The Race For 2nd Place
Tomorrow, on stage 8 in the Tour de France, a new race will begin. It is the race for 2nd place. In the first mountain stage of the Tour de France today, Lance Armstrong fell from 2nd place to 3rd place in the overall standings. He is only 8 seconds off of the lead, and 2 seconds off of his teammate, Alberto Contador, but today we found out who the stronger rider really is.
Lance and Alberto have been leapfrogging each other in the standings in a battle for team leader status. So now that Contador has leapt over Armstrong again, and holds a slight 2 second lead, is the leadership question decided? In Armstrong’s mind, it is probably still an open question. Looking at it from further away, it is clear that Contador is the stronger man. Contador started the day 19 seconds behind Armstrong, but handily beat Lance up the climb by 21 seconds. That may not seem like a big deal, but remember that Contador took those 21 seconds in less than one mile at the end of the stage, and he was flying up the mountain. Also remember that today marks the very first time since Lance’s return from cancer, that anyone has taken time away from him on a mountain stage in the Tour de France. It was reminiscent of Armstrong v. Ullrich, only this time Armstrong came out on the other end. Armstrong is only 2 seconds off of his next major competitor, and he has two more weeks to make something happen. However, based on the aggression we saw out of Alberto Contador today, you can stick a fork in Armstrong’s chances of taking yellow into
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