Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Monday, July 03, 2006

It looks like normalcy has returned to the Tour and I actually had two in the top three including numbers one and two in terms of my predictions. I didn't expect Hushovd to be back to any kind of form but he was in there for all the sprints. You could tell that he was hurting after the sprints and on the podium when he took yellow but he gutted it out. De La Fuente was a warrior as well and will wear the Spotty Jersey for his suffering. I like that.

Tomorrow will be a bit harder than today. Sort of like Leige-Bastogne-Leige or Amstel Gold but not quite as hard. The Tour has decided to honor the Classics the last couple of days and including bits of them in their race. It won't be raced as hard as a one-day classic as well since these guys have another 18 stages to go after this one but it'll be raced hard and I don't expect the sprinters will be there right at the end going over the line at the top of the Cauberg. This stage is for the one-day hard men of the peleton. There's going to be a break again. The question is will it stick or will this play out according to a standard one-day classics script with an early break that gets gobbled up and then a race of attrition over the unrelentless series of climbs? My best guess is that since no one really wants to completely destroy their legs there will be an early break, it'll get gobbled up, there will be a race of mini-attrition with a huge attack on the last hill or the next to last hill by a guy like Boogerd or Bettini. The favorites will all stay close and watch each other and the sprinters will wait until a better day to cross swords again.

By the way, did you see Popo shepherding George up the climbs near the front today? Excellent work was done.

So, the finish....hmmm....the list of guys I like include Boogerd, Dekker, Flecha, Guerini, Voigt, O'Grady, Aerts, Valverde, Moncoutie and maybe Voekler. I really don't think anyone's really going to let Valverde get away but he may steal a victory anyway. If Boonen or Zabel get over with the group they'll take the sprint but I really don't see that happening...well, maybe Zabel. Hmmmm...OK...I'll take Dekker and Voigt in the break that gets caught and then

Boogerd
O'Grady
Valverde

but with a stage like this it's a crap shoot I think. I wish Discovery would put a guy out there. I wonder if Johan has decided to revert to the old tactics until things get sorted out a bit on stages 7 and 10. Still, watching Popo ride for George tells me that the young Ukranian is riding in a strong support role/superdomestique for this year.

We'll see tomorrow.

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