Tour de France riders go for Olympic gold

ATHENS, Greece, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Less than a month after the conclusion of the Tour de France, many of that event's top performers will compete Saturday in the Olympic road race.

The biggest star of all, however, will not be among them.

Six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will skip these Games, but his American United Postal Service teammates George Hincapie and Bobby Julich will take part in Saturday's race.

Hincapie hopes to improve on his eighth-place finish in Sydney four years ago.

"My goal here is to win a medal," he said. "But it will be difficult. There are a lot of favorites."

Jan Ullrich of Germany, Armstrong's chief rival through his six years of Tour domination, will compete Saturday. So will Andreas Kloden, who last month emerged as a potential Tour de France winner of the future.

Sprinters such as Erik Zabel of Germany and Stuart O'Grady of Australia hope to be around at the end of the six-hour ride so they can grab a medal, just as they have won Tour de France stages over the years.

French champion Thomas Voeckler, who led this year's Tour for more than a week, is also entered.