The moment of the day came on the last major mountain climb of this year's race, the Joux-Plane, when race leader Lance Armstrong couldn't go with the pace and the acceleration of Jan Ullrich and Richard Virenque on the climb.

For the first time in this year's race you could see that he was suffering.

He said it was because of a lack of food and there's no doubt that he appeared to be running almost on empty.

It was a mistake which he freely admitted.

Yet the end of the mountain stages appears to have come at just the right time for him.