It didn't take long. Four days into the the Tour de France and Lance Armstrong has the lead and the yellow jersey that goes with it. What an great day. The 4th stage was the notorious team time trial, where Lance's Discovery Team (same old team, new sponsor) dominates. Behind the engine that is Armstrong, Discovery won in the fastest time trial in history of the event.

What was really amazing about the race is that while Discovery put some serious time between Lance and his nearest rivals, they finished a mere 2 seconds ahead of the Danish squad CSC Tiscali. That's the team of previous race leader, American Dave Zabriskie. The two would have shared first place had Zabriskie not wiped out with 1.5 kilometers to go. Right as CSC headed down the home stretch probably headed for a win, je took a nasty spill, tore up his yellow jersey and left himself with some hearty road rash, but managed to finished. He's licking his wounds back in ninth place. Had Zabriskie fallen within one kilometer of the finish he would have been awarded the same time as his teammates and dropped into a virtual tie with Armstrong.

It's really early in the race to start defending the yellow jersery, so there's a good chance Armstrong will let it go, and take it back in the mountains. Then again, he has such a sizeable lead over Ullrich, Basso, Kloeden et al that he may never relinquish the lead.

It's hard to say what will happen. The mountains lie ahead and we'll know more about Armstrong's chances after seeing how he does in the Alps. But for now, he and Discovery are looking golden.