ADELAIDE, Australia — Lance Armstrong says his comeback remains on track despite fading from contention in the Tour Down Under after a tough fifth stage on Saturday.

Australian Allan Davis won the 148-kilometer (92-mile) stage, posting his third stage win of the tour, to increase his overall lead to 25 seconds entering Sunday's final, 90-kilometer (55-mile) stage around Adelaide city streets.

Armstrong finished 23rd Saturday, on the same time as the winner, and lies 29th overall, 49 seconds behind Davis, as he nears the end of his first multistage race in 3 1/2 years.

He said he felt "pretty good ... better than yesterday" at the end of the ride from Snapper Point to Willunga and took a key role in leading an attempt to ride down a two-man break on the second grueling climb up Willunga Hill.

"I didn't have the needed punch to make a difference, but we were there and, I guess, going in that's what I kind of hoped for, so no complaints," Armstrong said.

Armstrong next rides in the Tour of California which, he said, would be harder than the Australian race — "longer climbs, steeper climbs.

"After (this) race if you recover properly, get over you trip back home, you might get 10 percent out of it so then I'll be that much stronger."

Armstrong said his performance in the Tour Down Under had fallen somewhere between meeting and exceeding his expectations.

"I was curious," he said. "I could have come in with expectations that could be completely unrealistic, not having the experience the last 3 1/2 years.

"I expected — just based on training, based on the power I saw in training, based on how I felt after five hours of training — to be in the first queue on the climbs which, I guess, I can say I was able to do.

"(My comeback) is in the right line. There's still a long ways to go until you guys are really asking too hard questions but I'm pretty happy."

Armstrong, who survived testicular cancer, said there had been tough days on the tour but he had always expected a comeback at age 37 to be challenging.

"Yesterday (Friday) was tough," he said. "I didn't have a good day yesterday. My legs were screaming at me all day long. Today was a lot easier but that's the way it's going to be, especially getting back into it. You're going to have good days and bad days.

"You've got to just focus on the habits constantly, looking after your rest and recovering well...all the little things that at 37 years old you can't get by like you could when you were 27.

"There's no way, so I've got to double down hard on all these other things."

Armstrong said he is enjoying the camaraderie of cycling again and had encountered no problems from rivals.

"Cycling is an interesting sport," he said.

"It's very political in a lot of ways because you have one team of seven, eight against a group of 200. Not that you can swap jerseys and all wear the same jersey but you've got to have friends sometimes.

"You're constantly observing that and paying attention to that but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the bunch a bit.

"But 90 percent of guys you look forward to racing with and everybody here. I haven't had an issue with one person in this peleton — even the French ones."

Davis will likely wrap up the tour Sunday after stretching his lead in stage five to 25 seconds over Australian compatriot Stuart O'Grady and 30 seconds over young Spaniard Jose Rojas. Davis had twice been a runner-up in this event.

Armstrong said Davis' own comeback, after an 18-month battle to clear himself from the stain of a Spanish doping investigation, was remarkable.

"He's a great story," he said. "He's back, clearly, and if you look at the results, he's been invincible here."

On Saturday, the South Australian state government said it would name a new cancer research center after the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which has Livestrong as is its brand.

The Flinders Medical Centre, in Adelaide's southern suburbs, will open the cancer research laboratories in 2011.

"It is an honor for the Livestrong name to be associated with plans to build the state-of-the-art Centre for Innovation in Cancer at Flinders Medical Centre," Armstrong said in a statement.