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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

Tuesday’s stage was a showdown between the powerhouse time-trial teams, as well as a battle between old and new philosophies about racing against the clock. At the beginning of Lance Armstrong’s Tour victory run, the time-trial powerhouses were Telekom (now T-Mobile), ONCE (now Liberty Seguros) and U.S. Postal (now Discovery). But Liberty Seguros has become only a shadow of its former time-trialing self, and T-Mobile has also slipped a number of notches. The new guard still contains Discovery, but CSC, Phonak and Gerolsteiner are the new young bucks trying to kick the door in. All these

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Is Lance doing Bogey or the Duke?

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

CSC loses its first-ever yellow jersey

T-Mobile takes third

Near perfection: All nine Discovery reached the finish together.

T-Mobile happy with TTT effort

Basso's custom crank

Armstrong's bars

Rich's high-risers

Fishing cable without internal routing isn't lots of laughs

Liberty rode like the ONCE team of old

Phonak made its goal of reaching the top five

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

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

Discovery riding hard to take both away

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

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

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

And this is what he rode to get there

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Boonen wins his second consecutive stage

McEwen gets a little too physical with O'Grady

Zabriskie in yellow, anticipating Tuesday's team time trial

Anyone else seeing spots before their eyes?

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

The day's escape formed up at 27km

CSC did what it had to to protect their jersey

Lotto in pursuit

Boonen wins again

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

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

Course: After heading out for 12km to the Atlantic coast, the course parallels the seashore for the next 93km, passing through yachting towns like Les Sables-d’Olonne. On leaving Aiguillon-sur- Mer, the final 75km returns inland, often on narrow, twisting back roads, dipping in and out of low valleys. Crashes are a high risk on the run-in to the town of Les Essarts (population: 5100), where there is a short finishing straight. History: A stage has never finished at Les Essarts. When the Vendée region last hosted the opening stages six years ago, a similar stage finished in Challans, where

The Dave Zabriskie Show came to the Tour de France on Sunday, momentarily diverting the cameras away from Lance Armstrong and the other big stars in the Tour’s stage 2. And the European media, getting their first taste of Dave Z’s quirky sense of humor, didn’t know quite what to make of it — especially when he dead-panned to French television on how his first day went in the yellow jersey. “How did I spend it? Racing bikes,” said the 26-year-old CSC rider said with a sardonic smile. Zabriskie enjoyed the view from the front of the peloton during most of Sunday’s 181.5km stage across

Dave Zabriskie didn’t quite know what to make of all the fuss. Sure, he became just the third American to wear the yellow jersey in Tour de France history and he beat six-time Tour champ Lance Armstrong to do it, but after all, it’s just a bike race. “I got a massage, had dinner, read a little, then went to sleep,” was how Zabriskie described his first evening in yellow. “Yeah, we had a little champagne.” Sunday morning, Zabriskie got the full yellow-jersey treatment, with dozens of photographers and reporters waiting outside the team bus. Team CSC riders huddled inside the bus for

Stage 2 Results1. Tom Boonen (B), Quickstep, 3:51:312. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole, 00:003. Robbie Mc Ewen (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 00:004. Stuart O’Grady (Aus), Cofidis, 00:005. Luciano Pagliarini (BRA), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:006. Juan Antonio Flecha (Sp), Fassa Bortolo, 00:007. Peter Wrolich (A), Gerolsteiner, 00:008. Pineau Jérôme (F), Bouygues Telecom, 00:009. Baden Cooke (Aus), Francaise des Jeux, 00:0010. Allan Davis (Aus), Liberty Seguros, 00:00 11. Manuel Quinziato (I), Saunier Duval, 00:0012. Robert Hunter (RSA), Phonak, 00:0013. Inaki Isasi (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 00:0014.

Whether your preference is for Tom Boonen's legs or a podium girl's smile, our man Casey Gibson was on the job in France on Sunday, collecting images of the 2005 Tour. Here's what he sent home.

Tom Boonen may have won this Tour’s first ferocious sprint on Sunday, but don’t expect the tall Belgian to continue winning stages this week in the manner perfected by Mario Cipollini in the 1990s and Alessandro Petacchi in more recent years. That’s because Boonen won the stage into Les Essarts despite not having an organized lead-out train. The team that did its best to set up a strong paceline on the run-in was Baden Cooke’s Française des Jeux squad; but the French team’s efforts fell far short of guiding Cooke into a winning position. The twisting run-in and a sharp left turn into a

Good things take a long time comingSix years after Matt White was first denied his chance to ride in the Tour de France, the Australian finally made it to the start line of the world's biggest bike race - and he’s done so in one piece. For once White didn't crash. Neither was he left off the team. Nor was his team excluded from the three-week race. In fact, White finished stage one - a 19km time trial from Fromentine to Noirmoutier in 101st place at 2:32 behind American winner, David Zabriskie (CSC). He finished Sunday by placing 153rd in the Tour’s second stage, the 181km leg

After David Zabriskie’s first day in the yellow jersey, I ran into Allen Lim, Floyd Landis’s personal coach, who described some of Zabriskie’s mental preparation leading up to the Tour. According to Lim, Landis repeatedly told Zabriskie that the yellow jersey was his for the taking. “Floyd lives with Zabriskie in Girona, and ever since the Giro, Floyd’s been telling David, ‘Dude, you’ve gotta aim for winning that prologue at the Tour.’ David was nervous about doing the Giro and the Tour back to back, but that helped ease his concerns. Floyd told him that if he won the prologue and got the

So, here we are again. The Tour kicked off yesterday with what would normally be a perfect time-trial course for a guy like me: a pan-flat, straight shot to the finish line. But it takes me a few days to “find my legs” in a big tour, and I had what you could only call a day that wasn’t all that bad, but wasn’t all that great either. It’s difficult for me, usually, the first few days. You spend so much time getting ready, training like mad, and then you have a couple of days that throw you off a bit, with travel, medical controls, the presentation and all. It’s tough to get back into the

Boonen celebrates

Boonen blows 'em away . . .

. . . and here's what he did the job with

Why is Voeckler smiling? The polka-dot jersey may have something to do with it . . .

. . . or maybe it was something (or someone) else

Lance has a colorful jersey of his own, though it's not his favorite color

That one still belongs to Zabriskie

Four minutes, but little more. Nonetheless, the break lasted for nearly 150km.

Another day in yellow

Boonen wants the points jersey this year.

Zabriskie fields questions from the press.

CSC tooks its leadership duties seriously

Armstrong had the points jersey on Sunday.

LivingStrong in the Vendée

The chase was steady, but not frantic

Zabriskie had plenty of support around him