Dutch rider Pieter Weening of the Rabobank team won the eighth stage in a sprint against Andreas Kloeden, last year's Tour runner-up.

Armstrong, bidding for a seventh straight title before retirement after the three-week race, finished in 20th place. He and key rivals Jan Ullrich and Alexandre Vinokourov arrived in a pack with the same time, 27 seconds behind the two leaders.

"A tough day for team Discovery," Armstrong said. "But I know those guys. They're going to be just as disappointed if not more disappointed than I am, so I'll think they'll get better."

Armstrong remained one minute two seconds ahead of Vinokourov, who is third overall. Armstrong is 1:36 ahead of Ullrich. Germany's Jens Voigt of Team CSC moved up to second place overall, 1:00 behind the Texan.

Ullrich placed sixth in the stage and Vinokourov was 10th.

"It's a morale boost, a good sign," Vinokourov said, referring to Armstrong's difficulties. "We wanted to try to attack him before the high mountains."

Armstrong had to hold off Kloeden and his T-Mobile squad on the day's final climb. His Discovery Channel teammates were unable to help him respond to the challenge on the Col de la Schlucht ascent, leaving him alone to contend.

"Definitely, a crisis within our team on the final climb," said Armstrong, suggesting fatigue caused by the first fast week was a factor.

"There was really nothing we could do about that, sometimes we have a bad day. I think that maybe the team has been working more than we need to this week."

Three T-Mobile riders - Ullrich, Vinokourov and Kloeden - c