Lance Armstrong is a rider who was (and may still be) perfectly suited to the Tour de France. He excels in two disciplines. He was exceptional at long time trials, an individual race against the clock, and mountain climbing – particularly the extremely long but not ultra-steep climbs of the Tour. The overall winner of the Tour de France must be amongst the best in both of these disciplines. Armstrong trained exclusively for the Tour, practising the climbs and the time trial courses again and again until he knew them perfectly. And he had a team featuring many of the best riders in the field, who rode not for their own glory but purely to support Armstrong.

In other races – indeed, in flatter stages on the Tour – Armstrong just rode with the bunch; his particular gifts didn’t help him when the road was flat and he’s riding with other cyclists. Indeed, for many one-day races, he acted as water bottle-fetcher – domestique – for his teammates. Throughout the period where he won the Tour, the only other races of note that he won were the Dauphine Libere – a traditional Tour warm-up featuring a mountainous course, and the Tour de Georgia – the closest thing he had to a home race, one featuring a couple of challenging climbs, and one in which he might be expected to put in a particular effort.

The Tour Down Under features many things, but high mountains aren’t one of them. The biggest climb is the Willunga Hill – a total ascent of only 227 metres at the moderate gradient of 7.6%. It’s a nice little hill, but hardly the kind of behemoth on which Armstrong breaks his rivals. And there’s no individual time trial, either. Most of the stages will come down to a bunch sprint, at which Armstrong is positively pedestrian at compared to sprinters like Robbie McEwen.

The Tour will be Armstrong’s first race in three years. It’s on a type of course in which, even at his peak, he didn’t win on. And, frankly, there’s not much incentive for him to bust a gut trying; over-exerting in the South Australian heat at this time of year might throw his training schedule out of whack. At most, he might have a crack on the Willunga Hill stage, but possibly not even that.

This is the equivalent of Tiger Woods in Australia for a pre-season practice round after a long layoff. Or Shane Warne playing a charity match on a green wicket that won’t turn. He’ll sign autographs, attend dinners, and ride around in the bunch. Yes, it’s interesting, but let’s not treat it more seriously than it deserves.