ARRAS, France, 8 July 2004 — Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France rivals were left sprawled all over the road and well down the rankings yesterday after rain and wind turned the team time trial into a battle for survival.

Armstrong’s US Postal team won the 64.5 km fourth stage putting their captain back in the leader’s yellow jersey with a near perfect ride as almost every other team suffered under the tough conditions.

American Tyler Hamilton is now Armstrong’s closest non-US Postal rival after his Phonak team crossed second to leave their leader eighth in the overall classification 36 seconds down on the five-time Tour champion.

“We had three flat tires in the first 20 km and so we were really unlucky,” said Hamilton. “Nicolas Jalabert is one of our strongest guys but he was the first to flat and so we left him.

“I still think we did a great ride and I’m proud of my guys.

“We all worked fantastically well and didn’t give up but it’s a shame we couldn’t have set a faster time.”

Germany’s Jan Ullrich, tipped as Armstrong’s biggest threat when the Tour began, is now 16th overall, 55 seconds adrift of the leader after his T-Mobile team finished fourth.

“We rode well but we had to wait for (Rolf) Aldag and then (Giuseppe) Guerini when they punctured after 10 and 25 km.

Italian Ivan Basso and two of his CSC teammates crashed on the same corner but were not badly hurt. Basso bruised his right hip as his CSC finished a disappointing fifth.

Basso said: “We might not have beaten US Postal but we would have been in the top three.”

After crashing and losing almost four minutes on Tuesday’s third stage, Spanish climber Iban Mayo had another bad day.

His Euskaltel team was only eighth leaving him in 92nd, a massive 5:27 off the pace.

“My injuries from Tuesday’s crash were still hurting in the early kms so we didn’t go too fast but as the stage went on I found my rhythm and forgot about the pain,” said Mayo.

“I don’t want to look back at what happened because there’s no point, I want to look forward to the mountains.

“There is still a long way to go and I hope to do something later in the Tour.”