Here's an article from today's NYT by the great Samuel Abt. I will copy and paste since otherwise people will whine about registering:
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For Armstrong, a Tour Loaded With Obstacles
By SAMUEL ABT
Published: June 30, 2004
ARIS, June 29 - When Lance Armstrong sets off Saturday on a three-week, 2,110-mile quest, he will be competing against the forces of age and history, as well as 20 opposing teams of 9 riders each.
Can he win a sixth consecutive Tour de France? Since the competition began in 1903, only four other riders have won five times, and none were successful when trying for a sixth. Of those four, only one recorded five consecutive victories.
That is the lesson of history. The lesson of age is similarly daunting: none of the four won the Tour past the age of 31, and Armstrong, who leads the United States Postal Service team, turned 32 on Sept. 18.
"Some might say I'm exiting my peak years," he said last winter. He also knows that most of his major rivals are younger than he is.
Tyler Hamilton, the leader of the Phonak team from Switzerland, is 33, but Iban Mayo, the Spanish leader of the Euskaltel team from Spain, is only 26; Roberto Heras, the Spanish leader of Liberty Seguros from Spain, is 30; and Ivan Basso, the Italian leader of CSC from Denmark, is 26.
And Armstrong's archrival, 30-year-old Jan Ullrich, the German leader of T-Mobile and the man Armstrong says he constantly thinks about, will be present and looks fit.
The winner of the Tour in 1997 and five times a second-place finisher, including three times when Armstrong finished first, Ullrich showed his form by winning the weeklong Tour of Switzerland this month.
"He has several things going for him," Armstrong said of Ullrich. "He has, first of all, a great team, and he has the motivation of wanting to win again. He's won before and wants to get it back. He'll be tough to beat. He's entering his peak years for an athlete in our sport."
These names of contenders were all furnished by Armstrong in an interview at his home in Spain in March. "I think Mayo will be good," he said. "The course suits him. I think Ivan Basso is going to have a good Tour.
"Tyler will have a good Tour. I don't know about Roberto,'' Armstrong said, referring to Heras, "but the Tour this year suits the climbers." When it comes to climbers, Heras is one of the best.
Starting in Liège, Belgium, the Tour will meander westward on flat countryside in Belgium and France through July 11, with a 40-mile team time trial on July 7 a highlight. After the first of two rest days on July 12, the riders will encounter hills on the next three days in the Massif Central.
On July 16 and 17, the race goes into the Pyrenees mountains for demanding stages that finish at altitude, meaning there will be no descent for a rider to recoup lost time after the final climb.
After another flat stage July 18 and another rest day July 19, the Alps arrive.
"The last week looks really tough, the toughest we have ever done," Armstrong said last week. "It will be much better to have a stronger second half than a strong first half."
As an appetizer, the stage on July 20 will include five testing climbs. The next day is the main course: an unprecedented individual time trial up the 9.6 miles and 21 hairpin curves that lead to L'Alpe d'Huez.
"That could be the deciding moment," Armstrong said. It gets no easier after L'Alpe d'Huez, with two more mountain stages on July 22 and 23 and a 37.2-mile individual time trial on July 24 before the Tour reaches its finale in Paris on July 25.
"A tough Tour, a very tough Tour," Armstrong said.
But then, no Tour is easy, and he has won five consecutive since his comeback from the testicular cancer that invaded his body in 1996.
Jacques Anquetil, the first rider to win five Tours, did not try for another after his last victory, in 1964. After his fifth victory, Eddy Merckx finished second in 1975, when a French fan injured him with a punch in the liver during a major climb. Bernard Hinault was second in his final year, 1986, when his teammate Greg LeMond was overwhelming.
And Miguel Indurain, who also won five Tours consecutively, collapsed in the rain and the cold in 1996, finishing 11th and retiring at the end of the season.
As Indurain knows, the weather can be a big factor. An oppressively hot July is predicted, and Armstrong does not enjoy heavy heat.
Last year he prevailed over Ullrich by 1 minute 1 second, his smallest margin of victory in the Tour by more than four minutes, and he admitted afterward that he was "just not happy with my performance.''
"Maybe I took the race too much for granted," Armstrong said. "Maybe I was a little too comfortable with success."
Armstrong has had strong, but not dominant, performances this spring. Sometimes he has struggled one day and been a master the next.
Unlike other years, he has not left his rivals believing that he cannot be beaten.
His Postal Service team seems to be as powerful as ever and certainly as dedicated to his victory. Armstrong has finished his customarily thorough preparations, scouting the major climbs and time-trial courses, especially L'Alpe d'Huez, which he has ascended this spring for days at a time.
As history and age conspire against him, Armstrong says simply, "I'm ready."