Armstrong wins record 6th Tour

Updated: 11:43 a.m. ET July 25, 2004 PARIS - Champagne flowed among Lance Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service teammates Sunday while they pedaled toward the finish line on the Champs-Elysees en route to his record sixth straight Tour de France title.

Lance Armstrong signals "six" to the photographers shortly after the start of the final stage of the Tour de France on Sunday. Armstrong was expected to win his sixth straight Tour de France.

For once, the riders looked like they were having fun as the stage got under way in Montereau, south of Paris. Armstrong ˇ¦? easy to pick out of the pack in his leader's yellow jersey and gold-colored aerodynamic helmet ˇ¦? laughed and chatted with adversaries while his squad rode around to keep him safe.

At one point, Armstrong and teammates sipped from flutes of champagne as they headed north. Other riders waved at television crews and snapped pictures with cameras as they rode by stretches of golden wheat fields.

Armstrong became the first person to win cycling's most prestigious race six times.

"To be on the verge of breaking history is incredibly special," he said Saturday. "If I make it, in yellow, climbing the top step tomorrow and making history will be the moment that I carry forward forever."

Armstrong pretty much sealed his latest Tour triumph by claiming his fifth stage victory of 2004 in Saturday's individual time trial. That increased his overall lead to 6 minutes, 38 seconds over Andreas Kloden of Germany. Ivan Basso of Italy is third, 6:59 back, followed by 1997 Tour champion and five-time runner-up Jan Ullrich, 9:09 off Armstrong's pace.

"Lance is riding in a different league. I have enormous respect for the way he rides. He deserved to win," Ullrich said.

It's a much more comfortable margin than last year, when Armstrong finished just 61 seconds ahead of Ullrich. Since overcoming cancer to win the Tour for the first time in 1999, Armstrong never had won as many as five stages in a single year.

"When I won the first one, I thought I could die and go away a happy man. To win six is very hard to put into words," he said Saturday. "I'm happy because it's over. I'm tired, in the head, in the legs. Everywhere."

Not only did Armstrong overpower his adversaries from Day 1, but they never rose to the challenge of trying to dethrone him. Aside from Ullrich, Spanish climbers Roberto Heras and Iban Mayo flopped in the mountains and abandoned, and American Tyler Hamilton went home injured.

Armstrong said he hasn't decided whether to return in 2005.

"I can't imagine skipping the Tour, and if I do come, I would only come with the perfect condition. I would never come for a promenade," he said. "For me, it's a special, special event and I can't imagine not being here."