Mountain to sort Armstrong v Contador row

By Julien Pretot

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Lance Armstrong will discover on Friday if he can start to dream of an eighth Tour de France win as the race enters the mountains, leaving team mate and favourite Alberto Contador facing a tactical dilemma.

The 37-year-old American, back on the saddle after 3-1/2 years in retirement, is a fraction of a second behind overall leader Fabian Cancellara and heads Astana colleague Contador by 19 seconds.

"I think it's very possible that he (Contador) sets a tempo nobody can follow, and in that case there is not much I can do," Armstrong told reporters.

"I have to stay with the other favourites, and fulfil my responsibility as a team mate. I can't chase him down. If he goes alone, then I will just stay with the other favourites."

Spaniard Contador, Tour winner in 2007, will be in his element in the mountains and the scenario of the race will largely depend on his tactics in the final 10.6-km climb to Arcalis at an average gradient of 7.1 percent.

Should Contador attack Armstrong, he is likely to claim the yellow jersey from Cancellara and establish himself as a real leader within Astana but it would put the pressure on him and his team mates for two weeks.

"I think Lance does not have the physical means to beat Contador in the mountains," Charly Mottet, who was fourth in the Tour in 1987 and 1991, told Reuters on Thursday.

"If I am Contador, I don't take the (yellow) jersey, it would be like committing hara-kiri.