Then Armstrong came to the front, and made his statement. Almost immediately, Ullrich was dropped, followed by Landis. Then Klöden, last year’s second-place finisher in Paris, fell off the back, physically broken. Armstrong drove the pace, paring it down to five riders in the next mile.

With five miles left in the stage, only three riders remained with Armstrong, who continued to set the pace. Rabobank’s Michael Rasmussen was there, and two riders from the Illes Balears team, Alejandro Valverde and Francisco Mancebo. By the time this elite group passed the banner for 3.1 miles to go, they had over a minute’s lead on Ullrich, and the gap was widening.

Rasmussen led it out with 750 meters to go, but Armstrong countered at the 500-meter mark and only Valverde had the legs to stay with him. Valverde, a known sprinter, took Lance at the line for the stage win, but Armstrong retook the yellow jersey.

As the riders trickled in it became apparent that Lance might be in the best form of his life. In this single stage he increased his lead over Basso by 2 minutes, 40 seconds. He dropped Ullrich to eighth, 4:02 behind. Klöden slipped to ninth, at 4:16, which is the same time split given to Landis in 10th place.

The other teams — T-Mobile and CSC in particular — thought making Discovery take up the chase in the 10th stage would prove too much for the squad. But that wasn’t the case, with the blue-and-whites driving a relentless pace that shed riders like confetti off a parade float. And that’s bad news for Lance’s competition. Despite doing the lion’s share of the work, Discovery proved they’re the toughest in the hills.

No matter how powerful your team is, at some point your leader has to stand alone. And stage 10 showed Armstrong is still the strongest man in the field. Even if the other teams could crack Discovery, it seems unlikely they’ll be able to break Armstrong. Left alone with seven miles to go, he simply rode his competitors into the ground with a tremendous display of power. If he takes the maillot jaune all the way to Paris, he’ll have earned it. And right now, it looks like that’s how it’s going to play out.

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