The Tour de France is shaping up as a three-way scrap between race leader Cadel Evans of Australia, defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. Evans leads Schleck by just 20 seconds after Schleck won the hardest stage so far Sunday - a grueling Alpine trek where Lance Armstrong cracked. “Getting the yellow jersey at the Tour is always something special,” the 33-year-old Evans said on Monday's rest day in Morzine. “To swap the (world champion's) rainbow jersey for the yellow jersey is a rare feat that I've had the honor to experience.” With two-time Tour winner Contador short of his best form, Evans may never have a better chance to win the Tour, and he is in no mood to take chances after slightly hurting his left forearm in a minor crash Sunday. Contador trails by 61 seconds ahead of Tuesday's ninth stage. The punishing Alpine route featuring two category 1 climbs, and a tougher one that is beyond classification: a mammoth 25.5-kilometer ride up the Col de la Madeleine, one of the Tour's most redoubtable mountain passes. That will hardly thrill Armstrong after what happened to him during the eighth stage. The 38-year-old Texan finished in 61st place after laboring in stifling heat, hauling his battered body up from crashes and up grueling mountain passes that used to seem so easy during his heyday. Armstrong is more than 13 minutes behind Evans - an impossible gap to close in two weeks. “He can't come back from it ... especially against some of the best climbers in the world,” Armstrong's former US Postal teammate Frankie Andreu said. It was a collective victory for all three Tour contenders to see the 38-year-old Armstrong plummet down the standings to 39th place. “This time it was Contador, Evans and Schleck who decided to eliminate the threat,” Andreu said. “Armstrong's always a threat, so they had to ride on the front to make sure he's gone for good.” With British rider Bradley Wiggins also out of sorts - Wiggins was fourth on last year's Tour but is now 2:45 back in 14th - the path to the Paris podium on July 25 is clearing for the main contenders. Schleck looks the more comfortable of the three main contenders, with Armstrong's RadioShack manager Johan Bruyneel observing that Contador does not look as strong as last year. Contador could not match Schleck's hilltop acceleration on the final part of Sunday's climb. Schleck, however, is at another major disadvantage to both Evans and Contador, who are both much faster than him on time trials. Schleck, whose brother Frank was injured early on in the race and had to pull out because of a broken left collarbone, also has one less teammate to help him in the mountains. The 25-year-old Schleck knows he will have to be in the lead on July 24 for the final 52-kilometer time trial, if he is to stand a chance of winning the Tour.
