As with Formula One, small time margins at the begining can magnify throughout the race into insurmountable advantages. Lance Armstrong is hoping that is not the final story of yesterday’s Cobblestone Carnage.
It’s not that he fell, there were a lot on equipment failures among the leaders. It’s that he was involved in a fall that split the lead pack at the end of the stage and gave his major competitors a significant opening.
The fall was Frank Schleck’s (the less famous one, not the one in 6th place) and took him out of the Tour with a broken collar bone. Matter of time really, he was badly beat up in Stage 2 the day before.
From Armstrong’s standpoint what happened is that he was all of a sudden a minute and a half behind about 6 contenders including Contador. He drove real hard over the finish to cut that to about 50 seconds, but this is definitely a result after 2 scoreless draws.
Today’s stage is an unremarkable 96 miles from Cambrai to Reims.
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