#7 will be LA's closest victory

wrong, smallest margin was 2003, 1:01...

Lance Armstrong begins his quest Saturday for his seventh straight Tour
de France win. A look at his winning margins in his six victories:
1999: 7 minutes, 37 seconds
2000: 6:02
2001: 6:44
2002: 7:17
2003: 1:01
2004: 6:19

gym.gravity said:

Quoted message said:

As strong as LA is this year, I don't see him being able with the
remaining mountain stages to be able to flick Rasmussen, Basso, and
Valverde, in the style of years past. I expect Rasmussen to stay right
with LA, and possibly take up to a minute out of him, prior to the
final 55 km ITT. Of course, LA will slay all in the TT, and Rasmussen
will need 4+ minutes at that point if he wants to win, something that I
see as unlikely. If that's the case, then I see LA winning by 2:00 to
3:00 by Paris. Should be interesting.

[censored]. In 2003 he only won by 61 seconds. 2:00 roughly translates
into 120 seconds.

By RBR ISO 9001 standards for virtual TdFs, 2003 was a virtual defeat
for Armstrong, so it doesn't count.

Quoted message said:

Just noticed that LA's total margin of victory over 6 Tours and
approximately 13,000 miles of riding is only 35 minutes. Considering
that you see non-climbers lose that much time on a single stage, it's
an indicator of how tiny the margin is between "winner" and "loser" at
this level.

Couple of points:

The riders have limited resources of energy. At this stage of the game,
it doesn't matter how much you win by, as long as you win.

Also, after his second win people were already [censored] about how
boring the race was, that it was a foregone conclusion. How much worse
would it be if the winning margins had been greater?