In an interview with L'Equipe this week the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, spoke about last year's winner, Carlos Sastre.

The charismatic Prudhomme - who is like a cross between Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, if you can imagine - was asked whether the Tour needs charismatic stars. "The Tour is the star," responded Prudhomme.

Alberto Contador: humble in victory

Even with the return of Lance Armstrong, he added, and in contrast to the other races on his comeback tour, there has been no increase in the number of requests for press accreditations.

He then went on to mention Sastre, and thus highlighted the juxtaposition between the two: one larger than life, the other "not a small winner of last year's Tour," as Prudhomme put it, "but humble, and in cycling, that is essential."

In most other sports this would be hogwash, especially coming from someone with the easy charm of Blair, the assured confidence of Clinton and the charisma of Obama (and I only exaggerate a little).

Humble roots

But Prudhomme's words hint at cycling's roots, when the riders - many of them farm labourers - were working class to the grime in their fingernails. Sastre embodies that tradition; Armstrong, for all that his background was hardly privileged, does not.

There is something in it, too. When you travel on the Tour, particularly as you whiz through the villages and towns of rural France, you witness an extraordinary outpouring of support - not, typically, for any rider or riders (though they might have their local favourites) - but for the event itself.

"Vive le Tour!" read the banners - and in shop windows, and in floral and other displays, the population's appreciation is obvious. Few other sporting events, if any, inspire that kind of support. Or love.

Riders like Sastre appeal, then, because they never claim to be bigger than the Tour. It is the Tour that makes them. Not the other way around.

And so to the question of who might be 'made' by the Tour this year. The favourite is Alberto Contador, Armstrong's team-mate, but a man who has more in common with his compatriot Sastre.

Contador won in 2007, then followed that up with victories in the tours of Spain and Italy last year, becoming only the fifth-ever cyclist to complete the Grand Tour treble. But he remains endearingly modest and unassuming.

On his triple crown, which matched the feat of Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx, Contador said: "Having my name alongside theirs is something I value enormously."

Outstanding favourite

On paper Contador is the outstanding favourite. Yet questions remain. If a power struggle develops within the Astana team, does he have the strength of character and backroom support to take on Armstrong?

Then there is the question of how he will cope with the pressure and expectation of being favourite. In 2007 he was brilliant, launching a series of dazzling attacks in the mountains. But for much of the race he was responding to, or escaping with, the overall leader Michael Rasmussen.

When Rasmussen was expelled from the race just days before Paris for having lied about his whereabouts to evade drugs tests, Contador inherited the yellow jersey. Not to take anything away from his victory - he was a deserving winner, with the disgraced Rasmussen subsequently handed a two-year ban - but it was an unconventional way to win.

Cadel Evans is the Australian who has finished second the last two years. While Contador can manage devastating changes of pace in the mountains, Evans's main shortcoming is that he can't. His is a diesel engine, capable only, it seems, of one speed, but maintaining it over a long time.

It was why, when Sastre launched his winning attack on Alpe d'Huez last year, Evans couldn't go with him, but ground his way up the mountain, eating into the Spaniard's advantage but incapable of closing the gap.

Snapping under pressure

Evans started last year as favourite, which proved his undoing almost from the start. He struggled to handle the pressure, snapping on several occasions in the media scrums that followed stages. "Step on my dog and I'll cut your head off!" was one memorable warning as, yes, a reporter wandered too close to his dog, whose lead Evans was holding (don't ask).

Of the others, Andy Schleck is some people's favourite. The 24-year-old from Luxembourg finished second in his first Grand Tour - the Tour of Italy in 2007 - and followed that with a solid Tour debut last year. But for a bad day - when he forgot to eat enough on the mountain stage to Hautacam - he would surely have challenged his team leader Sastre for the overall win.

Many feel that this will be Schleck's year. His older brother, Frank, should also be in the mix but he isn't quite as talented as his sibling. Other contenders will include Sastre, Russian Denis Menchov who recently won the Giro, and America's Christian Vande Velde, who finished fifth last year but is returning from horrific injuries sustained in a crash at the Giro.

Then, of course, there is Lance. Despite all the things weighed against him - his age, the broken collarbone he suffered in March and the fact that he rides on the same team as the favourite - Armstrong is sure to figure.

According to some bookies, he is second favourite... a fact that will send a shiver down the spine of a certain Spanish team-mate.

Okay, so here's a line, this is my neck, and here are my predictions:

First: Alberto Contador

Second: Cadel Evans

Third: Lance Armstrong

Fourth: Carlos Sastre

Fifth: Andy Schleck

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