Inside the Tour

Armstrong kept his rivals at bay from the word go

Lance Armstrong began his three-week battle for a fourth consecutive Tour victory in fine style, with a prologue win that put the Texan in yellow and kept his rivals at bay from the word go, reports Cycling Weekly magazine.

The phoney war is over, the physical and psychological preparation is complete, and the big stars of cycling have embarked on the 3,282 kilometers that will culminate with one man in yellow on the Champs-Elysées.

The first weekend of the race gave a few clues as to the identity of that rider.

Despite appearing more relaxed than ever -- for the first time since 1999, Lance Armstrong had his whole family with him for the Tour start – the US Postal leader hit the ground running with an opening victory by two seconds over France’s Laurent Jalabert (CSC).

Britain’s David Millar (Cofidis), the winner of the Tour’s first time trial stage in 2000, finished fifth.

As the Tour got under way with two stages in Luxembourg and one in Germany, Armstrong and his team showed once more that their meticulous preparation, which begins as early as November, had paid off richly.

It was not just Armstrong who impressed at Luxembourg. As he had said during the recent Dauphiné Libéré stage race, his team was “100 per cent ready for the Tour”.

Three top-30 places secured by Roberto Heras (21st), Vjatcheslav Ekimov (25th) and George Hincapie (29th) mean they are currently lying third overall in the teams classification, three seconds down on CSC-Tiscali, but ideally placed for a late start in the team time trial, enabling them to use their prior knowledge of other squads’ time splits on this testing stage.

“The idea was to get as many guys as possible as high up as possible,” Armstrong revealed. “As I understand it, this way we’ll get a later start on Wednesday.”

While Armstrong’s convincing prologue victory showed he is back on top of his game, the first rolling stage around Luxembourg made it clear he and US Postal intend to control the race from the word go, with or without the sprinters’ teams’ help.

Armstrong was one of the few who avoided being caught out on a steep third-category climb in the final section of stage one, and his presence in a short-lived nine-man move containing Millar sounded alarm bells for CSC and ONCE.

Next the Texan accelerated on a short climb and brought the peloton into line. There was no mistaking who’s boss; in just two stages and a prologue, Armstrong, already so far ahead in the game, has put yet more ground between himself and the big hitters, and 2002 could well witness his most impressive Tour victory yet.

Armstrong and company were brought back within a few kilometers and the stage victory eventually went to Swiss rider Rubens Bertogliati (Lampre), who clipped off the front of the peloton with a kilometer to go and surprised the sprinters’ teams, taking the yellow jersey into the bargain.

Stage two was designed as a showcase for Erik Zabel and his Telekom team, but the German was pipped for victory in a bunch sprint. Robbie McEwen (Lotto) passed him with 100 meters to go, and was looking good for first place, but Oscar Freire (Mapei) found enough to come through for his first Tour de France stage win.

With Baden Cooke (FdJeux.com) in fourth place and Stuart O’Grady (Crédit Agricole) 10th, the Australians had a great day.

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