Prologue: A Good Day All Around Lance Armstrong arrived at the Tour de France ready to take on all challengers, a point he emphatically drove home with a powerful performance in this afternoon's prologue time trial. While the 6.1 kilometers covered today probably won't decide who wears the final yellow jersey in Paris, the prologue is important for the psychological effects it has on riders. If you're one of Lance's rivals, it's not easy to look at the results sheet and see that you lost 15 seconds or more in fewer than four miles, on flat ground no less. In reality, the actual number of seconds is less important than the notion that if Lance can perform this well today, what are the next three weeks going to be like? That said, opening up a 15-second gap on Jan Ullrich, and bigger leads on Tyler Hamilton, Iban Mayo, and Roberto Heras puts Lance in a good frame of mind, and a good position in the race. It confirms that his preparation for the Tour delivered him to the race 100% ready to compete at his best, and perhaps more important, proves to him that he's starting the race with the power necessary to match and rise above his rivals. The fact that the US Postal Service is also leading the team classification also provides insight into the overall strength of this year's Tour squad. George Hincapie rode the tenth-best time today, and Floyd Landis finished right between Ullrich and Hamilton, just 18 seconds behind prologue winner Fabian Cancellara. Vjatcheslav Ekimov, the oldest man in the whole race at 38, finished 19th to give the USPS four men in the top twenty. With the team time trial just a few days away, it appears Team CSC is as strong as we all suspected, taking five of the top twenty spots today. It may prove advantageous to USPS and CSC to stay high up in the team classification, since starting last in the Stage 4 team time trial may prevent weaker team time trial squads like Euskaltel Euskadi from purposely slowing down in the second half of the event. A new rule limits the amount of time you can lose in this very difficult event, but the unintended effect of the rule could be that once a team knows it is two minutes behind the leaders, they could sit up and ride easy to the finish an not lose any additional time. However, if your primary rival starts well after you do, you may have no choice but to ride at full speed because you don't have the benefit of many time splits. If you don't know how much time your losing, it's very difficult to justify losing it on purpose. The sprinters' stages, the team time trial, the mountains, and everything else the Tour entails are all ahead, but for right now, spirits in the Postal camp are high. Lance is raring to go, everyone is feeling strong and healthy, and the whole organization is looking forward to a hard but fulfilling three weeks.