updated 8:07 p.m. ET July 20, 2006

MORZINE, France - Written off as hopeless just a day earlier, Floyd Landis needed a once-in-a-lifetime ride Thursday to revive his sagging chances of victory in the Tour de France.

Did he ever deliver.

With a sensational display of brio and guts in the style of seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong, the American put himself back in the title hunt with a solo win in the last Alpine stage.

The astonishing rebound silenced nay-sayers — including Landis himself — who believed his chances to win on Sunday were doomed after he lost more than 8 minutes to the race leader in a punishing stage just 24 hours earlier.

“I was very, very disappointed yesterday for a little while,” Landis said. “Today I thought I could show that at least I would keep fighting.

“No matter what — whether I win or lose — I wanted to prove to my team that I deserved to be the leader,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to work quite that well.”

Sensing his rivals would be relatively depleted, Landis pedaled like a man possessed — going all out for his Phonak squad.

In the first climb, Landis brashly spurted ahead of Oscar Pereiro, wearing the yellow jersey, and other key Tour contenders — catching then overtaking a breakaway group that had gotten ahead earlier.

“I took a long shot,” he said, “but after all those hard mountain stages you can usually assume that people are tired and chasing doesn’t work so well.”

One by one, he left them all behind.

Landis, who rides with an injured hip, pumped his right fist in celebration as he crossed the finish of the 124.3-mile ride — the last stage in the Alps — in 5 hours, 23 minutes, 36 seconds.

He began the day in 11th place, trailing Pereiro by 8 minutes, 8 seconds. By the time he finished, he had jumped to third, and had closed the time gap to an incredible 30 seconds.

The 30-year-old from eastern Pennsylvania’s Mennonite country slashed the deficit by finishing 7:08 ahead of Pereiro. He also trimmed an extra 30 seconds by earning bonus points for winning the stage and placing well in sprints.

It was a striking, stirring reversal from Wednesday, when Landis withered almost pitifully in an uphill finish to the Tour’s hardest Alpine stage and lost the leader’s yellow jersey to the Spaniard.

GARRETT LAI ON TOUR DE FRANCE A champion for the ages Landis' amazing comeback caps most exciting Tour ever

Race director Jean-Marie Leblanc said Landis had given “the best performance in the modern history of the Tour” — adding that only a day earlier, he was “gone, finished, condemned.”

Spain’s Carlos Sastre finished second — 5:42 after Landis — and held second overall, 12 seconds behind Pereiro. France’s Christophe Moreau was third, 5:58 behind.

Landis broke out ahead of top rivals early in the trek from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne through three hard climbs on the way to Morzine. The last ascent, the Col de Joux-Plane, is among the toughest in cycling.

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