2004 Tour de France Preview

Last year, we witnessed one of those vintage Tours which kept us all in suspense until the second to last day when Lance Armstrong confirmed he would win the 100th year of this amazing sporting event.

It was always going to be a hard act to follow, but the interest in this year's Tour de France far exceeds that of one year ago. Will he make it six? I do believe he will.

However, there is little doubt that Lance will face his strongest opposition yet and, as if to remind us, all of his rivals are showing top form at the right time.

Jan Ullrich -- once a winner and five times second -- just won the Tour of Switzerland by a single second. He so becomes the first German to win this event in 42 years and by the narrowest margin since Boulder's Andy Hampsten won in 1987.

Tyler Hamilton, Armstrong's ex-teammate and a brilliant fourth last year with his broken collar bone, rides for an eighth time and has undoubtedly his finest shot at winning in Paris. He recently beat Lance in a mountain time trial up Mont Ventoux, so need I warn the Texan to watch out in the Alpe d'Huez mountain time trial in the final week.

Iban Mayo, only a Tour rider on two previous occasions, finished sixth last year and won the road race to Alpe d'Huez. Now, he is having his finest season with eight wins including three small tours, and will look for a podium finish. Although, I think Armstrong will worry less about the Spaniard than the rest of the favorites.

Finally, without Alexandre Vinoukorov, who crashed in Switzerland, Ullrich will count on Tour first timer, Cadel Evans from Victoria, Australia. Evans, an ex-mountain biker, has all the ability to win the race for himself one day, but this time, I think he will prove invaluable to his German leader.

However, Evans is yet to be confirmed in the team -- which I find very surprising -- and is currently listed only as first reserve.

There are many outsiders to annoy the establishment, too. Brad McGee, leading the Route du Sud, as I write, is likely to win the prologue in Liege and do what he did in the Giro d'Italia which was to lead the race away in the leader's jersey.

And, what about Levi Leipheimer, another ex-US Postal rider who crashed out early on last year? Levi will join an on-form Michael Rasmussen, as joint leaders of the Dutch Rabobank team.

There will be many diversions over the opening two weeks of this race, as other top Aussies, Robbie McEwen, Baden Cooke, Stuart O'Grady and Michael Rogers, will each try to take a slice of the action for themselves.

This has the making of a great Tour and I love the route. On paper, it will all get decided in the final week. But for those not paying attention as we roll away from Belgium out to the West of France and then down to the Pyrennees, their race will be lost long before we get to the millions of spectators waiting in the Alps.

Enjoy our coverage. The back room boys have worked hard to make sure you miss nothing, so if you do, then you will have only yourselves to blame! Vive la Tour!

Phil