Paris  - The organizers of the Tour de France may very well be regretting their decision to have scheduled a demanding team time trial on the fourth day of this year's race.

Perhaps they simply underestimated the superiority of the Astana team of seven-time Tour champ Lance Armstrong and 2007 winner Alberto Contador, or they overestimated the qualities of their rivals.

Whatever the reason, with two weeks left to ride in the race much of the suspense over its outcome is gone, as most of the pre-race co-favourites find themselves too far behind Contador and Armstrong to have a realistic chance of winning.

"The Tour is over for some riders. It will be hard for them to make up the time," Armstrong said after the time trial. "I told Alberto, 'Let's make this race impossible for others to win.' We did that."

Last year's Tour winner Carlos Sastre of Spain trails Contador by 2 min 46 sec; Australian Cadel Evans, the 2008 runner-up, is 3 min 1 sec behind Contador; and Russia's Denis Menchov is nearly 5 min adrift of the odds-on favourite.

Armstrong trails his teammate by only two seconds.

It seems unlikely that both of them will weaken in the Alps, where the Tour will be decided, so that - barring accident or illness - the race for the Tour championship will almost certainly be decided between the two.

Most of the ink about the Tour de France has been spent on writing about this race within the race, the "mano a mano" between the 37-year-old Armstrong and his 11-year-old younger teammate.

Much has been made of Contador being given the team leader's '1' number by Astana manager Johan Bruyneel. But it was Armstrong who came within a split second of taking the race leader's yellow jersey after the time trial.

This prompted Contador to make an unplanned breakaway on the climb to the finish line in Andorra Arcalis in Friday's seventh stage, leap-frogging the American into second place by 2 seconds.

"I expected him to assert himself in the race, and he did that," Armstrong said. And then he suggested that Contador had put personal ambition ahead of team strategy: "Things didn't go according to the plan we had set out earlier, but it didn't matter."

The media's persistent curiosity over the rivalry between the two Astana riders is irking Contador, who has repeatedly said he was growing "irritated and tired" of the story.

But he also could be irritated by the star treatment Armstrong is receiving, not only by journalists but also by the spectators.

"It's as if we didn't exist, we 'little riders'," said Frenchman Anthony Geslin.

The near-unanimous applause by French spectators for Armstrong is new. In past years, the French and their media largely turned a cold shoulder to his accomplishments.

Perhaps they have taken a sudden liking to Armstrong because they sense his vulnerability after a retirement from the sport of more than three years.

Armstrong told the daily L'Equipe that a French cyclist told him that the French people prefer riders who come in second to those who win.

If so, then the septuple Tour winner grew in popularity by falling short of taking the yellow jersey by only two-tenths of a second in the time trial, an "accomplishment" worthy of the Tour's much-loved eternal second, Raymond Poulidor.

Between 1962 and 1976, Poulidor came in second three times and third five times in the Tour de France. He never won the race.

But there is another reason for Armstrong's newfound popularity - he has changed.

"He's much more relaxed this year. He's a much nicer guy," French rider Thomas Voeckler said of him.

With cameras often picking the American out of the pack of riders during a stage, he has often been seen in friendly conversation with the other riders, a sight that was rare when he was winning his seven consecutive titles.

"I'm not doing this for money, or to win another Tour, or to become famous. I already have all that," Armstrong said before the Tour began. "I just want to ride. I can't say that loud enough."

Most observers see Contador as the stronger of the two, not only because of the age difference. The ease with which he left Armstrong behind in his attack on Friday underscored his apparent superiority.

But the man formerly known as The Boss now seems to be the only rider left in the Tour to create some suspense about its outcome.

As L'Equipe put it: "Armstrong or Contador? Contador or Armstrong? This is a much more interesting question than the one that threatened the 2009 Tour: Contador or Contador?" (dpa)