Tour De France: Landis Left With Mountain to Climb

Since the Tour left Strasbourg a week ago without Jan Ullrich or Ivan Basso, reading the runes has been impossible. The picture, however, was barely clarified during the first real test of strength, the 32-mile time trial through the Breton countryside, with none of the remaining favourites striking a decisive blow as the stage win and the race lead went to the Ukrainian Serhiy Honchar. Of the riders regarded as possible successors to Lance Armstrong, only the Texan's former team-mate Floyd Landis, the mountain-biking Mennonite, managed to open a gap of any kind, but he gained well under a minute on a tightly grouped little cluster of riders with whom he will probably contest the overall standings when the race reaches the Pyrenees. They include the Australian Cadel Evans, the Russian Denis Menchov - who inherited victory in last year's Tour of Spain after the winner Roberto Heras tested positive for drugs - the Frenchman Christophe Moreau and Ullrich's team-mate Andreas Kloden.

lifted the world time trial title as long ago as 2000, a little to the west in the town of Plouay. He is unlikely to hang on to the lead when the race reaches the Pyrenees on Wednesday, but his win yesterday was some compensation for the T-Mobile team after the loss of Ullrich.

Only one issue was definitely settled. The Tour is unlikely to be won by Levi Leipheimer, the American who finished sixth in last year's Tour and was the logical favourite after the departure of the five men who finished above him. The 32-year-old was way off the pace and lost five minutes on Landis.

David Millar, meanwhile, may find that his lack of racing during his two-year drugs ban is catching up with him, and his hope that he could perform in the Tour on training alone may prove hard to realise. The Scot was off the pace at the first time check and finished thirty-seventh, slower than Britain's other participant, the Olympic track pursuit champion Bradley Wiggins, who had every right to be pleased with twenty-eighth in his first Tour with a time good enough for him to top the leaderboard briefly in the morning.

France has had only part of its collective mind on the Tour this week as attention has turned partly to Amelie Mauresmo's fortunes at Wimbledon, but primarily over the German border to one of the few sports events worldwide that dwarfs the great bike race. The upsurge of support for Les Bleus that began last weekend has been obvious since the race returned to France on Wednesday.

Yesterday, among the cob-walled barns, apple orchards and fields of gently swaying golden corn, there was a proliferation of tricolours on the verges along with the black-and-white Breton flag. The wish is clear - France's cyclists need to put the clock back in the style of their soccer team and their tennis player. On yesterday's showing, however, only the ageing Moreau has even a remote chance of doing that.