Setting Stage for His Seventh

Look, Lance Armstrong says, he is not riding the 2005 Tour de France to finish second.

If his enthusiasm for racing over 2,220 miles over 23 days did not start burning hot until this spring, if his training has been less lengthy, if he seems distracted from the painfully boring matters of weighing his food by the ounce, of rising at dawn to ride hills over and over, of living an ascetic life devoted to wearing a bright, yellow jersey on July 24, it doesn’t mean Armstrong is vulnerable.

“Hopefully, I’ll go out with a victory, leaving the impression perhaps that I can do another one if I really wanted to,” he said. “I’m not concerned about the impression I leave with others or with the media but for my own good, for whatever reason, I would like to leave that impression with myself.”

It is with a different motivation that Armstrong begins this Tour with Saturday’s 11.8-mile time trial between Fromentine and Noirmoutier-en-I’lle on the Atlantic coast.

The 33-year-old Texan and father of three announced in April that he would retire after finishing this Tour de France. He already owns a record that most cycling experts expect to stand for decades: winning six consecutive Tours. If he wins a seventh, it will be special for another reason.

“My kids weren’t there last year, a real bummer for me,” Armstrong said. “They will be there this year and they are old enough to understand what dad does for a living. They understand that when I put the bike clothes on, I’m going to work.

“So for them to come over here, it’s to come to my office. I would love for them to see me in the yellow jersey and that alone is plenty of motivation.

“When I left home my son said, ‘When will I see you again?’ I said, ‘Hopefully when I’m wearing the yellow shirt.’ And Luke said, ‘Don’t you get to wear what you want to wear?’ Yeah, I guess during the last few years sometimes. I want them to see dad in the yellow jersey one last time.”

Armstrong piled most of his serious training into the last three months. He hasn’t won anything -- no races, no stages -- and even rode to assist young teammate Tom Danielson during the final days of the Tour de Georgia.

He has adjusted to a new team. Discovery Channel took over sponsorship from United States Postal Service of the only U.S. team that competes internationally. The team’s uniforms are no longer red, white and blue but more blue, grey and white. And two stalwart members of last year’s USPS squad, American Floyd Landis and Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov, are missing. Landis defected to Swiss team Phonak and is considered a possible Armstrong challenger. Ekimov, “Eki” as he is known, is injured and sitting out Armstrong’s final ride.

Armstrong showed up Thursday for a news conference sporting a cut above his right eyebrow and a nasty red streak of road rash on his arm, courtesy of a training crash last week near Nice.

“It wasn’t serious,” Armstrong said. “It was a silly crash I can’t even begin to describe, at a low speed. The unfortunate thing was that I hit my head and cracked my helmet in two. I went out straight over the handle bars.”

Before the 2003 Tour, where Armstrong struggled throughout and won over Jan Ullrich by little more than 60 seconds, he also had a serious crash at the Dauphine, a Tour warm-up race. It was in 2003 that Armstrong also was bothered when the race progressed in severe heat. Another heat wave has kept temperatures around 90 degrees lately in many parts of France.

“There’s a big difference,” Armstrong said. “The Dauphine crash really affected the way I felt on my bike, the way I pedaled. Along the back of my spine it did not feel normal after that. I feel just as fluid as I was before this crash. It’s just an issue of road rash on my knees and hands.”

As for those who hope he will melt again in the heat, Armstrong had a prediction.

“I guess the scuttlebutt in cycling is that I don’t like the heat, that I don’t perform well in the heat and they all use 2003 as an example of that,” said Armstrong, who was reared in steamy Dallas. “But perhaps the heat is not as big a problem as people make it out to be. I’ve got to think growing up in heat hotter than this, spending my sporting career working out in heat like this, I don’t think the heat will be something that will cause me to lose the Tour.”

Armstrong pointed to three men he thinks will be his main challengers this year: Germany’s Ullrich, Italy’s Ivan Basso, who finished third last year, and Kazakhstan’s Alexandre Vinokourov.

Ullrich, who won the 1997 Tour and who has finished second five times, rides for a T-Mobile team that includes Vinokourov and Andreas Kloeden, last year’s runner-up.

“Lance is the man to beat,” Ullrich, 31, said at a news conference Thursday. “He will be under pressure because everyone will be attacking him. This is the last time I can beat him, so naturally it is an extra motivation for me.”

Ullrich said that whatever happens, “If Lance has a party, I hope he will invite me. There would be some special feelings.”

Last year, Tour directors planned a course that was back-loaded with mountain stages. The expectation was that the race would stay close and that aging Armstrong might struggle with heavy climbing at the end. Instead, Armstrong won six stages, dominated in the mountains and coasted to victory.

This year, the climbing begins during Stage 9 as the race heads into the Alps. And during the final week the Tour will move into the Pyrenees. Stages 14 and 15 are each more than 127 miles, with big climbs at the finish.

Armstrong will also have to contend with the fanatic German supporters of Ullrich, some of whom spit on Armstrong last year in the mountains, when the race wanders into Germany for the seventh stage.

“I’m most nervous about the opening stages of the mountains,” Armstrong said, “because before those days you’re always insecure about your form. The middle 10 days will be very critical because you have a lot packed in there. And obviously the Pyrenees are demanding. But I can’t put my finger on one day that should be the deciding factor.”

Vinokourov, who missed last year’s race with a cracked shoulder, said on the T-Mobile website that he had no individual goal.

“The whole team is geared up for one objective,” Vinokourov said. “It’s winning the Tour de France. I won’t be there to ride my own race but to ride for the team. The most important thing for us is that one of us wins yellow.”

And that’s one more thing for Armstrong to face: Everyone knows it’s their last chance to get Lance.

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Day by day

Stages for the Tour de France:

*--* Date No Stage Description Miles Saturday 1 Fromentine to Noirmoutier-en-I’Ile* 11.8 Sunday 2 Challans to Les Essarts 112.8 Monday 3 La Chataigneraie to Tours 132 Tuesday 4 Tours to Blois** 41.9 Wednesday 5 Chambord to Montargis 113.7 Thursday 6 Troyes to Nancy 123.7 July 8 7 Luneville to Karlsruhe, Germany 142 July 9 8 Pforzheim, Germany to Gerardmer, France 143.9 July 10 9 Gerardmer to Mulhouse 106.3 July 11 Rest day in Grenoble July 12 10 Grenoble to Courchevel 119.6 July 13 11 Courchevel to Briancon 107.5 July 14 12 Briancon to Digne-les-Bains 116.2 July 15 13 Miramas to Montpellier 107.8 July 16 14 Agde to Ax-3 Domaines 137 July 17 15 Lezat-sur-Leze to Saint-Lary Soulan, Pla-d’Adet 127.7 July 18 Rest day in Pau July 19 16 Mourenx to Pau 112.1 July 20 17 Pau to Revel 148.8 July 21 18 Albi to Mende 117.4 July 22 19 Issoire to Le Puy-en-Velay 95.4 July 23 20 Saint-Etienne to Saint-Etienne* 34.5 July 24 21 Corbeil-Essonnes to Paris, Champs-Elysees 89.8

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*individual time trial; **team time trial

Source: Associated Press