LUZ-ARDIDEN, France -- Lance Armstrong saved the best for last.

	Despite saying he could still lose, Lance Armstrong celebrated after winning the 15th stage.

The 31-year-old Texan's road to a record-tying fifth Tour de France win has been wrought with dangers. Armstrong has endured crashes, taken unexpected short cuts and suffered through dehydration in a French heat wave, but nothing compares to the fireworks high in the soggy French Pyrenees in Monday's 15th stage.

With two rivals breathing down his neck in what was the closest Tour in race history, Armstrong delivered what might be the knockout blow -- but not before he was knocked down for good measure one more time.

"This has been a Tour of too many problems," said Armstrong, who won the stage and widened his overall lead from 15 seconds to 1 minute, 7 seconds ahead of his closest rival, Jan Ullrich. "Too many close-calls, too many near-misses. It seems like a lifetime's worth. I wish I could have some uneventful days."

Armstrong was just punching the accelerator about six miles from the finish line at the Luz-Ardiden ski resort when he edged too close to the crazed fans lining the course. His right handlebar hooked on a bag a fan was waving in front of the passing riders.

Armstrong's front wheel shot abruptly to the right and he was catapulted to the pavement, landing hard on the upper right side of his back. Incredibly, Armstrong was relatively unscathed. He then climbed back on his bike and continued his attack.

Waiting for the yellow jersey
In a sporting gesture, Ullrich and the other leading riders waited for Armstrong to regroup before continuing up the narrow, twisting road.

"I'm really grateful for Jan for remembering my gesture of two years ago. What goes around, comes around," said Armstrong, who waited for Ullrich when he crashed coming down a steep descent in the 2001 Tour. "The tables were turned two years ago when I did what I did. I appreciated he did what he did."

Armstrong nearly crashed again when his right pedal slipped out. Instead, he chugged away to his first stage victory of this year's Tour.

"I knew this was the most important stage for me and I had to attack to make up some time differences on Jan," Armstrong said after winning his 16th career Tour victory. "When I crashed, I had a huge rush of adrenaline. I said, 'Today is the day.' "

Tough road to five
Everything's been thrown against Armstrong in his quest to win the Tour a record-tying fifth time. In the first stage, he crashed for the first time in a Tour since his dramatic cancer comeback in 1999.

He was sluggish through the Alps despite grabbing the yellow jersey. He then lost to Ullrich in the first individual time trial Friday, failing to deliver the one-two punch that's been so effective en route to his four previous Tour wins.

Armstrong held the yellow jersey by the skin of his teeth, surviving attacks by Ullrich on Saturday and then third-place Alexandre Vinokourov on Sunday to enter Monday's 99-mile stage with a 15-second lead over Ullrich and 18 seconds over Vinokourov.

Armstrong stepped up Monday when the race was on the line.

He held off attacks by Ullrich on the Col du Tourmalet midway through the stage, which included a fearsome climb -- the first one in Tour history higher than 2,000 meters.

Two years ago, Armstrong wrapped up his third Tour victory up the knee-busting climb to Luz Ardiden. On Monday, Armstrong might have sewn his fifth.

It all comes down to this
The Tour catches its breath Tuesday with the final rest day before entering the final week.

Wednesday's final mountain stage is little more than a speed bump toward Paris, since the day's climbs come too early to play a major factor for the overall favorites. With a string of flat stages after that, all eyes are looking to Saturday's 30-mile time trial to decide the Tour.

"I pushed Jan hard today to stay as close as he could to not lose too much time," said Rudy Pevenage, director of Ullrich's Team Bianchi. "This is a different Lance Armstrong than we've seen in the past. With just 1:07, everything is possible. The match is set for Saturday."

Armstrong insists it's too early to say the Tour is in the bag.

"Like I always say, the Tour is never over until the final lap on the Champs Élysées," Armstrong said. "There's still another week. Jan is a great roller. Anything can happen."

However, Armstrong was ecstatic after his big win Monday. He gave his U.S. Postal Service sport director Johan Bruyneel a bear hug at the finish line. Without a doubt, this has been Armstrong's hardest.

"I'm a believer of momentum and curves," he said. "I just wish the problems will stop. I've had a lot of strange things happen on this Tour, some things that I haven't even talked about. It's been a very odd, crisis-filled Tour."

Andrew Hood is an American freelance journalist based in Spain and has covered every Tour since 1996.