After smashing the apposition in last year's Tour Down Under, Spanish cycling team Liberty Seguros enters this week not quite knowing what to expect.

Defending champion Luis Sanchez struggled through the off-season after the death of his brother; highly-rated Australian team member Allan Davis does not consider himself a strong chance for the overall win and the team is younger overall than the combination that competed last year.

Sanchez, 22, will try this week to become the first winner in the Tour's eight-year history to successfully defend his title.

He confirmed his overall win on the crucial fifth stage at Willunga, finishing second as Liberty Seguros incredibly filled the top four places.

"I've had a difficult off-season and I've come to this race and (will) take it day-by-day," he said.

"The team that has come this year is a lot younger....what we're lacking in experience, we'll make up in motivation."

Sanchez's brother died in October after a quad bike accident.

Davis finished second overall last year in the Tour behind his team-mate.

His off-season training has focused on March, when he plans to ride in the prestigious Milan-San Remo classic and then return to Australia for the Commonwealth Games road race.

"I will be honest, I don't think I'm fit enough to ride general (classification) here, I'm fit enough, but I just don't have the race fitness," he said.

"Saying that, this sort of race, a breakaway will go and you find yourself there and you're in the general classification for the whole week."

Other key riders, including Australian sprint star Robbie McEwen and his Norwegian rival Thor Hushovd, are saying much the same thing.

But how much of this is bluff and how much is realism will only become clear over the next six days.

Hushovd won the green jersey category in last year's Tour de France for the first time, ending the three-year domination by Australian riders.

McEwen finished third in the category after winning it in 2002 and '04.

The local event's elevation to a higher international category means the traditional street circuit opener, which McEwen has won the last two years, has been dropped from the official Tour.

Instead, the race on Tuesday night at Adelaide's East End will be a stand-alone event, called the Tour Down Under Classic.

The Tour itself will start on Wednesday with a 148km road stage from the northern Adelaide suburb of Mawson Lakes to the Barossa Valley town of Angaston.

While sprinters such as McEwen and Hushovd will put on their high-speed show at some point through the week, the Australian ace predicted his younger compatriots could provide the overall winner.

He pointed to Will Walker, the 20-year-old phenomenon who won last Saturday's national championship road race, but under race rules could only be awarded the under-23 Australian jersey.

"Definitely, the young guys you saw doing well at the national championships the other day, the whole SouthAustralia.com team, the United Water team, the UniSA team, a lot of these young guys have really built up to the Tour Down Under," McEwen said.

"As one of the senior members of the peloton, each year it gets harder to come into form quickly and these young guys come up really quick."

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