Tour De Lance: Stage 4

Well, that didn't take long.

Lance Armstrong captured the yellow jersey of the overall leader today, when his Discovery Channel team won the Stage 4 time trial. Previous leader David Zabriskie crashed near the finish while riding with his CSC team. How fast was Team Discovery Channel? Take a look:

"Armstrong's team mates, who won the team time trial last year, dominated the 67.5 km fourth stage between Tours and Blois, clocking one hour, 10 minutes and 39 seconds at an astounding average speed of 57.31 kph, the fastest in a Tour. " - Reuters

The previous top average speed for that distance was 54.93kph!

This is why Lance has such a strong shot at taking his seventh straight Tour de France - teamwork. Armstrong jumped from the U.S. Post Office squad to Team Discovery Channel because organizers promised to build a support unit with one mission: get Lance a win. Most of the riders in Lance's stable are championship contenders in their own right (George Hincapie first among them), but as a unit, they appear unstoppable. There's still a lot of cycling to go, but things are looking up for the good guys.

Armstrong now has a 55 second lead over teammate George Hincapie going into tomorrow's Stage 5.

(Oh, by the way, all riders are given random jersey numbers before the Tour. What number did Lance draw? #1.)