Zabriskie falls out of yellow jersey, Armstrong takes the lead

Zabriskie checks
his bike after fall
AP Photo/ESPN

David Zabriskie's yellow jersey reign came to a sudden end this morning, as Zabriskie crashed hard with a little more than 1 kilometer to ride in the team time trial.

Discovery Channel turned in a strong performance, perhaps not as dominant as in recent years, but enough for the stage win, and to put Armstrong in yellow, as the TTT has the last couple of years. Their average speed of 57.31 km/hour smashes the old record held by Gewiss-Ballan from 1995, which was 54.93 km/hour. They finished with all 9 riders, underlining the top-to-bottom strength of their squad.

Organizers had added a rule after Gilberto Simoni slid into the barriers right at the end of last year's TTT, and finished 6 seconds behind his Saeco teammates. He was timed at 2:42 behind US Postal vs. 1:30 artificially capped for the rest of Saeco, so the new rule gives riders who fall in the last kilometer the same time as the group they were riding with. Unfortunately, Zabriskie's fall came outside of the last kilometer, so Zabriskie falls to 9th overall, 1:26 behind Armstrong.

T-Mobile rode a surprising strong ride, to take third on the day, and limit Jan Ullrich and Alexandre Vinokourov to 30 seconds lost on the stage. Vino is the most highly placed GC threat to Armstrong, at 1:21, but Ivan Basso is now at 1:26, and Ullrich at 1:36. T-Mobile came in with 6 riders together.

Phonak was (correction) 5th, capped at 50 seconds, so Floyd Landis drops to 1:50 back; Phonak finished with the minimum 5 riders.

Gerolsteiner must be glad for the cap: without it, Levi Leipheimer would have lost 45 seconds more than the 80 seconds their 8th place gives them. He's now 2:31 off Armstrong's pace.

Also:

letour.fr | Intermediate timing | Overall standings after Stage 4