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Ullrich on the other hand preferred to remain in bed and

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Ullrich, on the other hand, preferred to remain in bed and do his reconnaissance by watching the stage on video.The undoubted beneficiary of Armstrong's caution and Ullrich's shattered ambition was Millar, himself a victim of a crash three kilometres from the line. "It was like Lance gave me a present by going so slowly," Millar said. The Scot had earlier been on the point of abandoning with bronchitis. "I took no risks in those last kilometres and I still fell off, it was like a skating rink." Most of the attention, understandably, was focused on Armstrong, whose hold on the yellow jersey, taken at L'Alpe d'Huez, had looked terribly fragile until he countered with a superb victory at Luz Ardiden last Monday. Victory in the final time-trial ­ which Armstrong has failed to take for the first time in five years ­ would doubtless have been the icing on the cake.

But to take his fifth consecutive Tour in the race's centenary year will doubtless provide ample consolation for his hardest road ever to Paris and the Champs-Elys? And a sixth, record-breaking Tour is already on his mind. "The stress level has been higher than any other Tour, and I'll focus on 2004 in due time, but not yet. But I'll be back," Armstrong warned.Alasdair Fotheringham writes for 'Cycling Weekly'. At 6ft 10in, Carl Myerscough can't quite rival Gustave Eiffel's gargantuan Tour de force. The young man known as the Blackpool Tower will be in Paris next month, though, and judging by the elevated position he occupies in the world shot-put rankings, the Lancastrian giant should make his mark.

On performances this summer, with four weeks to go before the World Championships open in the Stade de France, only Kevin Toth, the US champion, stands above the burgeoning British thrower in the global order of merit. But it doesn't mean anything unless you produce it on the day in Paris. The guy who's ranked ahead of me is quite a bit ahead of me, too, so I'm conscious of that as well It's OK to be second, but then I'm nearly a metre behind. And that's quite a bit."In fact, the 21.92m Myerscough putted to win the American collegiate title in Sacramento on 13 June is only 0.75m behind the 22.67m with which Toth has led the world rankings since the Kansas Relays meeting on 19 April. It remains to be seen whether the 23-year-old Briton, who hails from Hambleton, near Blackpool, can close the gap on the 35-year-old American, a one-time World's Strongest Man contestant from Hudson, Ohio.If Myerscough can finish on the medal podium, though, he will have achieved what no bona fide British shot-putter has ever accomplished. Even Geoff Capes, whose 23-year-old British record the 24-stone Myerscough shattered in Sacramento, never managed to win a medal in a global championship. Twice a Commonwealth champion and twice a winner at the European Indoor Champion- ships, Capes finished sixth in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and fifth in the 1980 Games in Moscow.

Denis Horgan won a silver medal competing for Great Britain and Ireland at the London Olympics in 1908, but he was an Irishman, from County Cork He was also a New York City policeman. A year before he won his Olympic medal, his skull had been broken by a shovel when he attempted to stop a brawl.Myerscough has had tribulations of his own to overcome In May 1999 he failed a drug test Traces of anabolic steroids were found in his urine sample Myers-cough insisted he was a victim of sabotage. "It was someone who had motivation for no longer wanting me in the sport," he said. He was, however, banned for two years, and he still faces a battle to clear himself for Olympic selection. Under the rules of the British Olympic Association, athletes who have failed drug tests are barred from selection.

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