BORDEAUX, France, July 24 (UPI) -- Lance Armstrong finished with the peleton Thursday and retained the overall lead after Stage 17 of the Tour de France.
Armstrong, whose only stage win came Monday when he recovered from a crash and another near fall, remained 67 seconds ahead of his chief rival, Jan Ullrich of Germany, for the overall lead. His lead had been sliced to 15 seconds before he won Stage 15.
Armstrong, 31, has worn the yellow jersey as the overall leader since Stage 8.
Servais Knaven of the Netherlands covered the 112 miles from Dax to the wine region of Bordeux in 3:54:23 for his first career stage victory. He was 17 seconds ahead of eight other riders, all of whom broke away from the pack within the first five minutes of the stage.
Baden Cooke and Robbie McEwan, all from Australia, and Erik Zabel of Germany, finished with Armstrong, 8:06 off the pace.
The overall standings are not expected to change much in Friday's 203-mile trek to Saint-Maixent-l'Ecole.
