Astana rocketed to victory but missed out on yellow by less than a second (pic fotoreporter sirotti)

It was a thrilling final few moments in the Tour de France team time trial as Astana rocked to a stage victory, but there was to be no yellow jersey for Lance Armstrong as he missed out by the smallest of margins, just hundredths of a second down on Fabian Cancellara’s time!

And Armstrong clearly wanted the jersey, realising that it was a distinct possibility. The team worked hard and well together and won stage 4 in convincing style, and made up the 40 seconds Armstrong needed on Cancellara to gain the yellow jersey. For a brief moment it looked as if he had, but it was soon revealed that he missed out by less than a second. Unbelievable stuff and another gripping chapter in this fascinating race. Saxo-Bank finished the stage in third, and Cancellara hangs onto the jersey for another day.

However, despite missing out on the yellow jersey, the Astana team underlined their strength with a highly organised and motivated ride – about as clear a signal to all the other teams for Astana’s Tour intentions as you’re going to get.

Garmin-Slipstream wanted this stage too, and shelled three riders on route to an impressive second place. But 18 seconds adrift of Astana, they’ll be analysing just where they lost all that time. Liquigas put in a good ride and finished fourth with Columbia-HTC fifth.