The trouble with a short prologue is that there is no room for error. After the 2003 Tour de France prologue, the top 20 riders are within 13 seconds of the leader, Bradley McGee, and 96 are within 30 seconds.

For Lance Armstrong, his tendency to start time trials slowly proved to be his undoing, as he conceded more time in the first half of the prologue than he could retake in the second half.

Lance is sitting in seventh place, five seconds behind principal rival Jan Ullrich and one second behind CSC team leader Tyler Hamilton. It is his lowest placing in a Tour de France prologue since his return to the race in 1999. While it is understandable that Lance is disappointed with seventh place, the good news is that all of the Tour’s main contenders finished within eight seconds of each other.

The prologue of a three-week stage race carries a great deal of psychological weight, even if its impact on the overall standings at the end of the race is generally small. Ullrich’s fourth-place ride confirms that he is in great shape and must be considered the No. 1 threat to Lance for the yellow jersey. Hamilton, Joseba Beloki, Santiago Botero, Levi Leipheimer and Gilberto Simoni also had strong performances, which indicate everyone was correct to name them as contenders for overall victory. Lance’s performance today was uncharacteristic of his past four Tour de France prologues, but is not a cause for concern.

The course for the first stage of the race is more worrisome than Lance’s seventh place today. Every stage of the Tour de France includes narrow roads through small towns, roundabouts, and speed bumps, but Stage 1 of the 2003 edition features more dangers than usual. While it will most likely end up in a bunch sprint, the tight nature of the course increases the likelihood of crashes and field splits.

The first few road stages of the Tour are chaotic. Everyone has fresh legs and wants to ride at the front. Riders tend to be a bit nervous, and only calm down midway through the first week. In such an environment, Lance and the U.S. Postal Service team need to be extremely attentive and stay out of trouble. Lance will keep Vjatceslav Ekimov, George Hincapie, and Pavel Padrnos nearby throughout the stage, as he has confidence in their bike-handling skills in a tight pack.

Overall, the 2003 Tour de France has started well for U.S. Postal. Lance is close to his main rivals, the team has four riders in the top 15, and they are leading the team classification. The team competition becomes important for the Stage 4 team time trial on Wednesday, since the team with the lowest combined time starts the stage last. The U.S. Postal Service wants to start near the end so they have information on how other teams fared before them.

Most importantly, the opening day of the 2003 Tour de France has shown that the level of competition is very high this year, and that this is going to be an exciting and hard-fought race from start to finish.