Garrett Lai

There’s still a week of racing to go, but after Sunday's stage, it looks as if Lance Armstrong is on his way to becoming the only seven-time winner of the Tour de France.

Stage 15 Sunday was the most anticipated day of the Tour. With one category-2 climb, four category-1 ascents and an hors categorie finish, Stage 15 was the toughest on the map.

And as the second-to-last mountain day, and the final mountaintop finish, this represented the last realistic chance anyone had to derail the Armstrong train. He didn’t win the stage, but Armstrong emerged with the yellow jersey, an outcome that didn’t seem so sure Saturday.

With about 6.5 miles to go in Saturday's stage, T-Mobile launched a ferocious attack on the category 1 climb to the finish that Discovery wasn’t able to cover — the only blue-and-white rider to match the surge was Armstrong.

For the first time since 1999, Armstrong was isolated miles from the finish. And as a lone gunman facing off against the combined might of T-Mobile’s Jan Ullrich, Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Klöden, along with general classification threats Ivan Basso and Floyd Landis, it didn’t look good for the Texan.

Tactically, T-Mobile could have tag-teamed Armstrong to tire him out and set one of them up for the win. But the squad was so tactically inept, at one point Vinokourov was up the road and Klöden and Ullrich led the charge to chase down their own teammate.

In the absence of a coordinated attack, Saturday's final climb was every man for himself, and in that situation, Armstrong had nothing to worry about. He didn’t win — Georg Totschnig took it, the lone survivor from a very early breakway — but Armstrong was clearly the strongest man, cracking Ullrich just before the summit and easily riding away from Basso to take second.

T-Mobile showed Discovery could be successfully attacked, and Armstrong could be isolated. And with Sunday's brutal course profile, anything could have happened; CSC and T-Mobile, in particular, had the potential to become spoilers for Discovery.

But it didn’t play out that way. An early breakaway of 14 riders went clear just 17 miles into the 127-mile race and changed the race strategy by opening up a monster lead of more than 19 minutes. Discovery’s George Hincapie was in the break, giving the Discovery team no incentive to chase. And T-Mobile’s Oscar Sevilla was in, so they didn’t need to counter.

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CSC eventually went to the front, anxious to protect Ivan Basso’s standing. And as the pace increased, the group containing the yellow jersey hit climb after climb and became smaller and smaller, winnowed down to just 21 elite riders, the strongest men in the field.

From that point it was almost a replay of Saturday's stage, with the breakaway fragmenting as riders burned up, and the yellow jersey group of 21 chasers becoming just three: Lance, Basso and Ullrich. And as before, Armstrong was the class of the field.

Monday is a rest day, and although Tuesday is still technically a mountain stage, the crux comes 45 miles from the downhill finish, so it’s unlikely to shake up the overall standings. Discovery is more than capable of controlling the field on the flat stages to follow.

So the only chance Armstrong's opposition has is the individual time trial on the penultimate day, a 34-mile race against the clock on a punishing loop that includes technical corners and a category 3 climb — conditions seemingly tailor-made for Armstrong's powerful style.

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Basso is lying in second, 2 minutes, 46 seconds back, but he’s not a powerful time trial rider. Michael Rasmussen, who’s been the surprise revelation of this year’s Tour, is just 3 minutes, 9 seconds behind Armstrong.

Rasmuusen’s a former mountain bike world champion, so he’s no stranger to racing the clock and can probably pull off a strong performance, especially on the TT’s undulating terrain.

But for him to take 3 minutes out of Lance is almost unthinkable, because he was good for only 175^th place on the Stage 1 time trial, 3 minutes 12 seconds down on the Texan, and that race was less than half the distance of next Saturday's upcoming time trial.

So that leaves Ullrich, who’s lying 5:58 behind, as the last potential rainmaker on Lance’s parade. The German could have a surprisingly strong time trial — he’s known for his speed in the discipline — but with the way Lance is riding, it’s going to take a miracle for him to lose the yellow jersey before race’s end.

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