Lance Armstrong proved too strong for his great Tour de France rival Jan Ullrich for the thirdsuccessive mountain stage today, as he moved a step closer to the yellow jersey with another surging effort.
Felix Cardenas of Colombia crossed the line first in the 166.5-kilometre run from Perpignan to the ski station of Ax-les-Thermes as the ridersresumed in the Pyrenees after Thursday's rest day.
Spain's Roberto Laiseka claimed second, while Francois Simon of France did enough to keep the race lead as he finished four minutes four secondsbehind the leaders.
Armstrong now has that yellow jersey firmly within his sights, though, after winning another tense battle with his German rival Ullrich to take thirdplace, 15 seconds behind Cardenas's winning time of five hours three minutes 34 seconds.
The U.S. Postal rider remains in third place in the overall standings, behind Simon and the Kazakh climber Andrei Kivilev.
In three stages, Armstrong has cut Simon's advantage from over 30 minutes to 9:10, while Kivilev is now less than half a minute clear in second.
With two more stages to come in the Pyrenees, plus a time trial on Friday, Armstrong will feel highly confident of making up that time.
Armstrong started his bid in earnest with back-to-back victories in the two Alpine stages of the Tour, launching a big attack on the Alpe d'Huezbefore dominating the mountain time trial the following day.