I am coming off of a six week break during which I mostly rested and recovered from the two broken ribs I suffered in the Spring Classic as well as a few other injuries. I started racing again in Philadelphia in the United States Professional Championship and have pretty much been racing consistently throughout June.

	George Hincapie was the 1998 U.S. Pro Champion.

I came into France on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, we did some team time trials training on the course where we tried out our formations and got a feel for the course. It went well and I think the team's pretty prepared strategically.

The press this year has been totally hectic compared to last year. As soon as we walk outside of the hotel, there's just a swarm of people. You also have to keep at least 10 or 15 feet away from Lance Armstrong, because there's 20 or 30 cameramen surrounding him everywhere he goes. They just go crazy over him.

Last year, nobody expected us to control the race the way we did, so we only got a taste of mass attention. However, this year, there's a lot more. We've spent the whole winter and spring preparing for this kind of attention, knowing that there would be a lot more pressure on us. But there's no sense of shock this year; we're definitely ready for the challenge of repeating.

While I would love to win a stage, my real goal is to win the overall team competition. If that means that some of us have to sacrifice ourselves in order for Lance to win the race, we won't hesitate. The priority is the team and nothing else.

While it's difficult to predict how the prologue is going to go on Saturday (ABC, 3 p.m. ET), it's relatively long -- 16 kilometers. It's usually only about seven kilometers. The real strong guys, the guys that are going for the win are going to be up there near the front on Saturday. Our full team game plan really depends on how Lance does on Saturday.

Last year, for instance, when Lance was leading, it was important for us to control the race so Lance would be able to expend as little energy as possible. We also make sure that no dangerous breakaways take place with someone who's in contention generating a big time gap on Lance. If that happens, we have to chase it down.

I think this race is going to be a big psychological battle between the real contenders -- Alex Zulle (Spain), Lance, Marco Pantani (Italy) and Jan Ullrich (Germany). Whoever wins Saturday's stage is going to have a lot of pressure on him right off the bat, but it's also important to win it, because it's a real test of a rider's ability.

For more information on George Hincapie, visit his web site at www.hincapie.com/2000tdf.html.