First: I have great respect for what Lance Armstrong did. But a lot of people here in Europe believe that he does drugs, because he never shows up in Europe until just a few weeks before the Tour de France. Which means he doesn´t get controlled for illigal substances here in europe. And we all know that in the US, athletes don´t have to deal with too serious doping controls. That´s no offense to you guys. But doping is just a much bigger topic over here, taken way more seriously. Actually a lot of european states have anti-doping laws now, and athletes that are tested positive will go to jail (in France, Italy). The US would never do that.
Second: Even if Lance is clean (which I want to think of him, until proven different), he will have a hard time this year. Because Jan Ullrich is much stronger than last year, and Armstrong appears to be a bit too light. He only weights 66 kg, 4 less than last year at the beginning of the tour. Given the fact that a driver loses up to 3 kg during the tour he would weight only 63 kg at the last time trial. So I believe he could lose some time there against Ullrich. We´ll see, Armstrong could be an even stronger climber than he was last year and make up for that. But watch out for Ullrich this year. It will be close. I´m especially keen to see the team time trial. Telekom has some strong time trial drivers this year (Ullrich, Vinokurov, Livingston, Klöden, Heppner), while the support cast of USPostal seem to be stronger hill-climbers.
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