Botero storms to victory over Armstrong
After a mediocre 2001, the Kelme rider went back to his roots in the off-season, spending his days slogging up the mountains of his homeland in the company of local riders.
And he marked his return from temporary exile with a powerful ride which swept him to fifth in the general classification, one minute, 29 seconds behind Armstrong.
''I'm thrilled to beat Lance Armstrong,'' he said. ''I've been preparing for this race for quite a long time. It's a question of concentration and I still can't believe it paid off.''
Botero, King of the Mountains in 2000, will also be a danger to Armstrong when the race enters the Pyrenees at the end of the week.
He said: ''We (Kelme) are not here just for the mountains although the mountains are where we have our strengths. We'll see how we fare on the first mountain stage and take it from there.''
The Fassa Bortolo Ukrainian Sergei Honchar took third while race leader Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano of ONCE finished fourth to retain the yellow jersey.
The Spaniard kept his losses to Armstrong down to eight seconds while his Basque team-mate Joseba Beloki has the American in his sights, less than a minute down on the defending champion overall.
Lone Briton David Millar had a successful afternoon, taking the white jersey for the best U-25 rider from Isidro Nozalo.
Yesterday was a potential turning point for the whole race.
Armstrong has won the last five time-trials at the Tour (prologues excepted) and a similar outcome would have all but conferred a fourth consecutive Tour title on the Texan.
That presented a mission to the rest of the field to limit the impact made by Armstrong to a theoretically catchable minimum.
Botero accepted the challenge, setting a target which Armstrong missed by over 10 seconds.
The American is still the man to beat but the race will not become a procession for another week at least.
Mapei Hungarian Lazlo Bodrogi was first to set a significant mark, leading the standings at 1hr, 2mins 43secs.
His tally was matched by the Lithuanian Raimondus Rumsas but they were both blown away by a superb ride from Botero.
The Colombian, impressive in the prologue, tore round the 52km course.
He caught Cedric Vasseur, who set off six minutes before him, around the 40km mark before streaking to the top of the standings, beating Bodrogi by 24 seconds.
The stage was also a now-or-never moment for Millar. The Scotsman, a skilled time-triallist, needed a strong performance to have any hope of making an impact on the race.
And, while not setting the vineyards on fire, he did enough to claim sixth place, which lifted him to seventh overall and top of the young rider standings.
But while Millar was boosted by his ride, the afternoon was nothing but frustrating for Laurent Jalabert.
The Frenchman, second in the prologue, got a puncture, then threw his bike to the ground as a mechanic attempted to change the wheel.
A replacement was found but the CSC-Tiscali man looked more than out-of-sorts as he finished more than three minutes down.
But there was bigger news out on the course as Armstrong lost time to Botero after leading the Colombian at the halfway stage.
The US Postman rider failed to recover but had the consolation of moving up to second overall.
There is some suggestion that he is tactically avoiding the yellow jersey to duck the extra attention afforded the race leader but the result will nevertheless give enough succour to encourage the pretenders to his throne.
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