It's too soon to write the obituary for Lance Armstrong in the 2002 Tour de France.

THE COMPETITION

In the past, the powerful ONCE team has frequently had two leaders on the Tour -- one for the flat and one for the mountains -- and team director Manolo Saiz has never been able to sacrifice one for the other. As a result ONCE have never won the Tour, a fact U.S. Postal team director Johan Bruyneel knows well having been a leading member of the team in his riding days. "But I know Bruyneel more than he knows me," replied Saiz when asked about the tactical fight. Beloki, third in the Tour for the past two years, looks like Armstrong's most serious rival in the mountain stages. A gifted climber, he has been very quiet so far in the race and, without making a big show, is still third overall. Other climbers seem to have lost far too much time to be a serious threat. Botero's teammate Oscar Sevilla of Spain -- second in the Vuelta last year -- is five minutes off the pace. So too is Russian Denis Menchov, while Frenchman Richard Virenque has lost six minutes and Kazakh Andrei Kivilev nearly seven minutes on the American. -- Reuters

For a man who came back from the dead to beat the odds against cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain, erasing a 26-second deficit to an unproven Spanish rider is nothing to lose sleep over.

At the halfway mark of the 89th Tour de France, the three-time defending champion finds himself in a very unfamiliar situation -- in second place.

The cycling world was in a titter Monday following Armstrong's surprising, if not downright shocking, upset in the 32-mile time trial in the Tour's ninth stage.

After all, Armstrong had been 5-for-5 in long time trials during his three consecutive Tour de France victories.

Armstrong is still the favorite to take Tour victory No. 4, but this year the ride hasn't been as smooth.

Vicente Belda, the sport director of the strong Spanish Kelme team, asked if Armstrong is perhaps not as strong as he was in the past.

"Lance Armstrong is human after all," Belda said. "Armstrong will have a bad day. Today wasn't a bad day, but everyone has one. I don't want to say that Armstrong is not the favorite. He is, but we will fight."

Headlines in the French press asked, "Perhaps Armstrong isn't unbeatable." Another newspaper put it more bluntly in 60-point type: "Beaten."

The first week of the 89th Tour opened like a dream for Armstrong. He won the opening prologue and took the yellow jersey for the 36th day of his career. In Sunday's first stage, he rode on a bike with "Daddy Yo-Yo" painted on the frame. That's what his miracle son, Luke, said last year when he saw his father wearing the yellow jersey.

Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team quickly forfeited the race leader's jersey. The Tour de France is a three-week chess match and there's a lot of unnecessary pressure that goes with defending the lead that Armstrong didn't need this early in the race.

Armstrong's boys in blue on the Postal team kept their man out of the wind, out of crashes and out of trouble -- until Stage 7.

Late in the race to Avranches, disaster struck, well, almost. A rider crashed right next to Armstrong in the final charge to the finish line. Riders hit the pavement and one of Armstrong's teammates slammed into the Texan's bike, nearly knocking Armstrong to the ground.

In three years, Armstrong has never crashed. He didn't fall in Avranches, but he was forced to stop. He lost contact with the main bunch and was forced to chase to catch back on. He lost 27 seconds to race leader Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano and fell to eighth place.

"I'd say the first week was an A-plus. After the mishap, it was an A-minus," Armstrong said.

The stage was set Monday for yet another Armstrong resurrection. Pundits expected Armstrong to win the Tour's ninth stage -- a 32-mile race against the clock -- erase the gap and jump back into the overall lead. All that, just in time for the Tour's first mountain stages, which start Thursday.

Things didn't quite go according to script. Armstrong couldn't out-pedal Colombian Santiago Botero on the blustery and lost the stage by 11 seconds. Nor could he erase a 27-second deficit Galdeano.

Saturday's spill came back to haunt Armstrong. If he hadn't lost the time, he would now have the lead by one second instead of being in second place by 26 seconds.

Not to worry, Armstrong fans. There was even some suggestion that Armstrong was playing rope-a-dope, whispers that he purposely lost the stage and held back so he wouldn't take the jersey too soon.

Armstrong likes to play mind games. And he knows that if a rider gets too greedy within the peloton they don't make many friends. Cycling is a harsh sport and champions have to share the wealth with the little riders who keep the stars at the front.

Armstrong said he was going full bore and said winds were a factor. Botero started on the course nearly an hour ahead of Armstrong and winds whipped off the Atlantic Ocean into Armstrong's face.

Time trials are important, but the mountain stages are where the Tour is won and lost. Thursday opens a string of six mountain stages squeezed in over eight days.

Armstrong's 26-second deficit will mean nothing on the steep climbs up Mont Ventoux, Plateau de Beille and La Plagne. The Tour will be decided by minutes, not seconds.

"The object of the Tour is not to win stages, but to win the overall race," said Armstrong's racing guru, Johan Bruyneel, the suave Belgian who is the director of the U.S. Postal Service team. "Armstrong is in a very good position going into the mountains. That's when the real race begins."

The mountains come late in this year's Tour. The Spanish riders promise to attack Armstrong. Hundreds of thousands of rabid Spanish cycling fans are sure to pour into the Pyrenees on Thursday to watch the climbing stage to La Mongie. A Spanish rider hasn't worn the yellow jersey since Miguel Indurain won the last of his five consecutive Tours in 1995.

Armstrong has a few chinks in his armor, but he didn't flinch Monday. He was mobbed by the media following his loss in the time trial. He was the calm at the center of the storm. He patiently answered questions and signed a few autographs. He didn't seem worried about 26 seconds.

"We will ride aggressively in the mountains, as we always do. We will attack in the mountains, as we always do," Armstrong said.

Armstrong promises that much of the script will remain the same.

Andrew Hood is a freelance writer from Colorado who spends a lot of time chasing cyclists across Europe. This is his fifth Tour de France for ESPN.com.