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

Saturday, July 01, 2006

The 2006 Tour is now underway with what was a pretty interesting prologue. While it's really too early to say who's really good and who's not, we got an indication of a few things in terms of form. First, if Thor Hushovd is really that strong I think his chances are pretty good in the green jersey competition, especially on the stages through the Ardennes. The same can also be said for Stuart O'Grady who is now free to ride more for himself not that Basso's gone. In fact, I expect that Riis may shift the team's goals pretty radically and may do a lot to help O'Grady go for the coveted Maillot Vert. The interesting thing is that the CSC team has a lot of the same riders the Credit Argicole team had back in 2001 when O'Grady held the Yellow Jersey for several days and had the Green Jersey until the last day. Given that the team was built to support one rider, O'Grady may do that little bit better this year.

Hincapie showed that his form is good for the time trials and Zabriskie did well too, though one has to wonder whether the Basso ejection affected his performance just a bit or if it was the fairly technical nature of the course. My other picks didn't do as well but that's how it goes. I was surprised to see Horner do almost as well as Evans which bodes well for the Davitimon-Lotto team once the road goes up. The other big surprise was Valverde who really laid down a good prologue. While it remains to be seen whether he can do a similar effort on the much longer stage 7 TT, he has sent a signal that he's at the Tour to ride. The big question in my mind remains what's going to happen to his body in the final week?

Landis did really well given his tire problems. I guess his position issues have been worked out to a pretty big extent. It was interesting to hear his coach say that they played it a bit safe in choosing lines through the course. For the Disco boys, Salvodelli did a good ride as well which is going to give them a couple of cards to play down the line. I think a lot of teams have got to be a bit nervous right now with Discovery having two riders in the top ten and six in the top fifty. If Discovery decides to go on the attack with Egoi Martinez or Jose Azevedo or Popovitch or even Salvoldelli or Hincapie, a lot of teams are going to have to chase. I wonder of Discovery team manager Johan Brunyeel will play with some of the other teams to see what they're willing to commit. I like Martinez as the attacking spoiler here in the early stages. Stages 2 and 3 look [erfect for some sort of aggressive strategy.

Tomorrow is a perfect sprinter's stage. Looking at the prologue finishes, one has to think that Hushovd and Boonen are really strong but one has to remember that McEwen is super explosive over the last 200 yards as is Oscar Freire. Robbie also has American sprinter Freddy Rodriguez to lead him out. It'll also be interesting to see how CSC's tactics have changed. Finally, there's Erik Zabel who is getting a bit long in the tooth but who can still contend. So here's my predicted order:

Boonen
McEwen
Freire
Hushovd
Zabel
Casar

After the Ardennes stages, I expect Freire to put in a big challenge and the flatter stages that follow.

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