Back in 1965, the renowned French film director Louis Malle made a superb documentary on the Tour de France, titled “Pour un Maillot Jaune” (“For a Yellow Jersey”). There was no commentary to the film. Malle used the sounds and sights of the Tour, and inserted a dramatic soundtrack that switched between total silence and haunting, throbbing techno music. It was not a story of the race. The race told its own story, and produced a totally unexpected winner, an Italian who was a last-minute replacement and riding his first Tour. His name: Felice Gimondi.

Forty years later, there could again be a surprise winner. Lance Armstrong is of course favored to win the 92nd Tour, starting with Saturday’s 19km individual time trial in western France. But the Texan is by no means a shoo-in – either for this opening time trial, or the race itself. In fact, it’s somewhat presumptive of the six-time defending champion and his Discovery Channel team that Armstrong is riding this opening stage on a bike that has a stylized No. 7 painted on the fork by former New York graffiti artist Lenny McGurr, aka Futura.

Aren’t cyclists superstitious? And isn’t Lance courting with disaster in making this brash statement? An initial answer will come Saturday evening around 7:10 pm local time, when Armstrong crosses the stage 1 finish line.

This Tour kick-off is not a straightforward prologue. Some significant time gaps can be created on this almost dead-straight course across the island of Noirmoutier. Starting from the ferry port at Fromentine, the time trial has a few twists and turns in the opening 2km, then heads over a curving concrete bridge to the course high point 114 feet above the narrow strait between the mainland and the island. The next 11km is on a flat divided highway before a few final curves and turns into the town of Noirmoutier

After a calm, overcast morning, the weather forecast calls for sunny conditions, temperatures in the upper-70s and a west wind gusting to 20 mph. That will be a three-quarter head wind for most of the point-to-point course, and will greatly disadvantage the lightly built climbers.

Final starter Armstrong is the favorite to win, but he could be upset on such a drag-strip-type course by any of a half-dozen pretenders including Jan Ullrich of T-Mobile, Brad McGee of Française des Jeux, Fabian Cancellara of Fassa Bortolo, Michael Rogers of Quick Step-Innergetic, Michael Rich or Levi Leipheimer of Gerolsteiner, Santiago Botero or Floyd Landis of Phonak, Ivan Basso or David Zabriskie of CSC, or perhaps Vladimir Karpets of Illes Balears.

The last time there was a comparable start to the Tour was at Futuroscope in 2000, when the traditional 8km-or-shorter prologue was replaced by a rolling 16.5km TT. That time, a youthful David Millar surprised Armstrong, beating him by two seconds. French all-rounder Laurent Jalabert took third, 13 seconds back. The only time the Tour has visited Noirmoutier Island was in 1999, when stage 2 crossed the bridge and quickly left the island by the infamous Passage du Gois causeway — where eventual Tour runner-up Alex Zülle was one of many who came to grief in a couple of pileups on the causeway’s slick cobblestones.

There are no such dangers Saturday, but Armstrong is certainly flirting with fate with that No. 7 fork. So this initial race pour un maillot jaune might well have a dramatic ending.