Landis Comes Back From the Dead

Just a day after he spectacularly blew up in the Alps, losing 10 minutes in the process, Floyd Landis produced an astonishing performance to romp away with the 17th stage to once again make himself favourite for the Tour de France.

Oscar Pereiro clung on desperately to finish seventh to retain the yellow jersey by 12 seconds from Carlos Sastre. But Landis, who is now just 30 seconds behind in third, is far the more accomplished time-trialler. He rightly fancies his chances of taking yellow on Saturday's 55km time trial.

Landis's performance today was incredible - especially after yesterday when he lost a minute a kilometre to the field on the final climb and slumped to 11th overall, eight minutes behind Pereiro. The American went away early, and this time had enough energy to grunt up the final climb - the hideous Morzine-Avoriaz - by himself. The peleton tried to chase him down, but Landis was simply too strong.

"I don't care it's my first stage win, I just wanted to atone for yesterday," he said. "My chances don't look bad. I'm confident in my time-trialling. If you saw that, I think you agree with me. I just want to win the tour."