Cycling: Battle between Armstrong and Contador will heat up

After two weeks of phoney war, the fight for overall victory in the Tour de France has begun, with Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador in pole position to take yellow in Paris.

The surroundings for the overnight stage victory in cycling's most prestigious race are hardly the most spectacular, a nine-kilometre summit finish in an out-of-season ski station in Switzerland. But glamorous or not, this is where the Tour's three-day incursion into the Alps begins, and with the bulk of the main favourites within two minutes of one another, there is everything to play for.

Armstrong and Contador are the only contenders to show their hands so far - Armstrong in a break on stage three, Contador in the mountains five days later. The two Astana riders have been shadowing each other since the race began in Monaco on July 4, with neither able to gain a solid advantage.

In a week in which the battle for the overall lead has stagnated, the one key development was their teammate Levi Leipheimer crashing out with a broken wrist. Leipheimer was one of Armstrong's major allies, and without him, he will have to show his hand sooner than he might have wished.

Going into the racing overnight, Astana still had Contador in third overall, Armstrong in fourth and Andreas Klden in seventh - the kind of domination that automatically threatens to sap their opponents' morale.

"The biggest single factor that Armstrong has in his favour is the generalised kind of psychosis about him," said Roberto Damiani, sports director at Silence-Lotto for the Australian Cadel Evans, who took second in 2007 and 2008. "It's like his rivals have been frozen in the headlights.

"Now they have to attack, or we'll end up with Rinaldo Nocentini [the race's leader for a week, but expected to crack] riding in yellow on to the Champs-Elysees.

Briton Charly Wegelius, a strong mountain rider, said: "I've never been in a situation like this before, with one team dominating a stage race to this extent. More than an Armstrong factor, it's an Astana factor, with such a strong team and three in the top seven, it's strangling everybody else."

Interrupting the Astana hegemony in sixth place was Bradley Wiggins, who rides for Garmin Slipstream, but the Briton is unlikely to attack over the next few days.

"I'm going to take it day by day," Wiggins said yesterday morning. "I'm in the same situation as I was a week ago, except I moved up a place because Levi [Leipheimer] quit. So I've no idea how it can go."

Yesterday's stage was marred by the death of a spectator, a 61-year-old woman, who was struck by a police motorbike. Two other spectators were injured.

- INDEPENDENT