Perhaps overall race favorite and Lance Armstrong's Astana teammate, Alberto Contador, needs to brush up on his French: "Qui va à la chasse, perd sa place." Simply put, "If you snooze, you lose." Cycling pundits' tongues have been set to wagging about how Contador was caught napping with about 30km to go in Monday's third stage from Marseille to La Grande Motte, losing 19 seconds on the overall classification to his American coéquipier, Armstrong.

Team Columbia-HTC had come to the front to turn up the heat on the early breakaway that was now within striking distance up the road. They were thinking of setting up their über sprinter, Mark Cavendish.

It had been hot and windy all day. Suddenly, the road turned into the wind and Columbia hit the gas. Lance Armstrong and about 20 other riders, including Maillot Jaune Fabian Cancellara, read the blitz and covered the break. The rest of the field, which contained all of the other race favorites, was caught in what is called a "bordure" in French. Literally, "bordure" means "edge," as in edge of the road. A "bordure" occurs when riders can't catch a paceline or echelon that has formed to block the wind and are thus forced to ride in the wind on the edge of the road.

Much has been made of the fact that Armstrong just happened to wind up in a break that took time out of Contador. For example, was he already throwing down the gauntlet and attacking his own teammate?

Hardly, in my opinion. The more relevant question is, "Where was Contador?" Why was the Spaniard back in the group with Cadel Evans and the other Yellow Jersey hopefulls in the last 30km of a long, windy stage? Why were they dozing and not paying close attention to any potential danger. Armstrong may indeed have designs on an eighth Tour title, but I don't think he did anything out of the ordinary during Monday's stage.

It is ironic that one of the other controversial topics at the Tour are the moves made by organizers to ban race radios that riders use to communicate with team directors on two stages of this year's race. They weren't banned on Monday's stage, but they might as well have been. Writing on Equipe.fr, former pro Jean-François Bernard astutely observed that the fault doesn't lie with Armstrong but rather the team directors. "Les oreillettes fonctionnent pourtant et pas un directeur sportif n'a demandé à son leader de se replacer! C'est incompréhensible de voir tous ces favoris se faire piéger sauf Armstrong." (The earpieces do work after all and not one team director asked his leader to move (up)! It's incomprehensible to see all the favorites get trapped except Armstrong.)

The eventual effect of Monday's move remains to be seen. It could play into both Armstrong's and Contador's hands equally. If Astana does a great team time trial on Tuesday and Armstrong takes the Maillot Jaune many think that will force Contador to work to protect Armstrong's status as new race leader heading into the mountains later in the week. Not necessarily. It could also free the Spanish climber up to make his own moves. Astana director Johann Bruyneel could send Contador up the road and challenge other teams to make the choice between chasing him or marking Armstrong. Or Bruyneel could send Levi Leipheimer or Andreas Klöden, each capable of making it onto the podium in their own right. Astana has four cards to play.

Armstrong could be playing mind games with his younger colleague, but no matter; if the Texan doesn't have the legs in the mountains, mind games won't make much of a difference. As for Contador, nineteen seconds on g.c. is nothing in the greater scheme of things when you can climb like he can. I'm more concerned by his lack of tactical sense. If he expects to win a race as wide open as this year's Tour, he can't afford any more siestas.