a real London Geezer= un type

Armstrong risked his record on this Tour

When Lance Armstrong's name was announced at the team presentation in Monaco two days before this Tour de France began, Tour director Christian Prudhomme held his breath.

"At first, I was worried and scared because 50 percent of the e-mails I received were against Armstrong coming back and 50 percent of the e-mails were for it." I didn't know what would happen.

But Prudhomme did not hear boos or hisses as he might have when Armstrong was last at this race = était dernièrement à cette course

No one cried "Dopage" which is the French word for doping. He said the only sounds were cheers as Armstrong waved to his admirers

Right away, I knew that it was the beginning of something different." Prudhomme said Friday, at the start of Stage 19 of this 21-stage race. since then, Armstrong has shown a different side of himself to the French. On television on Friday morning, he was seen joking around with with a boy at a race, sticking his tongue out at him. In a television interview earlier in the race, he was seen with former Tour winner Laurent Fignon, a Frenchman who is battling cancer. Armstrong, a cancer survivor, told him that he could beat the disease. It gave us a sense that he is a human being." Prudhomme said. "He seems to have completely changed from the picture the French had on him before." Nearly 3 weeks into this Tour, Armstrong is 3rd place, with 2 stages left to go in this Tour he once dominated. He is 5 minutes, 21 seconds behind his Astana teammate Alberto Contador. He is 50 seconds back from second-place Andy Schleck, of the saxo Bank team. And, suddenly, he has become a sympathetic figure here in France, the country that once seemed to dislike him the most.

"For me, it's completely mysterious because in the past he was one of the biggest enemies, among the people and in the press" said Gille Comte, one of the cycling editors for the French sports newspaper L'Equipe. " I think the French people still believe that he did some doping in the past, but he is back and he has shown that he is a talented rider. They know that he had so much to lose-- his whole career -- by returning, and I think they find that courageous."

Comte and others, including Prudhomme, said that Armstrong has shown that he is not invincible, and people relate to that. Like other riders, he has suffered on mountain climbs. He has known the defeat of falling back from the front of the pack. And, for all to see, Armstrong even fell short of securing the job of team leader on his own Astana squad. Contador, the 2007 Tour champion, earned that precious role by besting Armstrong in the mountain stages. Armstrong was 12th on Friday in Stage 19, when Mark cavendish, the British rider from Team volumbia-HTC, won his fifth stage of this race. Though Armstrong gained four seconds on fourth-place Bradley Wiggins, of the Garmin-Slippstream, it is far from enough to guarantee him a place on the podium when the race ends on Suncay. Next up for the riders is the penultimate stage: a notoriously gruelling climb to the top of Mont Ventoux on the schedule for Saturday. But for Armstrong, who is 37 and one of the oldest riders here, all is not lost. His return to racing was still worth it, he said. "It would be nice, of course, to win something, but to me there has been a lot of victories here" he said last Tuesday, after a stage in the Alps. " And those victories haven't been crossing the finish line with hands in the air. And going to the podium, and getting flowers and those things. "There have been other things that I can take away from this as a victory. I can look to the reason it dit it." When Armstrong came out of retirement, he said his goal was to win an eighth Tour and to gain attention for his foundation, which promotes cancer awareness. He said the foundation part of his return has been clearly a success. Still, at this Tour, the once-invincible rider has shown his cracks. When contador beat him at a climbing stage last week, Armstrong stood at the top of the climb and conceded the team leader's role to him. He called it a relief because the long-running question of which rider was stronger was finally answered. " I think people were quite inspired by that, and shocked" he said. Later, he did not mope = broyer around his ho tel, as a younger Armstrong might have. " It wasn't like I was like ' Oh god, my life is over'" he said, adding that he wasn't sad, though people likely(= probablement) expected it. He said he was realistic about the outcome. Contador has simply been better. Armstrong says he remembers being young and ambitious, like Contador, but he has grown past that. He said the question of whether he had doped in the past or not has been answered by his performance this season. Not only has he been near the top of the pack, but he has also been targeted for dozens of drug tests. " I think that it validates that those performances were pure" he said. Still, doubters of Armstrong's performance remain, including one man in the time trial course on Thursday, who held up a sign saying "Dopage", as Armstrong and his personal coach, chris Carmichael rode by. But the rest of the signs were positive, carmichael said. "He is really enjoying it", Carmichael said. "When you don't have people spitting on you or cursing at you when you are racing up Mont Ventoux, that makes you feel pretty good."

Alberto Contador all but seals overall victory.