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

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Right!

OK, what's done is done and now, On with the Tour. Here in a few minutes the Prologue's going to start and need to make a few predictions. I love the prologue. It's a short time trial that basically means next to nothing but sort of sets off the whole media and fan frenzy for the race. It's a real stage win for one rider and sets the yellow jersey. For the first time in eight years, no rider will go down the starting ramp with the Maillot Jaune on their shoulders. So who do I think will win this thing? In years past there was a lot of incentive to do well in this stage for the teams of the favorites because it went a long ways towards determining start order for a team time trial that would take place a few days later. This year there is no TTT so that's not as big a deal. The favorites will still want to send a message but maybe the teams will let their support riders take it a little easier. Also, if the sprinters can stay close timewise to the winner, they can grab the jersey on time bonus in the stages up through stage 7.

The favorites this morning are the "rhythm kings" as a reporter put it a couple years ago: those who can suffer at an extremely high level for ten minutes while everything in their bodies clicks along together. Breathing, pedaling, cornering, even one's mental rhythms all have to be in sync to do well. So, whose good at this? Well Cancellera and McGee, winners of the last two real prologues in 2003 and 2004 (2005's first stage was too long to be an official time trial), are not at the Tour this year. The short TT winner from last year, David Zabriskie, is at the Tour and has to be the odds on favorite after winning both time trials at the Dauphine this year. Another favorite is Bradley Wiggins, Olympic gold medalist from the 2004 Games. He won a track event known as the 4000 m pursuit which is basically a 4 km prologue on the track. Of course, what happens on the track doesn't always translate to the road and Wiggins has struggled a bit in his first year of road riding. Landis is a good time trialist, but this is a bit short for him and his riding postion isn't really great for technical courses. I tried it and found the bike to be a lot less stable and a lot harder to control in turning. It'll be interesting to see if he uses the postion today. Hincapie is also very good at these distances. Finally, I think that the return of David Millar is very ironic today as he was banned from the sport of two years for using EPO and this is his first race back. So, what's the order?

(1) Zabriskie
(2) Hincapie
(3) Millar
(4) Evans
(5) Karpets

I expect top ten times from Wiggins, Salvodelli and Leipheimer.

With Vino out of the race today, my overall is unchanged expect to move th guys behind him up and add Menchov at the bottom.

More to come.

The Physicist   Link Me    |