Discovery In Lead After Tour's 4th Stage

When Lance Armstrong was racing, the Discovery team never tried to win a team championship at the Tour de France. That was not their job. The team sacrificed themselves to keep Lance in the Yellow Jersey. But Lance is gone now, and Discovery seems to be racing very well as a team. At the end of the fourth stage, Discovery was in first place in the team standings. These are the top 10 teams in the standings right now:

1. Discovery
2. CSC..........1 second behind
3. T-mobil..........2 seconds behind
4. Balears..........7 seconds behind
5. Gerolsteiner..........18 seconds behind
6. Phonak..........26 seconds behind
7. Lamprey-Fondital..........37 seconds behind
8. Saunier..........42 seconds behind
9. Rabobank..........42 seconds behind
10. Credit Agricole..........43 seconds behind

Today's stage did turn out to be for the sprinters. Robbie McEwen, a sprinter from Australia, won the stage. The overall standings changed very little:

1. Boonen [Belgium]
2. Rogers [Australia]..........1 second behind
3. Hincapie [USA-Discovery]..........5 seconds behind
4. Hushovd [Norway]..........7 seconds behind
5. Martinez [Spain-Discovery]..........10 seconds behind
6. McEwen [Australia]..........12 seconds behind
7. Savoldelli [Italy-Discovery]..........15 seconds behind
8. Bennati [Italy]..........15 seconds behind
9. Landis [USA]..........16 seconds behind
10. Karpets [Russia]..........17 seconds behind

17. Zabriskie [USA]..........23 seconds behind
24. Popovych [Ukraine-Discovery]..........27 seconds behind
25. Vandevelde [USA]..........28 seconds behind
27. Leipheimer [USA]..........28 seconds behind
30. Azevedo [Portugal-Discovery]..........31 seconds behind
50. Rubiera [Spain-Discovery]..........45 seconds behind
59. Gonzalez [Spain-Discovery]..........49 seconds behind
72. Padrnos [Czech-Discovery]..........57 seconds behind

Tomorrow's stage is a 225 kilometer ride from Beauvais to Caen. It has four catagory 4 climbs and three catagory 5 climbs [as the number gets larger, the climb gets easier]. This translates into a fairly easy 140 mile ride. Most of the sprinters should be there at the finish, and the overall standings probably won't change much.