ADELAIDE // Lance Armstrong hardly sounded like a seven-time Tour de France champion ahead of his first bike race in three-and-a-half years. In the build-up to the Tour Down Under, which gets under way here on Tuesday, the 37-year-old Texan first played down his chances of victory and later insisted he was more worried about "being clobbered" by the rest of the peloton. Armstrong's assessment of his race ambitions are spot on. However well prepared he is, he is unlikely to go all-out for victory, instead he will be happy just to be in the peloton and get some racing in his legs ahead of the duel test of the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France later this season. In the build-up to the event this weekend, he said he had questioned his return to riding. "There have been times where I've thought 'what have I done?' but they're brief," he said. "I just don't want to get clobbered too bad - that's my main motivation for training hard. I don't have delusions of grandeur. It's been such a long break - that's the longest break I've had. It's nervousness and excitement."
Armstrong had been training in Hawaii to acclimatise for the south Australia weather and is expected to face temperatures nearing the low-40s for the six-day race. Ominously for his race rivals when he peaks later this season, he insists he has never been in better shape, not even at the height of his Tour de France powers. "I've prepared harder in the build-up to this than any season in the past," said Armstrong. "Maybe that's just because I'm an old man! My January fitness is much better than it ever was in the years when I was winning the Tour de France." Armstrong's fitness means nothing unless he has racing in his legs both in terms of simple awareness and the more in-depth peloton tactics. And that is his biggest fear. "None of my past or my training means anything until you get into the race," he said. "I'm just one man out of 133 in the race that goes round corners at 50 miles per hour. You can't simulate that in training. I've got to get back into that space and get used to it. But I'm not doing too badly for an old guy." Among the favourites for victory on home soil is Stuart O'Grady, who heads up Team Saxo Bank and won the inaugural Tour Down Under in 1999. O'Grady said he had answered more questions about Armstrong's return than his own goals for the race. He added: "As usual it's been mental when Lance is involved. I just sit in my saddle and watch in bemusement from my saddle and quietly go about my business. I don't know how he does it - being swamped by so many people all the time. It would do my head in." The race begins in Adelaide on Tuesday and finishes back in the city on Sunday. mmajendie@thenational.ae