Armstrong gets his stage, nails down 7th Tour victory

Armstrong's last win
AP/ESPN

Lance Armstrong let it all hang out today, storming to a victory in the 2005 Tour's long time trial in St. Etienne.

T-Mobile's Jan Ullrich came to play, but couldn't quite hang with Armstrong, finishing 2nd on the day, 23 seconds slower than Armstrong.

The top 10 is a good demonstrator of US power in the sport: Besides Armstrong atop the heap, CSC's Bobby Julich was 4th at 1:33, Phonak's Floyd Landis was 6th at 2:02, Discovery's George Hincapie was 8th at 2:25. A little farther down the standings was Levi Leipheimer, 14th at 3:13, which catapults Leipheimer into 5th overall. Leipheimer will have to watch his back tomorrow, because Vinokourov is only 2 seconds behind him, easily overcome with an intermediate bonus sprint.

CSC's Ivan Basso was 4th on the day after going out too hard and leading the race at the 1st time check.

Michael Rasmussen, the king of the mountains, was the joker against the clock, switching bikes 4 times, and crashing twice, while losing 7:47 against Armstrong, and 7:24 to Ullrich, who moved into 3rd overall.

Armstrong rolled through the finish and straight over to his children, who arrived yesterday to watch Daddy work.

Top 10:
1) Armstrong, in 1:11:46
2) Ullrich, at :23
3) Vinokourov, at 1:16
4) Julich, at 1:22
5) Basso, at 1:54
6) Landis, at 2:02
7) Evans, at 2:06
8) Hincapie, at 2:25
9) Mancebo, at 2:51 (!)
10) Karpets, at 3:05

GC:
1) Armstrong
2) Basso, at 4:40
3) Ullrich, at 6:21
4) Mancebo, at 9:59
5) Leipheimer, at 11:25
6) Vinokourov, at 11:27
7) Rasmussen, at 11:33
8) Evans, at 11:55
9) Landis, at 12:44
10) Pereiro, at 16:04