Cycling: McEwen's hat-trick tightens jersey race

Early in the first week McEwen had written off his chances of clinching the green jersey - awarded to the most consistently placed rider - for a third time in his career after he was relegated to last place in the bunch for head-butting another sprinter during the battle for a finish.

But McEwen's hat-trick of wins now places him just 22 points behind the green-jersey leader, the Norwegian Thor Hushovd.

Asked if he could over-take Hushovd in the eight remaining stages, the Australian said he should: "Never say never. It might still be possible.

"There aren't many opportunities for sprints between here and Paris, but I'm still optimistic. Yesterday, nobody was coming past me."

Following this brief respite from major climbing, the Tour's 161 remaining riders now face three daunting stages in the Pyrenees in four days.

The first two are far and away the toughest, with a first-category ascent leading to the summit finish at Ax-3-Domaines today at the end of a 220-kilometre ((136-mile) stage, while on Sunday, the final climb of Pla D'Adet is rated Hors Categorie - so hard as to be unclassifiable.

Ax-3-Domaines will not bring back welcome memories for Armstrong: in 2003 the Texan, in a rare weak moment in the mountains, lost time to two of his arch rivals, Jan Ullrich and Alexandre Vinokourov.

The German and Kazakh are both now well beyond the four-minute mark overall and cannot, barring major upset, be considered a threat, but Armstrong's advantage over the Dane Mickael Rasmussen of 38 seconds is relatively slim.

"I will be watching him." Armstrong said, "like I'll be watching all the other favourites, the T-Mobile riders, the Spanish. All of them.

"I'm enjoying this race. I'm not having too many problems. I'll try my best to follow the attacks, or I might attack myself."

Few of his rivals would not be cowed by such ominous pre-mountain predictions, although Rasmussen, despite showing superb climbing skills in the Vosges and Alps, has yet to tackle Armstrong head on. On the one day where the Texan really showed his teeth, at Courchevel, the Rabobank rider stayed with him until the final kilometre.

The only rider as yet to give Armstrong something of a run for his money in this year's Tour - the Spaniard Alejandro Valverde - abandoned yesterday when tendinitis in a knee injury incurred in the first week proved too much to bear.

The Illes Balears rider had outsprinted Armstrong at Courchevel and was lying fifth overall. But half-way through the stage he waved his team-mates on, slowpedalled for a kilometre then turned off the road and headed for his team car.

"It hurts too much for me to continue," he said later. So upset he did not even remove his helmet before boarding the team vehicle, Valverde's withdrawal means Armstrong now has one rival less to trouble him. Barring the Pyrenees, his road to Paris and a seventh Tour is becoming smoother than ever.

Alasdair Fotheringham writes for Cycling Weekly.

Tour details

Stage 13 (Miramas to Montpellier, 173.5km, 107.8m): 1 R McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto, 3hr 43min 14sec; 2 S O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis, same time; 3 F Rodriguez (US) Davitamon-Lotto, same time; 4 G Trenti (US) Quick Step, same time; 5 T Hushovd (Nor) Crédit Agricole, same time; 6 A Geslin (Fr) Bouygues Telecom, same time; 7 R Forster (Ger) Gerolsteiner, same time; 8 M Backstedt (Swe) Liquigas-Bianchi, same time; 9 G Bortolami (It) Lampre, same time; 10 C Horner (US) Saunier Duval, same time.

Overall Standings: 1 L Armstrong (US) Discovery Channel, 50 hours, 13 minutes, 50 seconds; 2 M Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank, +38sec; 3 C Moreau (Fr) CréditAgricole, +2:34; 4 I Basso (It) CSC, +2:40; 5 S Botero (Col) Phonak, +3:48; 6 L Leipheimer (US) Gerolsteiner, +3:58. Points: 1 Hushovd, 164; 2 O'Grady, 150; 3 McEwen, 142; 4 Forster, 84; 5 Vinokourov, 81; 6 P Wrolich (Aut) Gerolsteiner, 79. Mountains: 1 Rasmussen, 160; 2 Moreau, 89; 3 Botero, 88; 4 Vinokourov, 71; 5 Armstrong, 40; 6 D Cioni (It) Liquigas-Bianchi, 34.