This weekend marks the Grand Départ, in the 112th Tour de France.

Between now and the end of the month, a third of the 200 or so riders rolling out of Lille will melt in the heat of a French summer. Obviously, 99.99 per cent of humans aren’t made for that sort of silent violence.

Le Tour is hypnotically scenic, especially at the witching hour in Australia. A sporting event without comparison, yet this year a foregone conclusion in terms of a sporting contest.

Lance Armstrong could find his way back into cycling as a sponsor.Credit: Simon Letch

There will be no glorious uncertainty.

The Slovenian Tadej Pogačar, already the owner of three Tour titles, will win Le Tour barring a compound fracture of a bone or a busted lung.

After all, Pogačar is the most dominant Grand Tour cyclist of his generation, since Lance Armstrong.

Tadej Pogačar after winning a stage in the 2024 Tour de France.Credit: AP

Blasphemous, you say; don’t mention his name. Armstrong won seven Tours de France between 1999-2005. But, in 2012, it was determined that, in all actuality, he won none.

And yet, for what goes on between Armstrong’s ears at least, delusion has reigned triumphant in the 13 years that’s elapsed since the US Anti-Doping Agency delivered its reasoned decision as to why Armstrong is banned from all sport, for all time.

Nonetheless, that indelible image of Armstrong kickin’ back in his study, seven framed yellow jerseys still hanging on the wall, years after his name was stricken from the record books. Defiance, in the face of certainty and reason.

Why is any of this relevant in 2025? Pogačar was a seven-year-old the last time Armstrong stood victorious, cloaked in yellow on the Champs-Élysées. Because Armstrong is back (if indeed he ever went away).

Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France victories.Credit: AP

Not as a........

© The Sydney Morning Herald