TORONTO - Coming off a fifth-place finish at the Giro D'Italia, Canadian Ryder Hesjedal embarks on his seventh Tour de France campaign Saturday.

And the 34-year-old from Victoria, one of three designated co-leaders on the Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycling team, believes the 21-stage 3,360-kilometre route is well set up for him.

Hesjedal often thrives when the going gets tough.

"Definitely that's part of the excitement," Hesjedal said in an interview. "Basically from Stage 10 on it's all hard-knocks stages. So really the second half of the race is where I think I can show well."

"It's the Tour de France, every day is going be something and anything can happen like all Tours," he added. "But I think this route suits me well."

The other Cannondale-Garmin team co-leaders are American Andrew Talansky and Britain's Dan Martin.

"It's my seventh Tour so the numbers are on my side. Hopefully it's lucky," Hesjedal said. "I feel good, the team looks great. So all we can do is get out there and go for it."

The 102nd edition of the race kicks off Saturday in Utrecht, the Netherlands, with a 13.8-kilometre time trial. Some 198 riders from 22 teams are scheduled to start the three-week race, which concludes July 26 in Paris.

Svein Tuft of Langley, B.C., will be riding for the Orica-GreenEdge team, taking part in his third Tour de France. As a support rider, he was 131st last year.

Hesjedal did not enter last year's Tour de France, focusing instead on the Giro D'Italia and the Spanish Vuelta. He made Canadian cycling history in 2012 when he won the Giro.

Hesjedal's best overall finish in the Tour de France was fifth in 2010.

Tuft, meanwhile, is returning from an injury-plagued start to the season. He injured shoulder ligaments in the Tirreno–Adriatico stage race in March before fracturing his wrist and suffering a nasty chest injury when he crashed into a guardrail during the Tour de Romandie in April.

Tuft said the injuries could have been worse had he not been carrying water bottles down the front of his jersey which served as a buffer when he hit a metal pole.

"If someone had told me in the last week of April that Svein would be ready for the Tour de France I would have been surprised," Orica-GreenEdge sport director Matt White said in announcing his team.

"His has been a very different preparation than in previous years, but hats off to him, the way he has gone about his comeback from a pretty traumatic injury, to even be on the start line and ready to race the Tour is a big achievement."

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