TOUR DE FRANCE Armstrong avoids trouble, maintains 67-second lead

The four-time champ placed 28th in the 17th stage.
BORDEAUX, France (AP) -- Lance Armstrong stayed safe and on top of the overall standings through the 17th stage of the Tour de France.
Armstrong and archrival Jan Ullrich finished grouped together in Thursday's 112-mile, hill-less stage but their sights are already set on Saturday's individual time trial when they'll both race against the clock. That stage is expected to decide the winner of cycling's most prestigious race.
Armstrong holds a 67-second lead over Ullrich.
Thursday's stage was won by Servais Knaven, the first Dutch rider to take a stage on this centenary Tour.
Playing it safe
Armstrong achieved his aim of staying safe, out of any crashes. His U.S. Postal Service team, racing in a long line at the front of the main pack of riders, guided him toward the finish in Bordeaux, southwestern France's wine capital.
Armstrong, the four-time champion pursuing Spanish great Miguel Indurain's record of five successive wins, placed 28th, just behind Ullrich, in 27th. They finished in the same time, 8 minutes and 6 seconds behind Knaven, meaning Armstrong preserved his lead with just three days of racing to go.
Ullrich, a silver medalist in the event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, is hoping for a repeat of his crushing defeat of Armstrong in a time trial last Friday, when he bit a whopping 96 seconds off Armstrong's overall lead, setting the stage for a grippingly close final week in the three-week 2,125-mile clockwise slog around France.
"I want to win this Tour. I have never been so close to Armstrong. I feel how my top form is coming," Ullrich, runner-up to Armstrong in 2000 and 2001, said in a posting on his Web site this week.
Praise from teammate
Armstrong, however, was dehydrated that day because of a heat wave that scorched the Tour. He has never lost the last time trial at the Tour since his first win in 1999 and said Wednesday that he has no intention of doing so this year. His mood has been more buoyant since his dramatic stage victory Monday in the Pyrenees, when he recovered from a fall and powered past Ullrich to build on his previously razor-thin overall lead.
"Ullrich is a dangerous rider for the time trial," Armstrong's Postal teammate, Jose Luis Rubiera, said Thursday. "But I think in normal conditions Lance would not have lost that time during the (last) time trial."
Today, the Tour ventures off on another flat stage from Bordeaux, where Armstrong's aim is again expected to be keeping fresh and uninjured for Saturday's clash with Ullrich.
First-time winner
Knaven, of the Italian Quickstep-Davitamon team, was delighted with his first Tour stage win.
"I've always been second, third, fourth," he said, tears in his eyes. "Today I won. Incredible."
Italian Paolo Bossoni of the Caldirola-So.Di team finished second, ahead of France's Christophe Mengin, in third. Highlighting the flatness of the stage, Knaven finished in just 3 hours, 54 minutes and 23 seconds, racing at a speedy average of 29 miles per hour.
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