CYCLING: So much for the shoo-in. Lance Armstrong was expected to dominate yesterday's time-trial stage alongside the Atlantic beaches with the swagger of a bully kicking down sandcastles. Instead he neither won the stage nor the maillot jaune, and for a man who has won three Tours in resounding style this was a bitter defeat, although by no means a disaster.
After racing into Lorient 11 seconds behind the Colombian Santiago Botero, Armstrong made all the right noises. The identity of the stage winner, he said, was "not a surprise".
Botero is indeed a noted time-triallist. The burly business studies student from Medellin had got the better of Armstrong in a time-trial during his final pre-Tour warm-up, the Dauphine Libere stage race, and was the bronze medallist in last year's world championship.
Incredibly for a man who has turned self-confidence into a trademark, Armstrong added that he had been "100 per cent sure" beforehand that the Spaniard Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano would retain the yellow jersey, which he did by finishing fourth on the stage, a mere eight seconds slower than Armstrong. Like Botero, the quiet Basque has already claimed Armstrong's scalp this year in the Midi Libre.
But in winning three Tours the Texan had never been defeated in a time-trial of this distance, and whether yesterday marks the start of a gradual decline or is a mere blip en route to the record books remains to be seen. Galdeano, for one, knows the significance of yesterday: "Before, Armstrong had always won the first time-trial by a minute or so. It's not like that any more. The Tour has changed."
One thing did not change: on a course designed for men who could deliver pure speed, the climbers lost time as expected. Richard Virenque is six minutes 25 seconds adrift of the yellow jersey. Oscar Sevilla, runner-up in last year's Tour of Spain, has 5:21 to make up, and last year's surprise package, the Kazakh Andrei Kivilev, is more than seven minutes behind.
Kivilev is nominally David Millar's leader at Cofidis, but that may change if the Scot negotiates the Pyrenees without disaster. Millar rode the best time-trial of his Tour de France career yesterday for seventh, 50 seconds behind Botero, and he now occupies that position in the overall standings as well.
The peloton rolls out of Pau towards the Pyrenees on Thursday. Armstrong had made no secret of the fact he wanted to be in the yellow jersey by then. Now, instead of controlling events, he will have to shape them in the mountains as he did in 2000 and 2001. The fact he will not be in yellow tomorrow when the race resumes after today's transfer day is only partly down to his inability to dominate yesterday's stage in his accustomed style. On Saturday he dropped 27 seconds at the finish in Avranches, but he is now only 26 seconds behind Galdeano.
Yesterday was the second time in three days that things did not go to plan, and to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, once looks like misfortune, twice looks a little careless. Make that three and the Texan will begin to look vulnerable.
