AUGUSTA, GA. - His voice slipped a gear just briefly. But Lance Armstrong has one of the world's great senses of balance, and he righted himself and rolled on with perhaps the second-most difficult announcement of his career.

The 2005 Tour de France "will be my last race as a professional cyclist ... win or lose," the six-time Tour champion said Monday afternoon.

Winning would be his preference, of course — winning, he said, with the flair of Michael Jordan's farewell fadeaway jumper in the 1998 NBA Finals.

"That's kind of like a dream for an athlete," said Armstrong, 33. "We'll see if I can do it. No promises. There's 200 other guys who want to do that, too."

Jordan later came out of retirement, something Armstrong insisted he won't do.

"The passion is there, and the will to win is there, and above all, the will to win one final (Tour) and then stop is pretty compelling," he said.

On the flip side, and perhaps equally compelling, is his loathing of failure.

"All champions are concerned about losing," said Armstrong, who will take the start line today in the Tour de Georgia. "That's the fear that drives them and the fear that gets them up early. To look at your teammates, staff, sponsors and try to justify why you didn't win, especially a year like this when you won six times prior ... I don't want to face those types of questions from people very close to me. It's incredibly motivating."

Not since the 1996 news conference where a drawn but determined Armstrong, then 25, revealed he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer has he delivered news of such importance.

Overshadows Europeans

Beginning with his recovery, the Plano native's ride has been straight, unequivocal and ever upward. With his success in a field long dominated by Europeans and his inspiring comeback from cancer, Armstrong is the first U.S. cyclist to transcend his sport and has become a celebrity and marketing juggernaut.

His stature has continued to rise despite repeated allegations of doping — none ever substantiated — and the divorce that ended his seemingly charmed marriage.

Armstrong said he is choosing to bow out now because he finds it increasingly difficult to leave his three young children — his 5-year-old son, Luke, and twin 3-year-old daughters, Isabelle and Grace — for long periods to race and train in Europe. He also said that at 33 going on 34, he knows the window of his prime is beginning to slide shut.

"The Tour, while it's an older man's race, it's not an old man's race," he said.

Yet it's clear Armstrong is still getting used to the imminent new reality, and he blanched a bit when one reporter used a common verb.

"Do we have to use the word quit?" Armstrong said.

After winning cycling's premier event for an unprecedented sixth time last summer, Armstrong began an internal debate about his next step. He talked about taking a year off from the Tour de France to compete in other events or take a shot at the world hour record (the longest distance covered by a cyclist in one hour). He hedged until February before making a firm commitment to ride the Tour for the Discovery Channel team.

Last month, Armstrong began hinting that he had come to a major decision about his career.

Speculation quickly spread that he had decided to retire after this season or that he might ride in another event such as the Tour of Italy.

Monday's announcement did not surprise several former teammates riding for other teams in Georgia, including Team CSC's Christian Vande Velde, who watched the announcement on television while receiving a massage.

"Why would he want to spend another year stressing and putting out fires?" said Vande Velde, who was on Armstrong's first Tour-winning team in 1999. "Now he knows he's got four more months to go and still has good form."

CSC's Bobby Julich, who rode with Armstrong in the early 1990s with the Motorola team, said he has no doubt Armstrong's exit will be as dramatic as the rest of his career.

"He's an icon in our sport, and one of the best stories ever," said Julich, who recently became the first U.S. rider to win the prestigious Paris-Nice race. "He deserves to go out on top. After this Tour de France, he doesn't have much more to prove."

Floyd Landis, one of Armstrong's former U.S. Postal Service teammates who is now riding with the Phonak team, said simply: "It should be a good show."

Georgia on his mind

The Tour de Georgia, an upstart event only 3 years old, could be remembered as Armstrong's last competition on home asphalt. Armstrong won the race last year after he elected to come back to the United States during the heart of the European racing season to spend more time with his children in the aftermath of his divorce.

Although Armstrong will have Portuguese climbing specialist Jose Azevedo riding shotgun this year, several other top Discovery riders stayed in Europe to compete in the classic races. They include Armstrong's longtime sidekick George Hincapie, who recently finished a close second in the venerable Paris-Roubaix race.

The Discovery squad in Georgia will feature young talents Tom Danielson and Jason McCartney, both in their first year with the team, along with Tour de France veterans Viatcheslav Ekimov of Russia and Jose Luis Rubiera of Spain.