Lance: “I told Alberto this morning, let’s make this race impossible to win for other riders. We accomplished that.” [and Lance discusses leadership]

SHOOT: On Friday or Saturday the heads of state will truly emerge, and the Yellow Jersey will start to move to the final wearer. Will it happen at the ascent to Arcalis? Quite a few presenters said today: "This couldn't have been a better story even if it was scripted." It made me wonder if Armstrong and his team purposefully closed the gap to 0 and no more. Nah...couldn't be...could it?

TEAM LEADERSHIP

The question of team leadership between Contador and Armstrong is set to be discussed within Astana after Friday’s stage, the American said.

“For that day, it’s possible (that there are two leaders), we will ride both protected (by team mates),” he said.

“After that day, it will be another situation, we will have to talk about it.”

“There are two ways of being a leader,” added Armstrong.

“You can be the strongest one or you can be the leader because of your experience, because you have the respect of the riders within the team.”

Should Contador dare to attack Armstrong in the 10.6-km ascent to Arcalis at an average gradient of 7.1 percent, he could move above his team mate in the overall standings and put himself in the best position to win the Tour.

clipped from sports.yahoo.com MONTPELLIER, France, July 7 (Reuters) - The Tour de France has become a duel between seven-times champion Lance Armstrong and 2007 winner Alberto Contador after Astana won Tuesday’s team time trial. American Armstrong, back on the saddle after 3-1/2 years in retirement, missed out on the yellow jersey by a whisker as his team won the stage ahead of Garmin-Slipstream and Saxo Bank. He was second in the overall standings with the same time as leader Fabian Cancellara. Contador was third, 19 seconds back as the first mountain stage, which includes an out-of-category climb to Arcalis, loomed on Friday. Three favourites have slipped out of contention as defending champion Carlos Sastre, twice runner-up Cadel Evans, and Giro winner Denis Menchov were all over 2:30 off the pace after Tuesday’s stage. “I think today the Tour de France is finished for some riders,” Armstrong told reporters. “With the current classification, you can look at the results, it’s difficult to make up some time.”