Alencon, France ? Lance Armstrong was happy to let others do the sprinting in Friday’s stage of the Tour de France.

“You won’t see Lance attacking in these flat stages and wasting his energy,” said Jogi Muller, spokesman for Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team. “With his capabilities, you don’t want to take the risk of having a crash in a sprint.”

The Texan finished the stage in 72nd place, in the same time as winner Erik Zabel of Germany.

Armstrong, 30, is expected to concentrate on his biggest strengths – individual time trials and mountain stages – in his bid for a fourth straight Tour title.

The next time trial is Monday’s ninth stage, while the first of six mountain stages in the 21-day Tour takes place on Thursday.

Zabel, of the Telekom team, clocked 4 hours, 23 minutes and 7 seconds for the 199.5-kilometer (123.69-mile) trek through the cow pastures and red-brick villages of Normandy from Forges-les-Eaux to Alencon.

Spaniard Oscar Freire, of the Mapei team, was second and Australia’s Robbie McEwen placed third, both with the same time.

Igor Gonzalez Galdeano of Spain’s Once team retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey. Armstrong remained third overall, 7 seconds behind Gonzalez Galdeano.

So far, the 89th edition of the Tour is going according to plan for U.S. Postal. Johan Bruyneel, team leader of U.S. Postal, is “happy that Once has to carry the race” by holding the yellow jersey through the early, flat stages, Muller said.

The win was Zabel’s 12th stage victory in the Tour and followed two second-place finishes – each lost in a sprint – in this year’s competition. He won three stages in last year’s Tour.

“This is really a nice victory for me,” said Zabel, 32, who rode across the finish line in the green jersey worn by the Tour’s best overall sprinter. “The competition for this sprint, and the green jersey, is really tough.”

Zabel is one of the world’s best sprinters and is looking to take home the green jersey for a record seventh straight year.

His Telekom team was dealt a heavy blow when 1997 Tour champion Jan Ullrich, the runner-up to Armstrong for the last two years, pulled out of this year’s Tour.

Riders pushed the pace from the start Friday, and a group of five breakaway riders held the lead for about 60 kilometers (37.2 miles). The main pack caught up less than a half-hour before the finish.

The riders averaged a speed of 45.49 kilometers (28.20 miles) per hour in the stage.

“Lance said this was a fast race. The mood was initially a little nervous, with a lot of wind,” Muller said.

Alessio rider Alexandr Shefer of Kazakhstan was rushed to hospital after the day’s only crash, which took place some 25 kilometers (15 kilometers) before the end.

A day earlier, a crash left two riders hospitalized and forced them to quit the race. Lampre rider Marco Pinotti returned home to Italy with two chipped teeth, a broken nose and a cut to his upper lip that required 11 stitches. Belgium’s Rik Verbrugghe, involved in the same Thursday crash, suffered a broken right collarbone.

Conditions were cool and overcast for much of Friday’s stage, though the riders had brief rain near the final stretch. Thousands of fans, including cattle and sheep farmers, lined the route to watch riders speed by on the flat course.

Saturday’s seventh stage is a 176-kilometer (109.1 mile) stretch through the Normandy battlefields of World War II from Bagnoles-de-L’Orne to Avranches, which is close to Mont-Saint-Michel.