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  Sunday  July 27  2003    12: 30 PM

tour de france


Number 5.
Allez, Lance!

Lance Armstrong Wins Fifth-Straight Tour de France

Aglow in the yellow jersey of the Tour de France's leader, Lance Armstrong rolled into Paris today and for the fifth successive year accepted all the honors and tributes of the race's winner.

This was a somewhat different Armstrong, however. Unlike the champion of the previous four years, he seemed weary physically and emotionally. ``Humbled,'' is the way he put it this morning on the train relaying the 147 remaining riders from Nantes to the start of the 20th and final daily stage outside Paris.

``I came into this race very confident I'd win,'' he said, ``but I won't be so confident before next year's Tour.''

As a victory speech, that lacked his customary bravado.

He joined just four others - Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain - as champions who have won the Tour five times. Only Indurain had won it five times consecutively before Armstrong sealed his victory on Saturday in a long individual time trial when he increased his lead over his remaining rival, Jan Ullrich, who crashed on rain-slick roads.
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Armstrong eyes history

Armstrong finished third in Saturday's time trial 19th stage to increase his lead over Jan Ullrich to 76 seconds with just one stage remaining.

And he then revealed he will now attempt to become the only man to win six Tours.

"I'll be back next year, and I'm not coming back to get second or to lose," he said.
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