Just after he retired, Lance Armstrong tipped Yaroslav Popovych as one of his possible successors as leader of his Discovery Channel team.

The 26-year-old Ukrainian lived up to his former boss's trust by claiming his first Tour de France stage win and climbed to 10th in the overall standings.

Asked if he had taken advice from Armstrong since the beginning of the Tour, Popovych answered: "We haven't had any news from Lance over the last few days.

"It's better like that because I, and our whole team, had a really bad day in the Pyrenees," he added referring to the poor performance of Discovery Channel in the Pyrenees on Thursday.

Popovych ended the 11th stage in 23rd place overall, nine minutes behind yellow jersey holder, Floyd Landis, a former lieutenant turned rival of Armstrong.

"We had a team meeting in the morning and we decided that a new tour was beginning for us, that it was better to forget the overall standings and we should be looking for stage wins," the Ukrainian said.

Thanks to Friday's win in the 12th stage from Luchon to Carcassonne, Popovych is now 4:15 adrift of Landis.

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