remove the polite word to reply wrote:

i agree, but i see the situation as sixth is already won.
It's a little embarrassing with postal just destroying everyone in
every disdcipline.

That's absurd.
The situation was about the same last year after the TTT, BTW.

One of Lance's strengths has always been recovery - remarkable
consistency from stage to stage, and even his bad days weren't
that bad. Not so true in 2003. As riders age, recovery is one
of the first things to go (at least, so Museeuw said). He
might win, but it's also likely that when the end comes, it will
come without much warning.

I'm curious about budgets.

Is postal's budget like way bigger than everyone else's, meaning the
supporting riders are way better; meaning eki and
GH destroy all monsters who might oppose LA while everyone
else just can't compete on salary?

No, it isn't. It's one of the higher budgets, but there is
only about a factor of 2 between the smallest div 1 teams
and the biggest. Many of the others pay more than one star -
like Ullrich and Zabel. USPS concentrates on one race,
presumably in budget as in training.

An analysis of 2002 budgets:
http://www.cycling4all.com/a_efft02.php

Some 2004 budgets from http://www.velonews.com/tour2004/team/

BLB: 7.2M US$
CSC: 5.4 (really?? Barney Riis ought to write a Frugal Shopper column)
EE: 7.2
FDJ: 6.6
IBB: 6.6
LS: 7.2
PHO: 9.6
QSD: 9.6
RAB: 10.8
TMO: 14.4
USP: 9.0

Robert Chung gets a prize if he can deduce the Euro/USD ratio
that Velonews used, from these data alone.