Tour De France 2004: Scent of Sixth Victory on Armstrong

In the history of a race built on epic head-to-head encounters, Lance Armstrong's four-year, four-Tour rivalry with Jan Ullrich is one of the longest and the most closely fought. Today's time-trial is a brief encounter but the seconds will be counted and the runes read as intensely they have been since the pair first met in 2000.

Theirs is a shared history that goes back to 1993, and a showery, cool weekend in Oslo. In that year's world road-race championships Ullrich became one of the youngest amateur champions; Armstrong one of the youngest professional title winners.

None present then would have dreamed that, nearly 11 years on, the pair would have turned into a double act as distinctive as Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor whose battles in the early 1960s, and in one Tour, 1964, have come to define the entire race for French people of a certain age.

In the next three weeks, as the Texan cancer survivor searches for his sixth Tour, the absolute record, Ullrich will again be his most feared challenger in a classic contest between a massively talented but mentally fragile athlete, and a less gifted but indomitable individual.

That is the view of the Tour organiser, Jean-Marie Leblanc: "Armstrong is perhaps not the most physically gifted, if you compare him to Ullrich, who I would describe as a thoroughbred, but he has won five Tours thanks to his mental strength, his character, his capacity for hard work."

A more in-depth analysis comes from Ullrich's mentor of the last 12 years, Rudy Pevenage. "Jan cannot ride away with a blistering uphill attack. That remains the speciality of Lance. As for race instinct, Lance is perhaps a bit better, but Jan has still learned to react well in the last few years."

Of the three Tours they have contested, 2001 provided two unforgettable images: Armstrong looking back at Ullrich as the German faltered at the foot of l'Alpe d'Huez, and a handshake of mutual recognition as they approached the finish at the Pyrenean ski station of Luz Ardiden.

Since last year, there is a new edge. Not only did Ullrich come closer than ever to beating the Texan (a mere minute behind in Paris), he inflicted the only serious defeat of Armstrong's five wins, in a baking-hot time-trial among the extinct coal mines north of Toulouse.

The pair differ over what happened after Armstrong fell off at the foot of the climb to Luz Ardiden, where he was to mount the race-winning attack. Television evidence suggested the German waited - as the Texan had when Ullrich fell off on a descent in 2001 - but Armstrong implies the opposite. Ullrich will not say it openly, but that rankles. "It's weird, because straight after the finish he thanked me for waiting."

For all the difference in their backgrounds - Armstrong brought up in Texas, Ullrich in the old East Germany - they have a troubled childhood in common: Armstrong's father famously disappeared before he was born while Ullrich's auto-biography, All or Nothing, describes his father as an alcoholic who terrorised the family.

Among the constant questioning of Armstrong's choice of coaches and loudly voiced doubts about the legitimacy of his victories, it is often forgotten that it is Ullrich who has served a drug ban, in 2002, after a positive test for amphetamines he was given in a nightclub. And few questions are asked about his trainer, Peter Becker, founder of the two-wheeled production line that created a string of East German champions.

There are distant resonances to the prospect of an American and a German doing battle in Liège: Ullrich, however, looks to have won his personal Battle of the Bulge. A crash training stint saw him slough off the weight that worried him - as usual - in the spring; when he turned up on Thursday for the pre-Tour medical he looked as lean as in his first time, 1996, when he was a surprise second to his then team-mate Bjarne Riis.

"I have been second often enough - this year I have put everything on getting back to the top," he said. "Everything else has been subordinate to this. I am convinced I can beat Armstrong."

Armstrong, as ever, throws the pressure back. "I think it will be my toughest Tour yet. I think Jan Ullrich is better prepared than we expected, better than in other years. Jan tends to come into the race a bit below his best and then is very good in the final week." With two time-trials, one uphill to l'Alpe d'Huez, in the final five days, that could be decisive.

• Britain's time-trial world champion David Millar, who has admitted taking the illegal substance EPO, has withdrawn from the Olympic Games.

Tyler Hamilton

Age 33 Tours 7 Stage wins 1

Armstrong's former domestique , the quiet New Englander has blossomed since striking out on his own, and was the unlucky hero of last year's Tour, finishing fourth and winning a tough Pyrenean stage in spite of a broken collarbone.

Iban Mayo

Age 26 Tours 2 Stage wins 1

The Basque climbing sensation won at l'Alpe d'Huez last year but lacked the stamina to match Armstrong. This year, he was rampant in May and June, taking three stage races but may have peaked too early.

Roberto Heras

Age 30 Tours 4 Stage wins

Another former domestique of Armstrong's who struck out on his own last year after taking his second Tour of Spain win. The Spaniard is one of the finest climbers in the world but like Mayo he may suffer in the early flat stages of this Tour.