Armstrong wonders if there's more fuel in Tour-winning tank

This was more about mastery than breathtaking speed. It was a title Lance Armstrong had to have, but one he knew the rest of us would take for granted.

So he coasted.

Not coasted, really, since no one covers 2,032 miles in three weeks just standing on his pedals. Yet unlike the first three of his four consecutive wins, Armstrong hit the finish line Sunday at the Tour de France looking very much like a man with something in reserve.

The question is how much, since Armstrong will need at least one more title to secure a place alongside the greatest his sport has ever seen.

"Is there more in the tank?" Armstrong said. "I don't know. I think I'm using just about everything I have."

The middle of a great athlete's career is rarely the most dramatic part, but it's often the most revealing.

There are fewer of the fireworks that exploded at the start of the run and almost none of the desperation that will characterize the end. It's when he learns exactly how much hard, mind-numbing work is necessary for a prodigy to become a professional, and how much of it he is willing to undertake. By that measure, Armstrong looks like he could go on forever.

This win was not his most dominating, though only his first came by a larger margin and none was so ruthlessly efficient. Armstrong took control of the race exactly when everybody expected he would, and was never threatened after that.

His only regret was finishing second in a time trial early on, and he erased that by easily winning the next one. Armstrong claimed four stages in all, usually dictated which opponents won the others, and had a decisive influence on each one.

Bernard Hinault, who won his final Tour -- and the last victory by a Frenchman -- in 1985, doesn't see that changing anytime soon. He already declared Armstrong the favorite for next year.

"He didn't make the slightest tactical error," Hinault said.

Eddy Merckx, the Belgian who won the last of his five titles in 1974, went further.

"I don't see any riders who can stand in Lance's way in the next two years," he said.

Merckx' choice of words is hardly an accident. A fifth title would link Armstrong with four legends -- Hinault, Merckx, Jacques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain -- but only Indurain won his five in a row.

Six in a row would put Armstrong where no cyclist has ever gone before.

"It would be suicide to make any predictions," he said. "Four ... five ... six ... that's not important. There had never been a victory by a cancer survivor before, and, hopefully, that's what I'll be remembered for."

Still just 30, Armstrong is six years removed from the day doctors told him he had a 4 in 10 chance of outlasting the cancer that was spreading throughout his body.

As a family man, he is just beginning to live, the father of 2-year-old Luke and 8-month-old twins Isabelle and Grace, turned out in identical white dresses and bonnets against Sunday's unseasonable 91-degree heat. But as a racer, Armstrong has already begun the descent down a slippery slope.

Merckx, considered the greatest all-around cyclist, was done at 29; Hinault and Anquetil by 30. All showed signs of slipping before they were done in. Indurain, whose last win at the Tour came in 1995, hung on until he was 31. His defeat may have been the most surprising. After dominating in his fifth win, Indurain was surprised by a freak snow in July and broken by Denmark's Bjarne Riis.

Yet Armstrong has not only grown stronger, he's grown more secure in his craft. He's more patient, better prepared and surrounded by a U.S. Postal Service team that is considered among the best in cycling in 50 years. Just as important, he's not under sponsor pressure to compete in the sport's two other big tours.

"That means Lance doesn't have to do a lot of races," said Johan Bruyneel, a Belgian who is team director for U.S. Postal. "He can train a lot. Lance likes to train a lot; he prefers to train rather than race. He's a monster in doing that."

Armstrong has learned to love the work as much as the reward, to recognize that pain is the precursor to glory.

Asked how he planned to celebrate this fourth win, Armstrong cut his questioner short.

"I never let loose," he began.

A moment later, Armstrong leaned back. Learning to relax hasn't been as productive a skill as the other lessons he's mastered in his short reign as champion. But he's finally recognized it as a necessary one.

"You just the finished hardest sport in the world. How much fun can you have at 2 in the morning after you've just finished the Tour de France?

"But," and here Armstrong paused, "we'll try."

Jim Litke is a sports columnist for The Associated Press.