Challans (France): Germany’s Jan Ullrich, the 1997 Tour de France winner, was injured in a freak training accident on the eve of the Tour’s start on Friday but escaped mostly unhurt.

A T-Mobile said that Ullrich, one of Lance Armstrong’s leading rivals for Tour victory, crashed into his team manager Mario Kummer’s car after he was forced to brake unexpectedly.

Ullrich hit the rear windscreen, which smashed into pieces, and suffered cuts near the throat.

The spokesman said the German, a five times Tour runner-up, was treated by the team doctor, who said the bruises and cuts were only superficial.

Meanwhile, Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc, who will retire in 2006, paid homage to Lance Armstrong but said he would have liked him to be “closer to the people”.

“I would have liked him to be more available, closer to the people,” Leblanc said of the American whose record six Tour wins in a row marked his long term at the helm of cycling’s showcase race.

“Maybe the suspicions that have sometimes been uttered against him in France played a part in the distance he kept with the crowds as he was always very open and friendly to me.”