Through hell on wheels

Another epic duel is promised. After nearly 2,000 miles battering each other over some crucifying terrain, it will all boil down tomorrow to two heavyweights, two bikes, a boringly flat course and a 30-mile battle with the clock.

They've both been through hell on wheels. Ullrich almost quit in the first week because of stomach problems then a high fever and was only kept going by phone calls home every night when he heard the cries of his baby daughter who was born just days before the tour started.

Armstrong, meanwhile, has had two crashes, his bike has played up, his racing shoes didn't fit properly and, off the road, he's apparently been having marital troubles and is being sued for defamation by a rival rider.

"A very odd, crisis-filled Tour," he's called it.

What crisis, exactly? Like the legendary quartet of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, who all found the capture of their fifth title to be a trying affair after years of crushing domination, Armstrong seems to have overcome his traumas and should start tomorrow with a 67 seconds overall lead. Having never lost a final time trial during his previous triumphs, he should be unassailable.

Perhaps not, though. Ullrich whipped Armstrong by a massive 96 seconds in the time trial a week ago, such an unthinkable destruction that even the American, while attributing it to dehydration, began talking as if he sensed his reign was about to be ended by the four-time runner-up who'd been the Tour's bridesmaid ever since his only win in 1997.

Another pulverising time trial tomorrow could still see the German 'diesel' steal the race. Or maybe he could at least claw back just enough time to make this the first Tour since its closest edition 14 years ago - when Greg Lemond pipped Laurent Fignon by just eight seconds - to have a nail-biting finale rather than the usual leisurely, ceremonial pedal into the capital.

Germans are bewitched by Ullrich's comeback. He fell from grace when tested positive for amphetamines but, after being sidelined for 14 months by suspension and injury, a nation's acclaim is now typified by the comments of Boris Becker, who noted: "He's the hero of the Tour. To fall and get back on your feet is the biggest achievement."

Yet perhaps it's Armstrong who's had the biggest makeover. For so long seen as aloof and impossible to love by his hosts and with innuendo about doping never far away, his heroic response to his struggles this year have forced them to at last warm to him. How could they fail to after seeing him pitted against Ullrich on the climb to the Pyrenean ski station of Luz-Ardiden this week? His racing obituaries were already being penned and a fall when his handlebar caught a spectator's bag looked to be the final paragraph.

Yet thanks to Ullrich observing Tour etiquette not to attack when the race leader suffers an accident, Armstrong desperately sped back and then, rather ungratefully, took 40 seconds out of his rescuer with one more eyeballs-out surge to the summit. Watching Ullrich's sportsmanship and then Armstrong's resurrection that afternoon were to my mind the most marvellous images of the sporting year.

Yet for all that he now shrugs "anything is possible", the German must have watched Armstrong's maillot jaune disappear into the mist and wonder exactly how he can beat the man who beat cancer, the man who can still make the impossible seem possible.

Meanwhile, Dutchman Servais Knaven won yesterday's 17th stage.

For the second stage in succession neither Armstrong nor Ullrich made any significant attempt to steal a march on the other.

Instead, it was one of the lesser lights of the peloton who grabbed the limelight as 32-year-old Knaven claimed his first ever stage win.