Cycling to prove itself at Tour Down Under

LANCE Armstrong's doping confessions have ensured the eyes of the world remain focused on the Santos Tour Down Under.

LANCE Armstrong's doping confessions have ensured the eyes of the world remain focused on the Santos Tour Down Under.

After the disgraced champion finally admitted that he had cheated and lied throughout his seven Tour de France victories, it is up to this current 133-man peloton to show the world that the dawn of a new cycling era will start in Adelaide on Tuesday.

Armstrong is now the devil and the sceptics will continue to use the Texan's lies in an effort to prove the sport is laden with dishonesty.

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The young men here in Adelaide will carry that burden, but they are the new gods of hope at the start of the WorldTour's new season.

The rebirth of cycling starts in Adelaide's East End tonight from 7pm with friendly fire during the People's Choice Classic, but Tuesday heralds the new dawn - providing all the liars and cheats come clean.

While critics says there's more dirty linen to be uncovered, the sport needs superstars like UCI road world champion Philippe Gilbert, last year's TDU champion Simon Gerrans and 2010 Tour de France winner Andy Schleck to put on a show worthy of running the Armstrong saga off the planet.

But Schleck said today's TDU peloton was paying a huge price for an era - from the mid-1990s until 2005 - which was laden with drug cheats.

"All this happened with Armstrong when I was 15 years old," said Schleck, RadioShack Leopard Trek's prized rider at the TDU.

"It's not a real surprise (Armstrong's confession) and I believe it's no surprise for anybody.

"I think it's good for him to get some weight off his shoulders and I believe the sad thing is that we have to pay the price ... for something that happened 15 years ago."

Orica-GREENEdge's Gerrans believes the current group of riders is clean ahead of the 15th TDU.

Gerrans said he was primed to defend his crown when the gun fires on Tuesday morning on Prospect Rd to start the Tour, which winds up at the Stage 6 finish on King William Rd next Sunday afternoon.

"I think we really want to focus on what's going on now," Gerrans said.

"We're doing everything we can for the sport and I think it's up to everybody to judge what we do with it from now on.

"There is obviously a lot of pressure in this race.

"This year the pressure is a little bit less we really proved ourselves last year.

"This year I'm motivated being the champion but I want to do well but the pressure is spread a little bit more evenly."

All 19 teams' tacticians and team captains will be tested during the six stages of the race.

But the talk among the peloton is no longer Stage 5 - the wretched Old Willunga Hill.

This race is no longer custom-built for sprinters.

Two-time TDU champion Andre Greipel has written himself off not because he's not in form.

He's very concerned about Wednesday's Stage 2 from Mt Barker to Rostrevor, which looms as the mother of the stage race.

If one team decides that Stage 2's Corkscrew Rd's steep 2.4 km climb is built for an early overall stage winner, the race could become a formality by Wednesday at about 2pm in front of Montacute Rd's Campbelltown City Council chambers.

Images of Patrick Jonker's 2004 TDU overall win come to mind when the ex-UniSA rider barnstormed up Gorge Rd before the adopted South Australian claimed Stage 2 convincingly.

The peloton was unable to catch Jonker throughout the rest of the week before he claimed to main prize.

History could be repeated nine years later if one team decides to send out a rider with a plan of continual attack from the off, after some sprinters took a look at Corkscrew Rd knowing a stage win was now their only hope.