Grueling Tour de France Kicks Off

While enthusiasm over the soccer World Cup has barely ebbed off, the next international sporting event is just around the corner.

Starting this Saturday, the 89th Tour de France will bring cycling enthusiasts throughout the world to a fever pitch. For three weeks, fans will cheer their favourites through high speed chases, mountain climbs and time trials all over France.

Twenty-one teams with a total of 189 riders will fight it out on 3,276 kilometres of pavement. Next to the Tour’s renowned alpine and Mediterranean scenery, the route this year presents a wide range of challenges to the participants.

Dexterity and stamina distinguish favorites

Riders will need to prove their versatility by ascending the seven mountain stages and staying ahead on the three time trials all the while saving up enough energy for spectacular head-to-head duels before the finishing lines of each of the twenty stages.

As the start draws near, a select handful of favourites are being tipped as possible winners of the coveted Maillot Jaune, or yellow jersey, for best overall finishing time.

American cycling superstar Lance Armstrong, who has won the Tour de France each of the last three years, is the leader of the pack.

"He’s clearly the top favorite, he ranks in a league of his own above all others," Jens Voigt of French team Credit Agricole told DW-TV. "Everybody else will have to fight it out for second place."

Next to the clear-cut favorite, the Spaniards Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, Oscar Sevilla and Joseba Beloki are expected to reach top positions next to mountain-expert Santiago Botero from Columbia and Richard Virenque from France.

German Modesty

Following the tour cancellation by 1997 tour winner Jan Ullrich, the German Telekom team places high hopes on captain Erik Zabel, who was awarded the Green Jersey for the largest overall amount of points obtained in stage victories in the six previous years.

The expert sprinter, who is to celebrate his 32nd birthday on Sunday, has also placed second in the overall time ranking four times.

Aware of the prowess of contenders Armstrong and Christophe Moreau from France, Zabel makes a modest estimate of his chances of victory.

"A win would of course be better, but I’d be contend to come out second and win the Green Jersey," Zabel told DW-TV.

A Scenic Tour de Force

The race will kick off on Saturday with a prologue in the historic town of Luxembourg. From there, the first of a total of twenty stages, each an average of 163.8 kilometres in length, will be fought out throughout the Grand Douchy of Luxembourg.

Taking its course counter-clockwise through France, the race can be divided into three distinct phases.

A first week of flat and fast stages across Northern France will be followed by two weeks of strenuous mountain climbing in the Pyrenees and Alps mountains, before the pack makes its final dash towards the finish line in France’s capital Paris. Since 1975, the race traditionally ends before cheering crowds on the Champs Elysees boulevard.

Experts expect the race to be decided in the pristine alpine stages, especially the final assault up to the skiing resort Les Deux Alpes, where Italian Marco Pantani took the Yellow Jersey from German Ulrich in 1998. It is in the alps that Armstrong has also secured his victories in the last three tours.

Tour's drug woes continue

The mountains also play a tragic part in the tour’s history. It was on the Mount Vetoux stage in 1976 that British cyclist Tom Simpson died after taking amphetamines to cope with the grueling race day.

The pattern of drug-taking has repeated itself with alarming frequency in recent years. In 1998, the biggest doping scandal in the Tour's history saw the disqualification of an entire team and suspended jail sentences for its director and a medical team member.

Three of Italy's top riders - 1998 Tour winner Pantani, Stefano Garzelli and Gilberto Simoni - are banned from this year's race because of positive drug tests in the past year.

And Germany's Telekom team has been tainted by the recent revalation that Ullrich, who cancelled on the Tour following an injury, has tested positive for amphetamines in an unannounced drug screening following a knee operation in June.

Telekom team manager Rudy Pevenage said he is currently considering dropping the 28-year-old from the team. Pevenage believes Ullrich’s substance abuse was not sports-related, but rather part of the rider's troubling decline.

"The sport of cycling is already completely spoiled," Werner Franke, a molecular biologist and doping expert recently told German television. "Recent cases can hardly worsen that image."

Lightening the workload

Racing officials have shortened the course by 170 km as a reaction to the scandals, making it the shortest tour since 1905.

"One cannot claim to fight against doping and (at the same time) impose increasingly heavier workloads on the riders," Leblanc told the trade magazine Cycling World. "This year, by moving some starting locations, we were able to save on distance to some extent."

With a decrease in distance comes an increase in drug testing. Ten riders will be randomly screened after each of stage of the race.