Stage 3: Marseille-La Grande-Motte; 196.5km

Today started out very similar to any other flat stage in the TDF. A small breakaway of 4 riders gained a double digit time gap on the peloton and were expected to be swept up with 15km or so to go. But unfortunately for the riders they are on the southern coast of France: Brittany. With this territory comes massive cross winds and they proved vicious today. With 40 km to go, the riders got hit with a massive head-cross and were immediately split up into two groups. The lead group of four got swept up but stayed with the first split group. Only 25 riders could power through the winds to be in the front group, and one of them was an 'ol texan. Armstrong and teammates Yaroslav Popovych and Haimar Zubeldia made the split while the rest of the field was caught chasing, inevitably never catching the lead group. All 9 riders from Columbia-HTC made the first split which meant another sprint victory for Mark Cavendish, who took stage 3 ahead of Thor Hushovd for his 2nd win in this year's tour. Popovych finished 11th on the stage; Lance took 19th. The big news though was that their group of 25 finished 40 seconds ahead of the main peloton, which included big names such as teammates Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer, and other main rivals such as Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, and Denis Menchov. With his front split finish, Lance has shot up to 3rd in the overall standings, only behind 2nd place Tony Martin of Columbia-HTC and leader Fabian Cancellara, who was attentive enough to make the break when the cross winds kicked in with 40k to go. Lance is now the highest place Astana rider. With teammates Contador, Leipheimer and Kloden not making the split today, is Lance now proving he is the best of breed? We shall see. It is my opinion that Lance has carte blanche within the team. On paper and within the media, Contador is the team leader and the other 8 riders, including Armstrong, support his efforts to win. But privately, if Lance feels he can take something into his own hands to get ahead, I think they let him do it. How could you not? He's only won 7 TDFs.....Tomorrow's stage 4 TTT will prove crucial as a sorting out of the pecking order of this year's contenders. Within no maximum time loss like in previous years, and the technical nature of this year's route, there may be huge gaps among the leaders at the end of the day, and if Astana takes the TTT, Lance will be in yellow. Incredible. Until then.