This is the overall classification jersey. The rider who wears the Yellow Jersey is the rider who has completed the race in the least cumulative time. What this means is that the rider doesn't have to win every stage or, actually, any stage but has to be consistently good. On the sprint stages, he has to finish in the pack. In the time trials, he must finish in the top ten or fifteen at least (preferably in the top five). Where the leader in this classification usually must excel is in the high mountains, finishing in the top five on several stages when the road goes upwards. Given these criteria, the stages to watch will be stages 7 and 19, the long time trials, and stages 13, 15 and 16. The last three are mountain stages with uphill finishes. Stage 17 might be important if the race is still close but I'm guessing there will be a long breakaway on that stage with the Yellow Jersey leaders marking each other and waiting for the last individual time trial on stage 19.
So whose going to win this thing? Well, that depends on who actually gets to race? Right now, two of the contenders seem to have question marks looming over their heads. Vinokourov has the problem of riding for a team that has been asked by the race not to start. The team will most certainly come if it's allowed to by the sport's governing body but that's got to be tough. Vino is a strong, attacking rider who isn't the best climber or time trialist. He's what's known as a rolleur; the type of rider who can attack on almost any terrain but is best when the course becomes undulating with a short, hard climb. Vino's finished third once and was fifth last year and has banked his whole season on this race. The other rider who is in trouble is Jan Ullrich who has ridden eight Tours and never finished lower than 4th including a win way back in 1997. Ullrich has been circumstantially linked to a doping operation in Spain that was discovered last month. While it is unlikely that he will be excluded from the Tour on the present evidence, the situation has to be a huge distraction for him. Ullrich is a good climber but is probably the best time trialist in the world right now. It is possible that one or both of these riders will be missing from the start line this year.
Other contenders include Ivan Basso, winner of this year's Tour of Italy, Francesco Mancebo, last year's fourth place finisher, Alejandro Valverde, Aussie Cadel Evans and two Americans: Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer. Basso crushed his competition in Italy and has had an excellent buildup for this race. The problem is that doing two Grand Tours at the top level is extremely hard. Will he have the extra burst he needs when the contenders turn up the pressure? In the Giro, Basso looked like he had purposely copied Lance Armstrong's game plan and was dominant in the mountians. If the same thing happens in the Tour, he'll be hard to beat. Mancebo is a good, solid rider who probably can't win but may step up onto the podium. Evans can climb but his time trialing skills aren't exactly at the top level. Floyd has had an excellent season so far winning several hard weeklong stage races including the Tour of Georgia and Paris-Nice. He can ride at an incredible level but in the past has lacked the winning burst to take him away from the others inthe mountains. This year's results indicate that he's picked that up. Leipheimer is coming fresh off a win at the big Tour build-up race known as the Duaphine Libere. He's not excellent at anything but is one of the better climbers and may be able to hang with the favorites in all the mountian stages. Levi's big problem seems to be that he always has a bad day (much like Vino does) in the long races. Finally, the Discovery team is bringing a whole cadre of possible GC contenders. My pick is actually Jose Azevedo who has finished fifth a couple of times in the past riding for Joseba Beloki and Lance Armstrong. He has a legitimate chance at finishing on the podium if he's given the support of the team.
So, looking things over, here's what I think. Ullrich and Landis will be the strongest time trialists of the bunch. Given that both time trial stages are pretty long, this favors them. Basso and Valverde are the best climbers but Valverde has never finished a Tour and I can't help but think he'll have a bad day or two and lose too much time in the time trials to win. If Basso has recovered from the Giro, it'll be hard to beat him when the road goes up. In fact, I think Ullrich's going to have a really hard time following the leaders if they decide to surge away from him. Floyd will be able to hang with Basso for most of the climbs and won't lose too much time. The same is probably true for Azevedo and Mancebo. Azevedo isn't a good time trialist nor is Mancebo (top 15 and maybe top 10 but no higher). So here's some predictions:
(1) The prologue will set the GC for a few stages. I like American Dave Zabriskie here. David Millar may shock everyone in his comeback from a doping suspension but I think the pressure will be a bit too much for him.
(2) Dave will give up the jersey after a couple of stages to one of the sprinters; most likely Boonen or McEwen (I'd vote Boonen given the stage finishes in Belgium).
(3) The stage 7 time trial will select the favorites i think just like the stage 5 time trial in Metz in 1999 showed that Armstrong was a force to be reckoned with. I'd like to pick Zabriskie here again but I have a feeling he'll be asked to hold back to ride for Basso so I'm going to go with Ullrich with Landis close behind.
(4) Stage 10 will see the Vino attack and put time into everyone. Maybe he'll grab the jersey from Ullrich.
My final top ten looks like:
Basso
Landis
Vinokourov
Azevedo
Leipheimer
Evans
Ullrich
Mancebo
Valverde
Hincapie
Now, I reserve the right to change this if Ullrich and/or Vinokourov get excluded and if I see that the time trials are hillier than I've been led to believe. Don't be too surprised if one of these guys drops out in the first ten days. It seems to happen about every other year that one of the big pre-race favorites isn't on form or gets sick. We'll see this year.
