If you didn't see any of yesterday's stage of the Tour de France, you missed one of the more captivating athletic moments (using the MLB definition of moment) in recent memory. To sum it up, Tour leader Lance Armstrong fell (caught a spectator's bag on his handlebars), got run over by the cyclist behind him, restarted, had trouble keeping his right foot in the pedal, and then got pissed off enough to attack and win the stage, adding almost a minute to his lead over Jan Ullrich, his closest rival.

Now while he doesn't have this thing sewn up (another mountain stage tomorrow and an individual time trial on Saturday are the two key stages left), it's looking better for him now than a couple of days ago. The big question will be what he has left in his tank to fend of the inevitable attacks tomorrow.

And showing that there is still room in sports for sportsmanship, Ullrich and the other top riders waited for Armstrong to get back in the saddle rather than taking off. There's an unwritten rule that you don't take advantage of a rider who's been the victim of bad luck (it probably also helps that Armstrong did the same thing for Ullrich in 2001 when Jan went off the road and down a hill). Unlike baseball's unwritten rules, this actually makes sense and don't make those involved look like 12-year-olds.

Oh, another reason I like the Tour: it has its own devil. If you want a picture, look here.