If Andre Greipel wins a stage at this year's Tour de France, look behind him and you'll see New Zealand's Greg Henderson punching his fist into the air.

Success for Henderson at the Tour won't have anything to do with getting any stage wins for himself, but helping his Lotto-Belisol team-mate to be the first across the line and ultimately end up in a green jersey as the Tour's best sprinter.

The 35-year-old Henderson will be riding in his first Tour, which begins with a 6.4km prologue in Liege, Belgium tonight.

It was a great achievement for Henderson to finally make it onto the sports' biggest stage, especially as he was overlooked when with his previous team, Sky, the past two seasons.

But he has settled into his new Belgian team well and reformed his partnership with Greipel as the German sprinter's lead-out man.

The relationship between a team's sprinter and his lead-out rider is one of the most crucial in professional cycling.

The rider who's going for glory has to have complete faith that his lead-out man will deliver him to the right place in the bunch 200m from the line, while the lead-out man will need speed and sometimes brute strength to fight his way past other riders.

Henderson and Greipel rode together at the Columbia-High Road team between 2007 and 2009 and after frustrating seasons for both last year, they agreed to work together for 2012.

"Last year Greipel had a few problems in the sprint, he only won seven races the whole year, just because he didn't have a guy he could trust to deliver him to the final 200m," said Henderson.

"We chatted away last year and I said to him I was looking to change teams and I'd be really happy to work with you again.

"He was really keen to have me and we worked well together straight away. In the first race of the season he won and he's already won 14 races this year, thanks to me and the team."

The contest for the yellow jersey, the race's general classification winner, should come down to a straight fight between Britain's Bradley Wiggins and the defending champion from Australia, Cadel Evans.

But the battle to be the wearer of the green jersey is more complex. Points are given out for the position riders cross the line in each stage's intermediate sprint and across the finish line, whoever has the most points wears the jersey.

Greipel and Mark Cavendish, from the Isle of Man, are two of the leading sprinters in the Tour. The rivalry between Greipel and Cavendish is intense.

They used to be team-mates but wouldn't enter the same races.

In 2010 when Cavendish cleaned up in the Tour, while Greipel won other stage races, Cavendish said: "If I wanted to get s... small wins, I'd race s... small races."

There will be no love lost between them at this year's Tour and although Cavendish had the better of Greipel in last year's Tour, Henderson is anticipating the tables will be turned this time.

"You have to realise that Mark has had the perfect lead-out for four or five years now and that's why he's had bigger victories than Andre," said Henderson.

"In my opinion, there are three guys in the peloton with the same speed. There is Marcel Kittel the new guy [from Germany, riding for Argus], Andre and Cavendish. It all depends out of those three who gets the perfect delivery to win the stage.

"For the last four years Cav had this amazing train, but now he's shifted to Sky where there is the focus with Bradley Wiggins.

"It is quite possible that Cav can win a stage or two at the Tour, but he isn't going to have it all his own way like he has in the past because the team Sky are taking is predominantly for Bradley to win the overall.

"If there is ever a year where Bradley can win the overall it's this year because of all of the time trialling that's in it.

"Cav is left there with one or two guys to help him with the sprint.

"You look at Kittel, he has his whole team for the sprint and Andre has got six guys to help him for the sprint.

"So there are going to be some interesting sprints in the Tour this year." Fairfax NZ

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