course,” he told Eurosport. “We thought we were close or even there but that’s cycling.
“We can look at our performance and say we did our best. We won the stage and made time on our rivals.
“I did my best, it’s just a damn hard event, one of the hardest things we do in the Tour.”
This was the Tour’s first team time trial since 2006.
With the wind up, the conditions were tough, especially at a start which took in a number of tight bends.
One of them accounted for both Rabobank’s Denis Menchov and Lampre’s Alessandro Ballan, the pair taking a tumble at the same point before returning to the saddle.
Four members of the Bouygues Telecom team also careered off the road on a turn a third of the way through their journey.
With the teams setting off in reverse order compared to the general classification, the major ones went last and they were chasing an early pace set by Katusha, who went out second and posted a strong time of 47:52.
It proved too quick for the following 11 teams, including Cadel Evans’ Silence-Lotto, who struggled after dropping three riders early on.
Liquigas, seventh-last out, bucked the trend by coming in 25 seconds quicker but the final four teams were always going to be among the main challengers for the stage.
Garmin were down to their final five riders — the minimum amount needed to clock a finish — after just 10km but the quintet hung on.
They led by 31 seconds after the third intermediate time check (30.5km) and flew home 40 seconds ahead of Liquigas.
That time was too hot for both Saxo Bank and Columbia, but Astana managed to oust the leaders.
Armstrong, Contador and co were joint second through timecheck one at Grabels but they flew through the second one, at Murveil-Les-Montpellier, 24 seconds ahead.
They had by that time dropped Dmitry Muravyev and Gregory Rast, but they continued to motor along.
It looked like Armstrong was going to snatch yellow as five Astana riders crossed the line to take the stage but Cancellara could breathe again.
Everyone waited with baited breath to see which of the joint leaders would have the maillot jaune going into tomorrow’s Stage Five between Le Cap d’Agde and Perpignan but after a minute, Cancellara’s name appeared on top of the standings.
Ireland's Nicolas Roche is 48th place overall after his AG2R team ended the day ninth, 1min 48secs off the lead.