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

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Here I am at the last minute for a few predictions for this year's Tour de France. The race is one of the most interesting in years with four past champions racing (Sastre, Contador, Pereiro and Armstrong) and a bevy of strong contenders who have placed on the podium in the past (Kloden, Leipheimer, Evans, and Menchov) plus some new talent in Frank and Andy Schleck, Vandevelde, and Kruziger. There's a good bit of drama as four of the contenders actually ride for the same team which is sometimes a recipe for disaster. As always, the race uncovers who the strongest rider is.

So who do I think will win what?

Green Sprinter's Jersey: Four names here-Mark Cavendish, Thor Hushovd, Tom Boonen and Oscar Freire. THe last three have won the jersey in past tours and Cavendish is the best sprinter on the planet right now. From the looks of it there are some 10-11 stages that a sprinter might have a chance at. Four or five of those are pretty flat and suit Cavendish but the rest require that the rider make it over a few medium size climbs in good shape. Those will suit Freire who is the best guy going up hill of the four. He's the guy I would pick to win the Maillot Vert but his back isn't always so good for a three week race. Still I think it'll go down like this: Freire, Hushovd, Boonen, Cavensih, Farrar.

Polka Dotted Mountain Jersey: This is a real toss up. The guy who's won this the last few years has either been doping or has vanished off the face of the earth. To win this you have to be a guy with climbing talent that's good enough to win the race and either dominate the race or give up your chances to win the whole thing to win this jersey. Usually that points to a climber who doesn't time trial really well. The guy I'd liek to see win this is Christophe Moreau who has finsihed fourth in the Tour once in the past and isn't a bad climber. It's his last Tour and the French need to get something out of this race. The last few years he's made some noise about going for the jersey but has never seemed to give it his all. Maybe this year is his year. Otherwise I see one of the guys from one of the two Spanish teams but I honestly don't know which one. So I'll go with Moreau and leave it at that.

General Classification Yellow Jersey: I could go on and on for paragraphs as to who will win and why but there are two points to make here. First, if you're not on a team that can team time trial then you're going to lose at least a minute on stage four and that's going to be hard to make up. This makes things hard for Evans and Periero who don't have good teams for this discipline. If you don't recover well, then you're going to die in the time trial/Mont Ventoux double at the end of the race which will likely take Vandevelde out due to his recent injuries in the Giro. In between at least one favorite will explode and fall by the wayside and another will crash and end his chances. Having a strong team with several dangerous riders will help tactically but it's the guy who has the best day on the Ventoux who wins the race. By the way, if Armstrong's out of contention and the Astana is strong enough to protect Contador without his, expect Lance to do everything he can to win the Ventoux stage. So here's who I think will win:

1. Contador (really stepping out on a limb here)
2. Andy Schleck
3. Armsrong
4. Sastre
5. Evans

Periero, Frank Schleck, Leipheimer, Kruziger and Kirchen will all finish in the top 10. I don't think VDV will. Astana will win the team competition over Saxo Bank and Columbia-HTC. Cavendish will win three stages.

Today's ITT stage: Astana's sending Lance off early in case the wind comes up so that'll be interesting because it'll give Leipheimer and Contador good time checks to ride against. Miller, Dave Z. and Cancellara will also do good rides here. Hincapie may do well also. I'm going to go Cancellara, Contador, Dave z. as my top three.

We'll see what happens.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |