A Real Fifth Wheel

PARIS -- Lance Armstrong travels with strong, strapping bodyguards. He looks from side to side, both wary and interested, a man compelled to protect himself but an athlete wired and ready for competition.

On Saturday, Armstrong begins an amazing quest for something his trainer, Chris Carmichael, calls “the toughest accomplishment in sports.”

Armstrong is trying to become the fifth man to win five Tour de France bicycling championships. He is trying to become only the second man to win five titles consecutively.

He would be the first American to do these things, and if Armstrong, 31, reaches his goal, he would do it at the historic 100th anniversary of this race, which corrals the attention and emotions of an entire country.

This centenary Tour will travel 2,125 miles over 23 days. It will begin here with the prologue, a four-mile individual time trial. It will take off from Paris on Sunday, head east to near the Belgian border, turn south to Lyon and into the Alps for the first set of mountain climbs; hurry toward Marseilles and the sea; then rush west toward the Pyrenees and more mountain agony before turning north toward Bordeaux and Nantes and finally east again to Paris on July 27.

Armstrong is the heavy favorite to ride down the Avenue des Champs Elysees as the champion again.

Scotland’s David Millar, who is expected to win a stage or two, said on the BBC Sport Web site: “I think Lance will do it again. He is untouchable and is even more supremely motivated this year. Barring an accident, nothing will stop him. He is changing cycling with his supremacy.”

It is hard to find anyone who disagrees.

Riding for the United States Postal Service team -- the only U.S.-based team in the race -- Armstrong, a strong-speaking Texan from the Dallas suburb of Plano, confesses that history is not what drives him. Breaking records might be, though.

“Growing up in Plano, I wasn’t exactly steeped in Tour de France culture,” he said this week from his part-time home in Gerona, Spain.

“I just got a book celebrating the 100 years of the race and as I was flipping through it, a lot of the stuff I was seeing now, for the first time. The event does have so much history. Yet I’d be lying if I said I never think about the records.”

Only Miguel Indurain, a soft-spoken, monstrously strong Spaniard from Pamplona, has won five straight Tours, from 1991 to ’95.

The other men to have won five titles are Belgium’s Eddie Merckx, who was nicknamed “the Cannibal” for the way he devoured both opponents and the mountain stages (he won in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974); Bernhard Hinault, the last Frenchman to win his country’s premier sporting event (in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985); and Jacques Anquetil, who became the first to win five titles (1957, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964).

Greg LeMond, the only other American tour champion, won three times, in 1986, ’89 and ’90.

Carmichael, who has worked with Armstrong for more than a decade, said he has found himself newly amazed as Armstrong has approached this historic race.

“What’s got me surprised,” Carmichael said, “is Lance’s intensity. You think, hey, he’s won four of these things so if he doesn’t win this one it’s not a disaster. But it’s like, every time Lance wins one, he ratchets up the heat a little bit more.... He wants this fifth title more than he wanted the first.”

When Armstrong first won the Tour in 1999, coming from nowhere, he became an instant touchstone for millions of men and women who have survived cancer and also for millions more who have lost friends or family to the disease.

His story of overcoming testicular cancer that had spread to his brain has, with each of his victories, become almost mythic. Armstrong wrote a best-selling book about his fight through chemotherapy and surgeries and moments when he thought his life might end. He married his wife, Kristin, whom he had met while he was sick, and the couple have had three children through in-vitro fertilization.

This more-perfect-than-life story was tarnished a bit over the winter when the couple separated for two months. The family has recently reunited and Armstrong has said he plans to fight for his marriage as he has fought for his cycling life.

Armstrong’s preparation for this Tour also suffered after a tumble at the Dauphine Libere last month. Although he won the race, he also took what he termed “a scary” high-speed fall.

“I still have the road rash from the fall,” he said three days ago. “Most of it is on the elbow. There was a cut that had to be stitched up. It was quite deep and there’s still a scar and scab there that won’t go away. The other stuff, on the legs and the behind, it’s still there but very light. I have no problem pedaling and I can roll over at night without sticking to the sheets.”

With those words, “sticking to the sheets,” Armstrong gives a vivid reality to the pain and suffering of this endurance event.

“Think of everything that can go wrong,” Carmichael said. “The bike slips in the mountains, a rider gets a stomach virus or a cold or a cramp, any little thing that, even if it just lasts a day, can cost you the race.

“Yet for four straight years, riding close to 10,000 miles, Lance has endured. What he’s doing is truly remarkable and he can’t be given too much credit.”

Armstrong said he’s not looking for credit or records or to make history. “For some odd reason,” he said, “I still enjoy what I do. I still enjoy going to training camps with the guys, sitting around the dinner table, telling stories, just having a good time....

“I’d be mistaken if I didn’t say the break in the middle (during his illness) really taught me these good times, this kind of opportunity I have now is not a given. So I need to take advantage of that. I still look back to that time when I was sick and say things could be a lot worse. But it’s getting to the point where it’s now or never. I’m not going to get any stronger. I still love what I do, though.”

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Live updates of each day’s Tour de France stage, complete standings and cyclist profiles begin Saturday on The Times’ Web site. Go to latimes.com/sports.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Tour De France Stages

SATURDAY: PROLOGUER

Paris, individual time trial, 4.03 miles

SUNDAY: STAGE 1R

Saint-Denis to Meaux, 104.16

MONDAY: STAGE 2R

La Ferte-sous-Jouarre to Sedan, 126.48

TUESDAY: STAGE 3R

Charleville-Mezieres to Saint-Dizier, 103.54

WEDNESDAY: STAGE 4R

Joinville to Saint-Dizier, team TT, 42.16

THURSDAY: STAGE 5R

Troyes to Nevers, 121.52

JULY 11: STAGE 6R

Nevers to Lyon, 139.5

JULY 12: STAGE 7R

Lyon to Morzine, 140.12

JULY 13: STAGE 8R

Sallanches to L’Alpe d’Huez, 130.82

JULY 14: STAGE 9R

Le Bourg d’Oisans to Gap, 114.39

JULY 15: STAGE 10R

Gap to Marseille, 130.2

JULY 16: Rest dayR

Transfer from Marseille to Narbonne

JULY 17: STAGE 11R

Narbonne to Toulouse, 97.96

JULY 18: STAGE 12R

Gaillac to Cap’Decouverte, individual TT, 29.14

JULY 19: STAGE 13R

Toulouse to Plateau de Bonascre, 122.45

JULY 20: STAGE 14R

Saint-Girons to Loudenvielle, 118.73

JULY 21: STAGE 15R

Bagneres-de-Bigorre to Luz-Ardiden, 98.89

JULY 22: Rest dayR

Pau

JULY 23: STAGE 16R

Pau to Bayonne, 122.45

JULY 24: STAGE 17R

Dax to Bordeaux, 110.36

JULY 25: STAGE 18R

Bordeaux to Saint-Maixent-l’Ecole, 124

JULY 26: STAGE 19R

Pornic to Nantes, individual TT, 30.38

JULY 27: STAGE 20R

Ville d’Avray to Paris, 97.96

Total distance: 2,125 miles

TT-Time trial