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Suggestions that Lance Armstrong could be showing the first signs of weakness as he bids for a seventh consecutive yellow jersey have been knocked on the head by Tour de France great Raymond Poulidor. Former French cycling ace Laurent Jalabert suggested that Armstrong's facial expression in Tuesday's hard-fought team time trial victory, which handed the American the yellow jersey, appeared to show a chink in his armor. "In the final section of the team time trial there was one thing which struck me," Jalabert wrote in L'Equipe the day after Discovery beat the CSC team by only

... and then there were four.

Dave Zabriskie stepped out of the Team CSC bus to find reporters waiting for him yet again, but this time he wasn’t sporting the yellow jersey. The morning after his painful crash in the closing kilometers of Tuesday’s dramatic team time trial, Zabriskie thankfully was able to push on. “It’s stiff. It’s a little hard to breathe, my knee is painful,” Zabriskie said before the start. “That’s what happens when you fall off.” Much to the relief of his teammates, the smile was back on Zabriskie’s face. He was devastated after costing Team CSC the jersey with his unlucky crash. The team is

... and tells the jury who the winner is today.

Hello,Well, finally we had a day that gave us all a renewed sense of hope! Yesterday’s team trial was exactly what we needed to restore confidence on this team. No, we didn’t win, but finishing 30 seconds off the pace set by Discovery and CSC was better than we had hoped to do. The morning started early for us, as the UCI medical crew came in for the usual checks. We also had a little birthday party for Valerio Piva, our director, before heading off to do a little bit of last-minute training. We got a pleasant surprise, too, when we came across a big organized fan club, with big banners

Discovery had little reason to put in a big effort Wednesday.

It was another busy day for the men of the Tour de France, and for the men of VeloNews, too – while Rupert Guinness and Andrew Hood were scrambling for words, Casey Gibson was scrambling after pictures. Here's a sampler.

Properly dressed, Armstrong gets underway.

After dominating domestic racing for the past three years, Chris Horner earned himself a last-minute spot on the Saunier Duval-Prodir Tour de France team with a solo stage win at the Tour of Switzerland in June. It’s the first time riding the Tour for the 33-year-old from Bend, Oregon, who has missed out on several opportunities in the past due to injury, family obligations and race officials’ questionable team selection criteria. Over the three weeks of the race, VeloNews will check in with Horner when possible to get a first-person perspective from the always-outspoken rider. VeloNews:

The French air defense network? Nah, just a bunch of shooters with some really big lenses

Stage 5 - Chambord to Montargis > 183km

With The Boss in yellow, Discovery clocks in and goes to work

Stage 5 - Chambord to Montargis > 183km

Armstrong and Virenque: 'Hey, Lance, remember me?'

McEwen finally nails one

Boonen tackles a short climb

Armstrong donned the yellow jersey after a squabble with Leblanc

Sprinters to the front, please . . . sprinters to the front, please . . .

McEwen pips a fading Boonen at the line...

Three amigos: Hincapie, Armstrong and Basso

Armstrong adds another jersey to his collection

Despite the aches of Tuesday's crash (and the loss of the yellow jersey) Zabriskie manages a smile

Levi, Gerolsteiner and that darn clock thing

A beautiful start for a fast finish

The fourth day of the 92nd Tour de France was one of exultation for Lance Armstrong and one of heartbreak for fellow American Dave Zabriskie. The 67.5km team time trial provided another trademark Armstrong moment as he surged into the maillot jaune with panache after his Discovery Channel team won the stage from Tours to Blois in record speed. “It’s always good to have the jersey,” said Armstrong, who led his team across the line with an emphatic bike stab. “It feels nice to win.” For Zabriskie, his dream run in yellow ended in nightmarish fashion. The 26-year-old crashed just 1.5km short

Results - Stage 4 - Team Time Trial1. Discovery Channel Team 67.5km in 1:10:39 (57.324kph)2. Team CSC, 00:023. T-Mobile Team, 00:354. Liberty Seguros - Wurth Team, 00:535. Phonak Hearing Systems, 01:316. Credit Agricole, 01:417. Illes Balears-Caisse D Epargne, 02:058. Gerolsteiner, 02:059. Fassa Bortolo, 02:1910. Liquigas - Bianchi, 02:26 11. Davitamon - Lotto, 02:3212. Rabobank, 02:4813. Domina Vacanze, 03:0414. Quick Step - Innergetic, 03:0515. Bouygues Telecom, 03:0816. Euskaltel - Euskadi, 03:5917. Lampre - Caffita, 04:0918. Cofidis Credit Par Telephone, 04:2819. Francaise Des Jeux,

Near perfection: All nine Discovery reached the finish together.

“Tour de France. Tour de France. Tour de France.” –Kraftwerk These days it takes little more than the first few notes of a trashy Euro techno beat to stoke the inner cycling fire. That’s right, folks, the best three weeks of the year have begun. Of course, the athletes have been preparing for these three weeks the entire year, but it’s the last-minute preparations that had me asking some questions. First, there is Lance’s pre-race prep, which, judging by this photo, included some movie-star impersonations. Whaddya think - is he doing Bogey or the Duke? Then there is Jan Ullrich’s

T-Mobile happy with TTT effort

Considering the way things came out during the opening time trial of the Tour de France last Saturday, the stage 4 team time trial could could have been much worse for the T-Mobile squad on Tuesday. Not only had Jan Ullrich lost 68 seconds to Lance Armstrong in the Stage 1 time trial in Fromentine; no fewer than six of the nine T-Mobile riders, who had each started immediately before a Discovery man, had been reeled in by their pursuers over the course of the 19-kilometer Tour opener. It was, to say the least, a dismal prospect for an event, in which T-Mobile had hoped to set the stage for

Basso's custom crank

With more than 80 riders now at least five minutes behind new race leader Lance Armstrong, there’s a good chance that a breakaway will succeed Wednesday on stage 5 of the Tour de France. That’s the theory, but in a year when the opportunities for field sprints are limited the fast men should again prevail. Going into this 183km stage, QuickStep’s Tom Boonen is two for two in the field sprints, partly thanks to his main rival, Robbie McEwen of Davitamon-Lotto, making a hash of his sprint on stages 2 and 3. McEwen is unlikely to make a mistake a third time running, so expect a much tighter

Armstrong's bars

Jan Ullrich concedes that retirement is not too far away. But the T-Mobile star has discounted suggestions that it will come sooner than later by reaffirming his desire to race the Tour de France next year in Lance Armstrong's absence. In an interview Tuesday with the French sports daily L'Equipe, the 1997 Tour champion said he still wants to win, but doesn’t feel the same pressure he did eight years ago. “This period of my life when the pressure is always there is in the past. I want to live out my life in cycling quietly and in peace,” he said. “Him (Armstrong) leaving will not

Rich's high-risers

Casey Gibson was on the scene as the yellow jersey changed hands on Tuesday, and here's how he saw it: "Boys, we got us a race now." He's a man of few words, but many pictures; check 'em out below.

Fishing cable without internal routing isn't lots of laughs

It was a good ride today. I really think we got 100 percent out of our guys. I was happy with my ride… it’s just the other teams were faster. We actually had a pretty good run today. As I mentioned, I liked that first part: 40 or more kilometers of dead flat road. The last part went better than I expected. Garzelli said he really wanted to lead on the climbs, so we went absolutely flat out on the hills today. It was a hard adjustment to keep that pace over the climbs with Stefano setting the pace, but once over, it all went well. I think all in all it went quite well. Like I said the other

Liberty rode like the ONCE team of old

Stage 4 - Tours to Blois (TTT) - 67.5km

Phonak made its goal of reaching the top five

Stage 4 - Tours to Blois (TTT) - 67.5km

The guys from Gerolsteiner did better than last year, but...

Discovery charges to the stage win and another yellow jersey for Armstrong

CSC battling to win the stage and keep the jersey . . .

Is Lance doing Bogey or the Duke?

Discovery riding hard to take both away

A heart-breaking end to a great run in yellow.

Zabriskie gave it his all before crashing in the final 2km

CSC loses its first-ever yellow jersey

Teammate Julich was supportive, saying he'd been superb as race leader

Course: The opening 42km of this team time trial will be flat and fast as the course hugs the left bank of the Loire River. A true test of each team’s homogeneity comes in the final 20km, when half a dozen short climbs will challenge each rider’s stamina before a rapid drop into the city of Blois. History: In a 64km individual time trial from Tours to Blois in 1992, race winner Miguel Induráin averaged 52.349 kph, while the only other time Blois hosted a stage finish (in 1999) Mario Cipollini set the fastest-ever road stage average of 50.355 kph. Maybe in this third-ever Blois stage the TTT

T-Mobile takes third

But once again, there's a new sheriff in town -- the guy who's held the job for six straight years

Bjarne Riis is convinced that his CSC team is going to win Tuesday’s 67.5km team time trial. “I will be upset if we lose,” Riis said on the eve of what is one of the most important tests in this Tour de France. Should CSC win the TTT, it would not only retain the yellow jersey of Dave Zabriskie but also allow team leader Ivan Basso to regain some of the 84 seconds he conceded to defending champion Lance Armstrong in the opening individual time trial. Although Armstrong’s team, now sponsored by Discovery Channel, has won the past two years, there are some question marks against its lineup for

And this is what he rode to get there

Another religious experience entirely

Rolling along

'War of the Worlds' extras? Nah, just French TV

Dekker, going up

Julich, too

Dekker rode himself into the climber's jersey

Course: Most of this fairly long stage (212.5km) takes the back roads of the Vendée region before heading northeast to the Loire Valley. The race passes some of the region’s famed châteaux, including the 11th century Chinon and 16th century Azay-le-Rideau. The final 30km are full of twists and turns until reaching the 3km-long Avenue de Grammont, which hosts the finish of theParis-Tours classic every fall. History: Despite its permanent place in classics history, the town of Tours has seen only six Tour stage finishes. The last was in 2000, when Dutchman Leon Van Bon brought home a small

The day's escape formed up at 27km

It was Tom Boonen's day at the 2005 Tour de France -again. Still, even after the Belgian sprinter blasted away his rivals to win the 212.5km third stage from La Chataignerie to Tours in the Loire Valley, his back-to-back victory was not the talk of the Tour. Instead, it was the fireworks that erupted between two of the tightly packed speeding bunch he left in his wake - Australians Robbie McEwen (Lotto-Davitamon) and Stuart O'Grady (Cofidis), who were third and fourth across the line behind Boonen and Austrian Peter Wrölich (Gerolsteiner). While Boonen had space to rent behind him

CSC did what it had to to protect their jersey

STAGE 3 RESULTS1. Tom Boonen (B), Quickstep, 4:36:092. Peter Wrolich (A), Gerolsteiner, 00:003. Stuart O’Grady (Aus), Cofidis, 00:004. Bernhard Eisel (A), Francaise des Jeux, 00:005. Allan Davis (Aus), Liberty Seguros, 00:006. Robert FÖrster (G), Gerolsteiner, 00:007. Magnus Backstedt (Swe), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:008. Anthony Geslin (F), Bouygues Telecom, 00:009. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole, 00:0010. Angelo Furlan (I), Domina Vacanze, 00:00 11. Isaac Galvez (Sp), Illes Balears, 00:0012. Guido Trenti (USA), Quickstep, 00:0013. Gianluca Bortolami (I), Lampre, 00:0014. Luciano Pagliarini

Lotto in pursuit

Floyd Landis was one of Lance Armstrong’s strongest teammates last year, but now he’s on the Texan’s enemies list as he lines up as one of the team leaders with Phonak. Landis, 29, had an acrimonious split with Armstrong after leaving Discovery Channel last fall to take his own chances as a team leader with Phonak. “The most critical reason for my decision to leave Postal was for my own opportunities,” Landis told reporters before the start. “If I was here for Discovery, I would be working for Lance and that would be it. So I decided it was now or never.” Once close teammates during

Boonen wins again

Our guy Casey Gibson found himself celebrating the Fourth of July by getting caught in traffic on Monday, but he still managed to send a few photos rocketing back to the land of the free.

... but no ten-day run for Voeckler this year.

Quite a day, today… I’ve finished in Tours before – Paris-Tours a few times, for example – and I really like this finish: Wide open streets and lots of room to fight out the sprint. It’s just things didn’t quite work out like we had planned. My job today was supposed to be lead-out man for (Luciano) Pagliarini, but coming into to Tours, we didn’t actually find each other in the peloton. That’s not all that unusual, especially when things are as chaotic as they are in this Tour. There really is no single team keeping things under control in the sprints. Without Petacchi here, Fassa Bortolo

Fedrigo and the rest of the Bouyges Telecom crew did what they could...

Boonen wins his second consecutive stage

McEwen gets a little too physical with O'Grady