The final Tour of duty

CHALLANS, France -- This ride will be different because it's his last -- and so will Lance Armstrong.

For a change, he'll savor the sights along the Tour de France route and even the strategy meetings with his Discovery Channel team. Just don't expect his heightened awareness to distract him from focusing on winning his seventh Tour in a row.

"I know there will be key moments," he said Thursday, 48 hours before the start, "and I want to savor that because next year I'll be on the other side of the table with all the old guys.

"The rides through villages, the dinners with guys who have become my best friends, even the team meetings ... all of that I will never experience again. But it has sunk in and I'm doing a pretty good job of focusing. I feel excited and obligated to win."

Armstrong begins his farewell on Saturday with a 11.8-mile sprint from Fromentine to Noirmoutier-en-l'Ile. On July 24, he will ride around the Champs-Elysees for the final time as a professional athlete.

Speaking at a news conference and flanked by team director Johan Bruyneel, Armstrong looked and sounded relaxed. It was in stark contrast to last year, when he acknowledged he felt the burden of history. Armstrong's sixth win put him one ahead of Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil.

"I was nervous last year ... I had the impression I was up against ... not a demon ... but something else," he said. "All the greats had never won six times and something told me it was not possible, like a higher reason."

But it was possible.

"Winning last year was like a huge weight removed," he said.

The 33-year-old Armstrong acknowledged he wasn't performing up to his standard earlier in the year. He looked sluggish and weary at the Paris-Nice race in March and the Tour de Georgia in April.

"The older you get the higher the risk you have. I can't argue with my birth certificate. I had doubts but I never panicked that I would not be ready in time," he said. "The fact is that it's my last Tour and I have to find specific motivation within myself."

Armstrong says the design of this year's course makes it harder to judge than previous years. The opening individual time trial is longer than the standard opening prologue stage -- meaning that a below-par performance so early in the race could be costly.

After that, riders face two routine flat stages before a team time trial on Tuesday -- 41.9 miles from Tours to Blois.

Jan Ullrich, the 1997 Tour de France champion and runner-up five other times, knows this is his last chance to beat Armstrong.

"The first stage is a good opportunity and the team time trial is also good for us," the T-Mobile team leader said. "It's important to take an advantage into the mountains. It's better than chasing a deficit."

With three rough Alpine climbs to follow between July 12-14, Armstrong is bracing himself to be tested.

"There's a lot to pack in, in a short space of time. You have an uphill finish (Grenoble to Courchevel) and then the stage from Courchevel to Briancon," he said. "Then there's not much time before the Pyrenees."

Stage 11 on July 13 -- Courchevel to Briancon -- is perhaps the most challenging of all the mountain routes, a 107.3-mile trek featuring three imposing ascents: Col de la Madeleine, Col du Telegraphe and Col du Galibier.

That, of course, doesn't diminish Armstrong's purpose: to once again sip champagne in triumph as he pedals his way down the Champs-Elysees to the finish line.

And if he pulls it off, what happens next is anyone's guess.

"I need a few years to evaluate what I want to do with my life," Armstrong said. "In the public eye or not."

Told someone bet he'd be president of the United States within a few years, he said:

"You might have wasted your money. Politics and the good of the public community interest me. But I have no dreams of the White House."