Editor’s note: This article is a follow-up to “Making
the grandest tour,” by Robert Messenger (June,
2004).

It was pure physical domination. Lance
Armstrong won his sixth Tour de France by humiliating his rivals.
He can have left no one in doubt that he is worthy of being the
race’s first six-time champion. It was frankly impossible to
imagine anyone beating the champion rider on display in the last
three weeks.

From the prologue in Liège, Belgium, Armstrong was always in the
right place, a bit ahead of his chief rivals. At no time was he
threatened, and only twice in the whole Tour did he seem in even
the slightest difficulty: he finished second in the 6.1 kilometer
prologue, down two seconds to the Swiss time-trial-specialist
Fabian Cancellara, and in the first mountain stage, to La Mongie
in the Pyrenées, Armstrong did not have quite enough to come
around Ivan Basso at the line. This amounted to the loss of just
two seconds over the course of 3,390 kilometers.

Armstrong’s power and fitness were obvious, but credit must also
go to his US Postal team. The Big Blue Train worked to
perfection: they easily won the stage four team time trial and
they consistently controlled the pace of the race. On the flats,
they shielded their leader and kept him at the head of the
pack—the safest spot, as there is a smaller chance of