Cycling: Lance back, so are rumours

France's anti-doping crusaders are stockpiling needles for testing blood and cups for sampling urine, and two new books on Lance Armstrong have just been released in France.

Must be about time for the Tour de France.

The seven-time champion is back from retirement, four years after his last victory. Teammate Alberto Contador, the 2007 winner and pre-race favorite, returns after Astana wasn't allowed to compete last year. They are allies, but could become rivals too.

The race starts next Sunday with a challenging 15.5km prologue in Monaco.

The pack will then head out along the Mediterranean, through the Pyrenees, across central France, into the Alps and then up the fabled Mont Ventoux a day before the July 26 finish in Paris.

Riders will dip into Spain, Switzerland and Italy during the 3,500km trek and face 20 major mountain climbs during the three weeks.

Tour designers have spiced up the route and revived some rules from the good old days in hopes that fans will have something - anything - to get their minds off the drug use that has marred cycling's premier event in recent years.

Judges from UCI, the sport's governing body, have rolled out their "biological passport" anti-doping scheme, in which samples were taken from 840 professional riders to determine their body chemistry profiles.

Any suspicious fluctuation from those levels could lead to penalties. For Armstrong, who famously insisted he was the world's most-tested athlete during his glory years and has never tested positive, the welcome back to a still largely suspicious France may not be warm.

Just weeks before the Tour's start, two books - La Grande Imposture (the Great Impostor) by anti-doping doctor Jean-Pierre Mondenard and Le Sale Tour (The Dirty Tour) by Pierre Ballester and David Walsh - have come out in France to capitalise on the media frenzy over the American's comeback. Both books lay out repeated suspicions about Armstrong over the years, though neither breaks significant new ground.

Doping allegations have already depleted the field this year: Spain's Alejandro Valverde, the winner of the Dauphine Libere stage race and the top cyclist this year in the UCI rankings, has been forced to sit out because he is banned in Italy - which the Tour visits on July 21 - over doping allegations.

This Tour also offers some blasts from the past, including a team time trial in Stage 4 - the first since 200.5

Other innovations include an uphill finish at the moonscape-like Mont Ventoux in the penultimate stage - an effort to dangle sporting suspense all the way up to the traditional cruise on Paris' Champs-Elysees for the finish.

Mont Ventoux's inclusion almost seems tailor-made for Armstrong, who has called it the toughest Tour climb "bar none" - and one he has never won at cycling's showpiece event.

With Valverde out, the smart money will be on Contador. He sat out last year when Astana was barred from racing because of a doping scandal in 2007.

Other pre-race favourites include fellow Spaniard and 2008 Tour winner Carlos Sastre; Cadel Evans of Australia, runner-up last year and in 2007; and Denis Menchov, a Russian who won the Giro d'Italia in May.

Even though he's 37, and these days a support rider for Contador (at least from the start), Armstrong can never be counted out.

He finished a strong 12th in the Giro, and his rivals know that the man once known simply as "The Boss" has an unparalleled ability to dominate minds in the pack.