Armstrong retains Tour De France lead
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-07 15:44

Spared the crashes and strokes of bad luck that have befuddled others, Armstrong enjoys some breathing space between his main rivals in his quest for a seventh straight Tour victory.

He leads T-Mobile rider Alexandre Vinokourov by 1:21, CSC's Ivan Basso by 1:26 and Jan Ullrich the 1997 Tour winner by 1:36. Ullrich was banged up in a training session a day before the Tour start and has not been in top form.

Armstrong's game plan is to ride safe and easy through the early stages of the three-week race, waiting for the mountain stages, where he excels, to try to chisel out bigger gaps. He won't go all-out now to hold the lead: His main goal is to wear yellow on the last race day.

On Wednesday, the nervous pack battled wind, intermittent rain and slick roads, and there were several crashes. Basso got caught up in one and suffered road rash on one leg.

Australia's Robbie McEwen, of the Davitamon-Lotto team, won the stage in a sprint, outpacing Belgian Tom Boonen in second and Norway's Thor Hushovd in third.

Armstrong cruised across the finish in 45th place in a pack of riders that clocked the same time as McEwen 3 hours, 46 minutes for the 113.7-mile ride from Chambord to Montargis.

With 6.8 miles left, the main pack of cyclists caught up with a small group that had broken out early. By the finish, only six of the 189 riders clocked times slower than McEwen's pace.

The International Olympic Committee's choice of London as the host city for the 2012 Games cast a pall over the stage. Tour organizers had helped promote Paris' bid, and Leblanc said he was "a little sad" that the French capital had lost out.

"We've been hit by a sort of moroseness since the announcement about London's victory. We have the feeling of having been beaten a bit unfairly," he added, without elaborating.

Armstrong said he heard the news by radio in mid-course.

"I'm surprised by that decision," Armstrong said. "It almost felt like it was over, like it was a sure thing then to hear London …"

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