Robbie McEwen column

By Robbie McEwen Tour de France sprinter

When you think about it, sprinting's a bit stupid really. You get a bunch of guys pinning their ears back and going for the finishing line at 70km/h with only a slight bicycle helmet and a bit of lycra to protect them.

People talk about risks but the risks don't seem as big to us guys as they are to everyone else.

Profile: Robbie McEwen

But you know there are going to be falls in the first week of the Tour de France - that's part and parcel of cycling - and that when you hit the tarmac you're going to lose a whole heap of skin and probably worse.

You just have to have the skill and guts to get yourself up there and believe you have business at the front of the peloton.

Sprinters are an odd breed I guess. In the week before the Tour, I've spent my days cycling behind this retired Belgian guy on a motorbike at 45-55km/h going up and down along a canal.

To fine tune my sprinting, I'd then launch off the back of the bike and sprint clear, getting up to about 75km/h to get a real feel for the sprints.

It might seem a strange sight in England for example but it really is the norm in Belgium where I live, particularly on the stretch I train on.

That training, though, has got nothing on being in the mix of a sprint and the unpredictability that entails. It's all about doing the right thing at the right time.

All that matters first and foremost is to win a Tour stage. It doesn't matter what you've done before in the season. This is where it counts.

This will be the most difficult Tour of his seven and his most uncomfortable but he'll win it

Having won last year's green jersey, I guess I'm one of the marked men this time around but, as a sprinter, it's good to be a marked man.

Guys will try and get on your wheel rather than try to push you out the way. That'll enable me to get a smooth run into the final sprint, which has got to be great news.

But I'm not stupid enough to think I'm going there as the defending champion of that jersey.

If you think like that, you're going to get beaten especially when you're up against the likes of Thor Hushovd and Tom Boonen, who I see as the biggest threats in the points competition.

I know I won't get complacent - I put more pressure on myself than anyone else.

If I were to assess myself, I'd say my greatest asset is my unpredictability. When it comes to the sprint my rivals don't know what I'm going to do as, most of the time, I don't even know what I'm doing until it comes to the crunch.

Being able to change tactic really quickly and come up with a solution when your rivals throw something at you is the only solution.

I need to make sure I do something different in every sprint so it preys on the minds of my rivals.

Further up the order from me and the other sprinters, I expect Lance Armstrong to make it seven Tour de France wins in a row.

He was fourth in the Dauphine Libere and barely went to his limits there. That said I think he'll be really pushed in the Tour, by the likes of Alexandre Vinokourov, Jan Ullrich, Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer and Ivan Basso.

This will be the most difficult Tour of his seven and his most uncomfortable, but he'll certainly cement his place as the best Tour rider of all time.

That's not to say he's the best cyclist of all time - comparisons against those from other generations are misplaced.

But 2005 will be another Tour de Lance.