A few hours later, Landis said "my chances of winning the tour are very small at this point, but i will keep fighting."

The following day, he produced one of the great Tour rides, breaking out on a punishing mountain climb and riding alone for hours to pull to only 30 seconds behind Pereiro overall.

"It was something that will stay with me forever," Team CSC rider Stuart O'Grady said. "The biggest ride I've ever seen ... I was having a good day and he made me feel like an amateur."

Head straight, mouth closed, eyes fixed, legs moving with relentless conviction _ it could have been Armstrong himself.

Having learned the art of winning, Landis now has only one hurdle left to overcome _ his modesty.

Perhaps because of a conservative Mennonite upbringing, he recoils from the limelight and is as self-effacing as he is praiseworthy toward others.

But his sense for the dramatic, his panache _ mixed in with a never-say-die attitude _ have made Landis a darling of the French public the way Armstrong was not.

A French fan, Claude Camut, watching on the Champs-Elysees, said:

"Lance, you never saw him lose, or have a moment of weakness. You got the feeling it was easy for him."

While Armstrong dominated so clinically, Landis restored a dash of daring to cycling.