Tour de France: Lance Armstrong's last ride

What: 97th Tour de France

When: Today through July 25

Where: The 5.5-mile prologue begins in Rotterdam, Netherlands; tomorrow's 138.9-mile first stage goes from Rotterdam to Brussels, Belgium; the 20-stage tour ends in Paris

TV: Live coverage daily on Versus; prologue coverage begins at 11:30 a.m. today; see www.versus.com for complete TV information, plus live webcasts

Lance Armstrong's legacy: In his final Tour de France, Armstrong, 38, is seeking his eighth championship and first in 5 years. After successfully battling testicular cancer that metastasized to his brain and lungs, he won seven straight Tours from 1999 to 2005; he finished third in 2009.

Armstrong's team: Team Radio Shack; teammates include Andreas Kloden and Levi Leipheimer.

Over Armstrong's shoulder: Two-time winner Alberto Contador, of the Astana team, poses the greatest threat to the Texas superstar. Other contenders include Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso, and two-time Tour runner-up Cadel Evans; among the top sprinters are American Tyler Farrar, Australian Robbie McEwen, Spain's Oscar Freire, and Thor Hushovd and Mark Cavendish, who won six stages last year.

Runup to the Tour: Armstrong crashed at the Tour of California in May and exited the race, and had a couple of bouts of stomach/intestinal illness this spring. Since then, he finished third at the Tour of Luxembourg and second at the Tour of Switzerland, both last month.

The race: Only one individual time trial was scheduled, on the penultimate day of the race. Four stages will be in the Pyrenees mountains that straddle the French-Spanish border. Tuesday's Stage 3 from Wanze, Belgium, to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut, France, features 8 miles of cobblestones.

Armstrong says: "With my age, and the explosiveness of the other guys, my own struggles with the time trials in the last couple of years . . . we'll have to be smart, to be a bit lucky, to play the team card a little bit."

Armstrong tweets: @lancearmstrong