Erik Zabel revived his bid for a sixth successive green jersey with a sprint victory in the 19th stage of the Tour de France on Saturday, as Lance Armstrong stayed out of harm's way in the penultimate stage of the race.
Armstrong, who needs just to avoid an accident to win the Tour for the third straight year, retained his lead of six minutes 44 seconds over Jan Ullrich with no alarms by finishing in the main pack. Ahead of him, though, a dramatic race for the title of best sprinter was going on.
Australian Stuart O'Grady just managed to retain the green jersey by grabbing second place, according to provisional results, but Zabel's third stage victory of the current Tour leaves the race wide open going into the final day.
Zabel, who trailed O'Grady by 11 points going into Saturday's stage, cut the deficit to seven points with victory in one of the intermediate sprints on the 149.5-kilometre journey from Orleans to Evry on the outskirts of Paris.
His victory in the bunch finish at the end cut the gap to just two points and everything will be decided on the Champs-Elysees on Sunday.
Filed by Sinéad Kissane
