Lance Armstrong makes impressive Tour de France return

 SEVEN-time winner Lance Armstrong made a solid if unspectacular return to the Tour de France in Monaco on Saturday.

HE'S BACK: Lance Armstrong impresses on return to Tour de France but will not win stage one

In the 37-year-old's first Tour de France in four years, he clocked a time of 20:12.36 minutes, having gone out as one of the early starters, 18th out of the 180-man field.

Armstrong's time gave him the provisional lead with a 30-second advantage over Belgium's Maxime Monfort, but at that time, there were plenty of strong riders still to race.

And it soon became apparent Armstrong's time was not going to be good enough to give him the stage victory as Germany's Tony Martin came home seven seconds faster.

Armstrong's Astana team-mate Alberto Contador, as well as Switzerland's Olympic gold medallist Fabian Cancellara are among the favourites for the stage, while Contador goes into le Tour 2009 as favourite.

Defending overall classification champion Carlos Sastre will be the last to start the prologue.