Ullrich up for 'epic' with Armstrong
"I couldn't be more motivated. I'm working like mad to be in top condition and I suspect it'll be the same for him in his last Tour.
"It should be an epic race," said the 1997 Tour winner and five-time runner-up.
Ullrich, 31, is confident he can end Armstrong's run. "I am not interested in finishing second," he said.
Armstrong, 33, made history in 2004 by becoming the first man to win six Tours in succession but Ullrich has confidence in his own ability.
"I am an optimist and I know what I can do," continued Ullrich.
Armstrong, who beat testicular cancer before winning his first Tour in 1999, remains focused on adding to his record six wins in Paris. The American, who bettered the five Tour titles of Eddy Merckx, the late Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain in 2004, is cautiously optimistic about the 2005 race.
"Can I win this year? I'm not sure, but I'll try," he said. "If I was to win it, I would be the oldest champion in modern history and my dream is to go out on top. But I'm scared of going one race too many. All champions worry about losing - it's the fear that gets them up early."
Armstrong was given only a 40% chance of survival in 1994 after doctors discovered he had testicular cancer which spread to his lungs and brain. But he beat the odds and went on to become a global sporting icon.
Whether Armstrong or Greg Lemond win the popularity stakes when it comes to post-retirement voting is largely irrelevant. Armstrong wins hands down when it comes to providing drama on and off the bike.
But whether he ranks along a host of cycling greats to have graced Europe's tough one-day classics, and mountains of France and Italy in the three-week Tours, is a question which many fans will debate for years to come.
Eddy Merckx, considered cycling's greatest ever champion, won five yellow jerseys - and on that score Armstrong has bettered the legendary Belgian, and the three other Tour greats, Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil.
However Merckx, nicknamed the "Cannibal" for his voracious victory appetite, is head and shoulders above Armstrong in overall career success.
Merckx's five yellow jerseys sit nicely alongside his five pink jerseys from winning the Tour of Italy, his seven Milan-San Remo crowns, his three cobblestone trophies from Paris-Roubaix, his five Liege-Bastogne-Liege trophies and his double from the Tour of Flanders.
Merckx was also the world champion four times, once while racing as an amateur.
But when it comes to the Tour, Armstrong has rewritten the history books.
His success, which most attribute to his own physical prowess, his determination and the strength of his team, may also be in large part down to his recovery from cancer.
Certainly, in between being cured of the disease, during which period the tough-talking Texan met his former wife and mother of his children, the 33-year-old Armstrong has proven time and again his determination to battle adversity.
Armstrong was already a promising talent in the tough world of professional European cycling when he launched an audacious bid for the world road race crown in Oslo in 1993.
He won, raising his muscular arms into the air to signal his true arrival on the scene after his second place in the one-day Zurich championship a season earlier.
To many it was a surprise. After all, plenty of other pro riders had won the world title, and gone on to otherwise average careers.
However Armstrong was different. Indeed, legendary team manager Cyrille Guimard - who had guided the likes of Bernard Hinault, Lemond and Laurent Fignon to several Tour victories - had eagerly sniffed out Armstrong's potential when he signed the brash young Texan to the Cofidis team in 1996.
On paper, it was a great career move for the American. But months down the road, Armstrong gave a press conference at which he announced the onset of cancer.
The team were shocked, but the aftermath would show Armstrong at his determined best. After trying to get rid of him, indirectly through a drastically-reduced contract offer, Cofidis would perhaps go on to regret not sticking with the American.
Armstrong's return from the sick bed in 1998 was tentative. But slowly, the rebuilt American - who had seen his weight plummet and his hair fall out during cancer treatment - found his way back into the peloton.
His new team, US Postal, was headed by former professional rider Johan Bruyneel, a Belgian who like Guimard saw Tour-winning potential in the American.
It was Bruyneel who really convinced Armstrong he had what it takes to win the world's toughest bike race, and together they went on to build a team to that effect.
Six years on, having rewritten the race's history books, Armstrong is still threatening to stamp his rivals into the ground on the legendary climbs of the Alps and Pyrenees.
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