Do you all watch cycling? Look Jan is a tremendously talented rider, but he hasn;t won anything in years. He simply doesn;t train hard enough. Until Jan beats lance in either the mountains or a time trial this year he is no more of a threat than pantani would be if he was racing. Botero cracks in every race one day and looses tons of time. He wins mountain stages against lance but only when he is allowed to espace early because he is already down by 15 minutes, 2004 i might give it to him, but honestly he does not have the consistency to be considered a contender.
On the other hand lance could be beating if the right people were racing...and working to break him. Last year Gonzalez-Galdeano and beloki should have worked together to try and crack lance early in stages. Yeah you will probably fail but it is the only way. If the race had more dangerous people working together i think that a solid riders like jan, beloki, gonalez, hamilton, simoni, cadel evanns, heras (for himself), frigo, aitor gonzalez, francisco perez (if he wasn;t doping) could challenge. With some of these riders not racing and others riding for a podium and not a win I think that this tour will easily go lances way. Just look at the results from the dauphine-libre. Lance is looking good in the mountains and crushing the best of the world in a time trial. Furthermore, despite a 20th place finish, I think (and tyler hamilton) thinks that lance was the strongest rider in liege.