PREVIEW: Tour de France: Armstrong will impress, Contador will win

Paris - Sometimes a sporting event is like a horse race, with no winner apparent before the starting gates open and the outcome in doubt until the final strides. The 2009 Tour de France, which begins Saturday in the principality of Monaco, is nothing like that at all. Even this reporter's crystal ball, which was bought cheaply in a shabby Paris antique shop, has no trouble predicting the winner. He rides for the troubled Astana team, is returning to the Tour after an absence and has already won the race. No, it is not 37-year-old Lance Armstrong, who holds a record seven Tour de France titles and is making a comeback after a three-year retirement. A victory by the Texas native would be welcomed by perhaps millions of cancer survivors and sufferers around the world, because Armstrong, who overcame the disease, returned to cycling primarily to publicize cancer research. Not only is Armstrong's age against him, but his training for the Tour suffered a setback when he broke his collarbone in March during the Vuelta Castilla y Leon. The former 'boss' of the peloton, or pack of riders, will therefore have to content himself with working in support of the almost certain winner, fellow Astana rider Alberto Contador of Spain. Armstrong is very aware of his role. 'The trick,' he told the New York Times, 'is trying to be a responsible teammate and co-leader and understand that Alberto could not just be stronger, but could be a lot stronger.' Contador was only 25 when he won the 2007 Tour. He is now two years older and has shown that he is the world's best Grand Tour rider, having won the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) last year. Contador and his Astana team director, Johan Bruyneel, targeted those two races after he was prevented from defending his Tour de France title because his Astana team was banned from the race due to its involvement in doping scandals the previous year. Only four other riders, and no other Spaniard - not even the great Miguel Indurain - have won all three Grand Tour titles in their careers. Bruyneel, who directed all seven of Armstrong's Tour championships as well as Contador's title, has had him train so that he will peak in July. The Spaniard's third-place finish in the Dauphine Libere in early June showed that his preparations were on course. In addition, Astana may be going through financial difficulties, but they are fielding far and away the most talented team in the race. Not only can Contador count on Armstrong to support him, but he also has former Tour runners-up Andreas Kloeden of Germany and American Levi Leipheimer as lieutenants. Contador's chances of winning the Tour improved greatly when the Dauphine Libere winner, fellow Spaniard Alejandro Valverde, was banned from the race because of doping. Australian Cadel Evans, who finished second in the Dauphine Libere and placed second in the 2007 and 2008 Tour de France, is one of Contador's most dangerous rivals this year. But the operative word in Evans's biography is 'second.' The 32-year-old Aussie is a strong rider in all facets of the sport, but he lacks the explosive power in the mountains to outdistance his opponents when the race is on the line. And the race will be on the line on July 25, when the riders tackle the formidable climb up Mont Ventoux, at the edge of the French Alps. The climb comes on the 20th of the race's 21 stages, and after the riders have conquered some 3,200 of the Tour's 3,459.5 kilometers. Armstrong has called the 20km ascent of Mont Ventoux the toughest of all the Tour climbs, and it is significant that he has never won it. But if the crystal ball is correct, he will win this prestigious stage this year, crossing the finish line just ahead of Contador, whom he has led up the mountain. They will leave in their wake the rider who will finish second in the Tour, last year's winner, Carlos Sastre of Spain, as well as Evans and other ambitious also-rans, such as Denis Menchov of Russia and Luxembourg's Andy Schleck. And if Astana and Bruyneel play their cards right, and no accident or other unexpected event interferes, then Armstrong may well join Contador on the podium with a third-place Tour finish that will be celebrated, rightly, as a triumph. But you don't need a crystal ball to predict that this year's race, like the last two, will be troubled by doping. This year, the French Anti-Doping Authority (AFLD) and the sport's ruling body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), are working together for the first time, which is bad news for cheaters. The UCI has introduced the biological passport, an electronic record for each rider in which the results of all doping tests over a period of time are collected. In addition, there will be more tests than ever before, and AFLD head Pierre Bordry announced the use of a new test to detect a previously undetectable substance, which he did not want to name. So, as has become usual in the Tour de France, triumph will again be accompanied by shame.