Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck in the driver's seat; Armstrong too far back.

The Tour de France is shaping up as a three-way fight between race leader Cadel Evans of Australia, defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg.

Evans leads Schleck by just 20 seconds after Schleck won the hardest stage so far -- a grueling Alpine trek on Sunday where Lance Armstrong cracked.

"Getting the yellow jersey at the Tour is always something special," the 33-year-old Evans said on Monday's rest day in Morzine. "To swap the (world champion's) rainbow jersey for the yellow jersey is a rare feat that I've had the honor to experience."

With two-time Tour winner Contador short of his best form, Evans may never have a better chance to win the Tour, and he is in no mood to take chances after slightly hurting his left forearm in a minor crash on Sunday.

"The legs are still going, which is the important thing. That is what the main concern is right now," Evans said. "It's a little bit uncomfortable right now. Hopefully with a good night's sleep I should be all right. I'll try to take it as easy as possible, and get as much physiotherapy as possible on my arm."

Contador trails by 61 seconds ahead of Tuesday's ninth stage.

The punishing Alpine route features two category 1 climbs, and a tougher one that is beyond classification: a mammoth 25.5-kilometer (15.9-mile) ride up the Col de la Madeleine, one of the Tour's most redoubtable mountain passes.

"It will be a really hard and complicated stage, and we should see the main contenders in the Madeleine," Contador said Monday, adding that he welcomes more attacks from Schleck and others to increase the overall speed of the race.

"Yes, it's possible, but that would be good for me," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "Maybe other riders will feel more confident and that will be good because then we have a stronger rhythm."

That will hardly thrill Armstrong after what happened to him during the eighth stage.

The 38-year-old Texan finished in 61st place after laboring in stifling heat, hauling his battered body up from crashes and up grueling mountain passes that used to seem so easy during his heyday.

Armstrong is more than 13 minutes behind Evans -- an impossible gap to close in two weeks.

"He can't come back from it ... especially against some of the best climbers in the world," Armstrong's former U.S. Postal teammate Frankie Andreu said.

It was a collective victory for all three Tour contenders to see the 38-year-old Armstrong plummet down the standings to 39th place.

"This time it was Contador, Evans and Schleck who decided to eliminate the threat," Andreu said. "Armstrong's always a threat, so they had to ride on the front to make sure he's gone for good."

With British rider Bradley Wiggins also out of sorts - Wiggins was fourth in last year's Tour but is now 2:45 back in 14th - the path to the Paris podium on July 25 is clearing for the main contenders.

"That's like a mission accomplished. So it's one or two less guys to worry about," Andreu said. "Wiggins got dropped, so it starts reducing the number of contenders."

Schleck looks the more comfortable of the three main contenders, with Armstrong's RadioShack manager Johan Bruyneel observing that Contador does not look as strong as last year.

Contador could not match Schleck's hilltop acceleration on the final part of Sunday's climb.

Schleck says he saw Contador in "difficulty" for the first time and got a big morale boost by winning Stage 8.

"Before, I have not seen him in difficulty yet, and I think yesterday he was," Schleck said Monday. "I was surprised he couldn't follow, to be honest, because the day before I had a really strong impression of him."

Contador, who had to regularly answer questions during last year's Tour as to whether he could race on the same team as Armstrong and fulfill his own ambitions, dealt with Schleck's opinion by playing down its impact.

"For me, he is still one the biggest favorites of this Tour de France," Contador said. "You might think (what he said) affects my feelings, but it doesn't change anything."

Schleck, however, is at another major disadvantage to both Evans and Contador, who are both much faster than him on time trials. Schleck, whose brother Frank was injured early on in the race and had to pull out because of a broken left collarbone, also has one less teammate to help him in the mountains.

The 25-year-old Schleck knows he will have to be in the lead on July 24 for the final 52-kilometer (32.2-mile) time trial if he is to stand a chance of winning the Tour.

"The only thing I know is that I will need to be in yellow for the time trial," he said. "I can't say for now if I will need one minute or two minutes."

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