Bike Shorts

Lance Armstrong's voracious stage-win appetite -- four individual stages plus the team-time-trial in 2004 alone -- are earning the American comparisons with Eddy "The Cannibal" Merckx, widely acclaimed as the greatest cyclist of all time.

"Am I the new Cannibal? The answer is no," Armstrong said after eclipsing German Andreas Klöden at the line to win Thursday's Stage 17.

Even if he refuses the moniker of devourer of his own species, Armstrong is indisputably a "Hat Trick Hero," an accolade even the great Merckx never aspired to.

Villard-de-Lans (July 20), Alpe d'Huez (July 21) and now Le Grand-Bornand (July 22), Armstrong has won three mountain stages in a row, a feat unequalled in the modern era of cycling.

True, Italian sprint stallion Mario Cipollini did win four stages back-to-back in 1999, but the comparison is thrown askew on a caveat: The ratio of sprint-to-mountain stages in any given Tour de France swings heavily in the balance of the speed demons, meaning they have more opportunity to storm to glory.

Career-wise, Armstrong's race resume now boasts 20 individual Tour de France stage wins, behind just Frenchman Bernard Hinault (28 stages) and Merckx, the hungriest winner of them all with 34.

... that he's not going to win the 2004 Tour de France.

Granted, the German doesn't much of a say in the matter, currently 8 min 8 sec behind the yellow jersey with just three days remaining before the race rolls home to Paris on Sunday, July 25.

But the 1997 Tour champ is also adamant that things could have been different. If only...

"If I hadn't trouble with that cold bug in the Pyrenees, things would be quite different today," Ullrich said in French sports daily L'Equipe.

"If I had been able to keep the same form I had in the Tour of Switzerland [Ullrich won two stages and the overall at the weeklong race], I'm positive we wouldn't have seen the same Tour de France."

"Don't get me wrong, Lance is the best," Ullrich cautioned. "But I'm still convinced that he could have been beaten..."