Cycling: Armstrong's defeat offers glimmer of hope to challengers

The day after Lance Armstrong's unexpected defeat in Monday's time trial to Lorient, the Tour de France spent the first of its two rest days ruminating on the possible implications.

While the riders and top brass made the 300-mile transfer from Britanny to Bordeaux in two chartered flights, the five-and-a-half-hour four-wheeled slog south for the remainder of the race followers gave time to chew over the American's first indication of vulnerability in four years. In all the team hotels – an uninspiring series of concrete cubes on the Bordeaux ring road – theories flourished as to what could happen in the Pyrennean stages, which start on Thursday.

"We're here to win," Joseba Beloki, third in the last two Tours and currently third overall behind Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, said. His Once team-mate, 26 seconds ahead after losing only eight seconds to Armstrong in Monday's time trial, said, "Lance is still the No 1 favourite, but he can be beaten. If he attacks in the mountains like he did last year, though, there's nothing we can do. One moment I could see him, the next I couldn't."

So what will happen when the race tackles its first major mountain pass, the Aubisque? "Some of the climbers will do well," Beloki said. "We haven't seen them so far, but just you wait."

Probably the strongest argument that this has been a mere glitch in Armstrong's progression towards a fourth Grand Boucle is that all the five-times Tour winners, barring the time trial specialist Jacques Anquetil, were occasionally beaten by their rivals – Bernard Hinault by Gerrie Knetemann, Miguel Indurain by Tony Rominger. However, the doubters point out that this is the American's third defeat in a race against the clock in two months, and the second in less than four weeks by Botero.

Armstrong himself was similarly ambiguous in his post-mortem. "It wasn't catastrophic, but it could have been," he said of his defeat. "Anyway, racing and attacking from behind is exciting."

But while the question mark over the Texan's form could well evaporate in the Pyrenees, there appeared to be no doubts in the mind of the 33-year-old Frenchman Laurent Jalabert, who used the rest day press conference to announce his retirement at the end of the season.

An injury plagued start to the year, coupled with a desire to spend more time with his family, has led France's most consistently successful rider of the 1990s and a winner of two stages of the Tour last year as well as the King of the Mountains polka dot jersey, to decide to end his career in October after the World Championships.

Jalabert's ambitious style allowed him to build up a total of over 160 victories including the Tour of Spain in 1995, the 1997 World Time Trial Championship as well as the Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Lombardy Classics. "His retirement is the end of a whole philosophy of cycling, the kind who raced seriously from February through to October," his long-time directeur sportif Manolo Saiz of Once-Eroski said.

To say that Jalabert will be sorely missed by French cycling is no exaggeration. The implications of Armstrong's time trial performance on Mondaywill be soon be clarified for both his fans and his critics, but when the best-placed local rider, Anthony Morin, can only take 30th in the same event, and the best-placed rider in the overall classification is Jalabert himself, in 18th, the country's future in what was once its second most popular sport can only be described as bleak.

Alasdair Fotheringham writes for Cycling Weekly

OVERALL STANDINGS

Overall classification (yellow jersey): 1 I Gonzalez Galdeano (Sp) Once-Eroski 33hr 21min 23sec; 2 L Armstrong (US) US Postal +26sec; 3 J Beloki (Sp) Once +1min 23sec; 4 S Honchar (Ukr) Fasso Bortolo +1:35; 5 S Botero (Col) Kelme +1:55; 6 A Peron (It) CSC-Tiscali +2:08; 7 D Millar (GB) Cofidis +2:11; 8 R Rumsas (Lith) Lampre +2:22; 9 T Hamilton (US) CSC +2:30; 10 J Azevedo (Por) Once +2:45; 11 V Ekimov (Rus) US Postal) +2:48; 12 J Jaksche (Ger) Once +2:49; 13 M Serrano (Sp) Once +2:59; 14 A Olano (Sp) Once +3:07; 15 F Landis (US) US Postal +3:15; 16 I Nozal (Sp) Once +3:37; 17 I Basso (It) Fasso Bortolo +4:05; 18 L Jalabert (Fr) CSC-Tiscali +4:18; 19 N Sorensen (Den) CSC-Tiscali +4:23; 20 F Mancebo (Sp) Ibanesto s/t.

Points standings (green jersey): 1 E Zabel (Ger) Telekom 193pts; 2 R McEwen (Aus) Lotto Adecco 191; 3 B Cooke (Aus) FDJeux 134; 4 S O'Grady (Aus) Crédit Agricole 119; 5 J Kirsipuu (Est) Ag2R 110.

King of the mountains (polka dot jersey): 1 C Mengin (France) FdJ 42pts; 2 S Berges (Fr) AG2r 26; 3 L Dierckxsens (Bel) Lampre 15; 4 F Renier (Fr) Bonjour 13; 5 P Halgand (Fr) Jean Delatour 12.

Best young rider – 25 years and under (white jersey): 1 Millar 33:23:34; 2 Nozal +1min 26sec; 3 Basso +1:54; 4 D Menchov (Rus) Ibanesto.com +3:13; 5 S Casar (Fr) FDJ.com +4:41.

Teams: 1 Once-Eroski 100hr 8min 01sec; 2 US Postal +2min 11sec; 3 CSC Tiscali +4:o6; 4 Rabobank +5:50; 5 Lampre-Daikin +7:25.