There is a chance that Armstrong might meet his match in the Tour. Young Dane, Rasmussen, is wearing the King of Mountains Jersey, and only 38 seconds back in the general classification. Not bad for a guy who was up to now a mere mountain biker.
Ther has to come a time when the old order changes,when you can look beyond the Armstrong/ Ulrich rivalry, and this kid looks like a contender.

If Lance has a good day tomorrow, i think the tour is won. Rasmussen is doing a brilliant job and he deserves to get the 2nd place on the podium.
Maybe next year he will win the tour, although i think Ulrich and Vinikrov (sp) will have something to say about that.

I also think that Ulrich's riding style of pushing such huge gears all the time has been his undoing. There is no way he can respond to Lance breaking away while he is in such high gears IMO.

You'd think that Ulrich would have learned by now about his gearing. I learned in my own racing experience that the big gears can destroy your knees over time.

To answer your question, no he wont win the TDF, the king of the mountains yes barring a major disaster he should win that, he would have to have at least 4 maybe 5 mins on Lance heading into the 55km time trial in Saint Etienne, and right now he is 1min 44 sec behind LA.

Should LA crash out over the coming days and he still has a few minutes advantage over the likes of Ullrich & Basso one they leave the pyrenees then it could be intresting.

the answer is no he can't win the tour,no way.
Good too see George Hincapie win todays stage,the hardest stage of the tour.after dedicating 7 years to Lance he deserved it.
Looking forward to the time trail then Paris..where i will be too watch the fittest man on the planet colect his 7 th straight tour win.

jt

I too was very happy to see George Hincapie win the stage. He has tried to win for years. Anyone who can be that good in the Paris Roubaix hell of the North ought to have a chance in the biggest stage race of all

Originally posted by buck
I too was very happy to see George Hincapie win the stage. He has tried to win for years. Anyone who can be that good in the Paris Roubaix hell of the North ought to have a chance in the biggest stage race of all

Not really as they are totally different events, look at Tom Boonen for example, way down the GC before he retired.

In addtion, he may have won the stage on a sporting level, but I'm not sure it was ethically the correct way to win.

Looks to me like Lance has more or less got it in the bag.

He discribed today as a "no chain" day (meaning it was so easy he felt like he had no chain.)

Amazing how one man/team can be so far ahead of the competition.

Well worth reading his book if you have not already.