Tour de Discovery

The seventh stage of the Tour de France took riders along a 228.5 kilometer ride from Luneville in France to Karlsruhe in Germany—with Lance Armstrong remaining in the yellow jersey for yet another day. Thus far, the Tour has been totally dominated by three teams—Armstrong’s Discovery team, Bobby Julich’s CSC team, and Jan Ulrich’s T-Mobile team. Indeed there are no riders in the top fifteen places from any other teams—and the Discovery team has claimed the first, second sixth, seventh, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, and fifteenth places. This is unprecedented in the history of the Tour. Of course, only about a minute and a half separate first from fifteenth place so anything could still happen between now and July 24 when the peloton rolls onto the streets of Paris.

The overall standings are:

1. Lance Armstrong (USA/DIS) 23:01:56
2. George Hincapie (USA/DIS) 0:55
3. Alexander Vinokourov (KAZ/TM) 1:02
4. Jens Voigt (GER/CSC) 1:04
5. Bobby Julich (USA/CSC) 1:07
6. Jose Luis Rubiera (ESP/DIS) 1:14
7. Yaroslav Popovych (UKR/DIS) 1:16
8. Benjamin Noval (ESP/DIS) 1:26
9. Ivan Basso (ITA/CSC) 1:26
10. Kurt Asle Arvesen (NOR/CSC) 1:32
11. Pavel Padrnos (CZE/DIS) 1:32
12. Paolo Savoldelli (ITA/DIS) 1:33
13. Jan Ullrich (GER/ TM) 1:36
14. Carlos Sastre (ESP/CSC) 1:36
15. Jose Azevedo (POR/DIS) 1:37