Lance Armstrong: Uphill Racer

With an awesome performance in the mountains, Lance Armstrong is poised to win the Tour encore

The Tour de France is supposed to be a team sport, in which a group of riders employs wind-blocking strategies and well-timed sacrifices to deliver victory to their designated star cyclist.

Not this year. With his U.S. Postal Service team struggling to get up the race's first mountain stage last Monday, Lance Armstrong took off from them. Then he took off from his European challengers, effectively ending the 2,254-mile, 23-day race in an astonishing eight-mile sprint through the rain and up the Pyrenees. Only a crash will stop him from being first when the race finishes in Paris this Sunday.

Armstrong's...

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