Germany's Jan Ullrich will make his 2006 season cycling debut at the Tour de Romandie starting in Geneva on Tuesday.

Ullrich's early season training has been plagued by a knee injury, but he has recently been working hard with his personal coach in Italy and now feels ready to race.

"I'm completely back on track. Now I can put my push hard on the pedals and my knee doesn't hurt," Ullrich said recently.

"Even after doing speed training, where I pace behind a motorbike, I don't have any problems anymore."

Ullrich will ride with many of the same T-Mobile team-mates who will support him during the Tour de France in July, including Eddy Mazzoleni of Italy and Oscar Sevilla of Spain.

Ullrich won the Tour de France in 1997 when he was just 23 years old but then never managed to beat Lance Armstrong, who won seven consecutive editions of the Tour between 1999 and 2005.

Ullrich is not expected to challenge for overall victory this week but will use the race to test his form before deciding if he will ride the Giro d'Italia starting on May 6.

Favorites for victory in Switzerland include Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner and new ProTour leader Alejandro Valverde of Spain, 2005 Giro d'Italia winner Paolo Savoldelli (Discovery Channel), aggressive Swiss rider Alexandre Moos (Phonak) and Australia's Bradley McGee (Francaise des Jeux).

The six days of racing start with a short 3.4km prologue time trial around Geneva's city center and end with a 20.4km individual time-trial to the Olympic stadium in Lausanne on Sunday.

The other stages are spread across the south east of Switzerland with 10 major climbs in the mountains.

Friday's 164km third stage ends with a climb to Leysin at an altitude of 1318 meters, while Saturday's 127km stage includes a climb to the ski resort of Crans Montana.