Somehow Lance Armstrong is hanging on in there. He had a tough day yesterday in the Pyrenees. 5 hours & 17 minutes of hard riding, over some steep terrain. When a rider attacks, if that rider is a danger to the race leader, the onus is on the leader to respond, the other riders will not help. This happened to Lance yesterday, not unexpectedly, Lance did what he had to do and did it well. The effort takes it toll.
His main danger, now, is Jan Ullrich a past winner of this great race. On the final climb of the day and within a mile of the finish, Jan attacked, he was 34 seconds behind Lance and needed every second he could get. Initially Lance was unable to respond, however he did not panic and maintained his cadence. If Ullrich came in the first three he would get a time bonus. Therefore he did not have to beat Lance to the line by more than 34 seconds to take the lead. Ullrich in fact was 2nd on the day, this garnered him 12 seconds time bonus therefore he needed to beat Lance by 23 seconds to take the lead by 1 second. Lance came in 4th, 7 seconds behind Ullrich. Lance Armstrong is hanging on as only a true champion can, his lead is now only 15 seconds. He has to put some time into Ullrich over the next 3 days, because if Ullrich can win the next time trial as he did 2 days ago he will win this Tour De France. Lance has a lot to do.
Yesterday's winner was one Carlos Sastre who finished the day in 5 hours 16 minutes & 8 seconds. For some reason that evades me, as he crossed the line he put a babies dummy (comforter) in his mouth
On a personal level, today (July 20th) is my and my wife's 33rd wedding anniversary
