Cycling: Gonzalez revives spirit of Indurain

ONCE's slick performance in team time-trial puts a Spaniard in yellow jersey for the first time since days of legendary champion

ONCE-Eroski lived up to their overwhelming favouritism for the Tour team time-trial with a 16-second victory over US Postal, which propelled Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano into the yellow jersey, Spain's first race leader since the great Miguel Indurain won the Tour in 1995.

The Spanish First Division squad justified their nickname of the maquina amarilla (yellow machine) on the rolling 67.5km course between Epernay and Château-Thierry, maintaining a rhythm and holding their nerve when one of their nine riders, Mikel Pradera, punctured a third of the way through.

"Last year when we finished second in the same stage we started out too cautiously," Gonzalez de Galdeano, fifth overall in 2001, said. "So this time we went all out from the gun, and apart from the climbs, where we maintained a more constant pace, there was no let-up."

As fate would have it, the rider whose team came closest to challenging ONCE-Eroski, Laurent Jalabert, last wore the maillot jaune as part of the Spanish line-up in 2000, when they won the team time-trial.

However, after leading ONCE-Eroski at the two intermediate checkpoints by six seconds his Danish CSC-Tiscali made a serious error, when they hesitated after a domestique, Michael Stanstod, punctured. Having first opted to abandon Stanstod to his fate – an option open to a team given that their time is registered as the fifth rider crosses the line – their director, Bjarne Riis, then instructed his squad to slow, and finally changed his mind again and ordered them to accelerate.

"It was a ridiculous series of changes," Jalabert commented. "I am hugely disappointed to lose a chance to take the yellow jersey for something so stupid."

The gap yawned to nearly a minute between the two squads at the head of the race but with Stanstod gone and another team-mate, Arvis Piziks a victim of fatigue earlier on, Jalabert's troops were too demoralised to react.

Lance Armstrong's US Postal squad produced as solid a collective ride as ONCE-Eroski, being one of the few squads to finish with all nine men. Their cautious start saw them trailing ONCE-Eroski by 12 seconds two-thirds of the way through, and the Texan's squad finished second, 16 seconds adrift.

Postal's determination to remain united to the bitter end was perhaps understandable. Last year, on a rainsoaked team time-trial course, two of Armstrong's team-mates, Roberto Heras and Christian Vandevelde, skidded and fell. On this occasion, as Armstrong pointed out: "There were no accidents, no punctures. We did a good ride, so I'm surprised we lost."

Perhaps one underlying reason for Postal's defeat was Armstrong's very superiority, as ONCE-Eroski's director, Manolo Saiz, had warned, "can turn into a two-edged weapon. You're only as strong as your weakest rider in this stage." Indeed, one burst of power by the Texan was so effective he put five metres of daylight between himself and the rest of his team.

Saiz's more psychological approach to time-trialling, rather than Armstrong's preference for raw power, also led the Spaniard to take the highly unconventional step of having the team watch a video of the course, rather than the traditional in situ reconnaissance on the morning of the stage. "That way they're not so scared, it's easier to digest than riding the course," he revealed.

Overall, Armstrong is now third, trailing Gonzalez de Galdeano by seven seconds and the Spanish team's co-leader, Joseba Beloki, by three, with two other ONCE-Eroski riders, Jörg Jäksche, and Abraham Olano, fourth and fifth.

But Gonzalez de Galdeano was not impressed, however, by Armstrong being the meat in an ONCE-Eroski "sandwich". "Armstrong – he's up there," the 28-year-old said with a skyward wave of his hands. "He seems unreachable."

The huge morale boost Gonzalez's success represents to Spanish cycling contrasts starkly with the situation in Italy, where the sport's most influential figure, sprinter Mario Cipollini, has announced his immediate retirement.

However, it remains to be seen whether Cipollini's intentions are serious. Three years ago he threatened to quit during the Tour because of a failure to renew a contract, and there is no knowing yet whether he means what he says.