PAU, France -- The finish line is 600 miles away, but Lance Armstrong appears to have a lock on breaking his record of six consecutive Tour de France victories next Sunday when he rides down the cobblestones of the Champs Elysees in Paris.

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The Texan, leading the Discovery Channel team, has a 2 minute 46 second lead over his nearest rival, Italy's Ivan Basso, of Team CSC. Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, riding for the Rabobank team, trails in third by 3 minutes 9 seconds.

"Come Monday, he's done," said Paul Sherwen, who has anchored the race coverage for Outdoor Life Network along with Phil Liggett, Bob Roll and Al Trautwig. "But this hasn't been a victory lap."

Sherwen and Liggett watched Armstrong all season leading up to the tour, which started July 2 and has already covered more than 1,500 miles. They both said in an interview Monday they believe the Texan is in the best shape of his life -- and wonder if he might not have won an eighth victory next year, had he not announced in the spring his intention to retire the day after this year's tour ends.

Less Drama

Although he hasn't won a stage this year and dominated the race the way he did last year, when he won five individual stages as well as the overall title, Armstrong has raced with brilliant tactics, Sherwen said. "He's also proved equal, or superior to anything anyone can throw at him," even when he appears outmaneuvered, said Sherwen, a former competitive cyclist with seven Tour de France campaigns under his belt.

Never was this more true than in stage 14 on Saturday, a blistering 136.7-mile climb from Agde to Ax-3 Domaines in the French Pyrenees. Sherwen said Discovery's battle plan for the day was to move to the front of the 209-strong pack, pummel all comers by setting a crushing pace, and then catapult Armstrong to the front in the final kilometers. Discovery wanted to put serious time between Armstrong and upstart challenger Michael Rasmussen, who was just 38 seconds off Armstrong's overall lead.

That was the plan, but T-Mobile and CSC alternately took the lead instead. They paced the peloton so hard they blew up their own teams, along with Discovery, soon allowing a small breakaway pack of Armstrong, Basso, and Austrian Georg Totschnig (Gerolsteiner) to duke it our for the win. When the dust had settled, Totschnig crossed the line with Armstrong close behind. Basso took third. But Armstrong used the pace of the breakaway to accomplish what his own team could not, and increased his lead over Rasmussen to 1 minute 41 seconds.

That kind of control is "demoralizing" to other teams and riders, Liggett said.

Where's Ullrich?

Liggett said Basso was a recognized threat to Armstrong going in to the 2005 tour. So was Jan Ullrich. The German, riding for T-Mobile, won the Tour in 1997, and placed second to Armstrong three times. Ligget believes that had Armstrong not come along when he did in 1999, Ullrich might have accumulated five Tour de France victories by this stage in his career.

But Ullrich has trailed the Texan from the start in 2005 and is now a seemingly insurmountable 5 minutes 59 seconds behind. On Saturday's classic Pyrenees duel, Ullrich kept close to the breakaway pack, and even led for a few brief minutes, but dropped back and never appeared to have the fire in the belly -- or legs -- to pull out the win. The question is, why?

Liggett pointed out that while Armstrong has stayed free of accidents, Ullrich has crashed twice: On the day before the opening stage he slammed through the rear window of a car while on a training ride; and he somersaulted off his bike during a high-speed descent in the ninth stage. The impact of those crashes has been somewhat obscured by media coverage, but Liggett suspects they both took a serious toll on Ullrich's performance.

Liggett also said Ullrich is more more natural bike racer, unlike Armstrong, who trains and competes with an intensity unmatched by his rivals. As a result, Ullrich has a tendency to put on weight in the off-season. "He blows up like a tire," Liggett said, and that extra weight hinders both his pre-season training and his competitive edge during races.

Sherwen said he believes that Ullrich trails also because he is not a "complete" rider in the way that Armstrong is. He's a strong climber and time trial rider, but struggles elsewhere, which hinders his strengths. And from Sherwen's perspective of watching each race unfold, Ullrich may not have "the fire in the belly" needed to beat Armstrong.

The Final Week

Barring unforeseen circumstances, Sherwen and Liggett said they expect to see Ullrich on the podium in Paris, but standing below Armstrong. And they expect him to keep racing next year.

Indeed, with Armstrong gone from picture, there are a number of riders, including Ullrich, who think they may finally have a realistic chance of winning the tour. This year, "I don't think there's anyone who honestly believes they can beat him," Ligget said. "He's so dominating, so frightening."

The 2006 race is a long way away, but Liggett said that among the Europeans, Ullrich, Basso and Rasmussen may emerge as champions. Discovery rider Yaroslav Popovych looks promising, as does his teammate in development, American Tom Danielson. American riders Levi Leipheimer, Floyd Landis, and Armstrong's Discovery teammate George Hincapie should also be counted as threats. And another American, David Zabriskie, who held the yellow jersey for the first three stages, should also be expected to return.

With one mountain stage in the Pyrenees, two other modest climbs, a flat stage and a time trial left, the tour is winding down. But those "modest climbs" take place in a hilly limestone region known as the Massif Central, and if the heatwave now being endured by the peloton carries into the week Sherwen and Liggett said it's quite possible to see the overall standings -- beneath Armstrong -- change again.

General Classification:

1 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel 62.09.59
2 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC + 2.46
3 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank + 3.09
4 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team + 5.58
5 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne + 6.31
6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner + 7.35
7 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems + 9.33
8 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team + 9.38
9 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Credit Agricole + 11.47
10 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile Team