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Lance Armstrong proved to his doubters that he's still a Tour de France contender for victory after four years in retirement.

The seven-time champion was written off by most of the cycling experts before the race started in Monaco.

However Armstrong went within the smallest of margins of taking the yellow leader's jersey from Fabian Cancellara after the impressive collective triumph of his Astana team in Tuesday's team time trial.

A day after surging in a key breakaway to gain valuable time over his rival and teammate Alberto Contador, Armstrong moved up from third place to second overall.

Lance Armstrong only trails race leader Cancellara of Switzerland by a few hundredths of second following the fourth stage after smashing a 40 second margin.

"That's the way it is. We did our best. At one point, we thought we had the yellow jersey, but if I look back on our performance, we were as sound as we could be," Armstrong said.

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