When's that Tour de France thing?
For those of you old enough to remember, some forgotten multi-sport athlete Bo somebody-or-other made that utterance in a commercial. Well it is right around the dang-ol-corner. A friend recently asked me who he should watch for and this is what I had to say:Well there is this guy: the Jan
www.myspace.com/kaiserjan
He won it in 1997 before Lance's reign. He just won the Tour of Switzerland so he is on form. Also there is Ivan Basso, who won the Tour of Italy this year and was 2nd in the Tour last year.
Jan Ulrich is a fantastic time-trailist but is vulnerable to attack in the high mountains. Basso is the reverse. He is a solid time trailist, but no where near the match of Ulrich. Armstrong beat Ulrich because he could match or beat him in TTs, and also beat him in the mountains.
These guys are the two favorites.
Then there are some second tier guys who don't have as proven a resume but who you can't count out. The most prominient of those IMHO is Floyd Landis of the USA. He has done this year the following week long stage races: Tour of California, Tour of Georgia, Paris-Nice, and the Dauphine Libre (in France). He won all but the Dauphine, and many times guys like him will save their best there, because it comes close to the tour. He also won a weekend stage race, the Criterium International. He was about 8th last year at the TdF, but he didn't know for sure he was going to be doing it until almost March, so that certainly affected his preparation. Although he isn't a proven threat in a three week race, he is could perhaps be regarded as an equal to Ulrich in time trials, or at least a step above Basso. He is less consistent as a climber. Certainly he is not an attacker in the mountains, he would be more of a follower there. If he can limit his loses in the mountains and perhaps have one or two superb stages there, and just be himself in the TTs he could very easily land on the podium, just where depends on the other guys.
Outside of them I place Levi Lepheimer of the US, Francisco Mancebo of Spain, and Alexander Vinokurov of Kazakstan as the likely 4th to 6th place guys. You could also throw Cadel Evans of Australia into that lot.
The biggest wildcard of that bunch is "Vino"kurov. He is an attacker and sometimes he really makes the most of stealing 45 seconds here, a minute there and he really makes the race fun to watch. But his team was swept up in a doping scandal and he hasn't raced much this year, so it is hard to say how well he will ride.
Another wildcard is George Hincapie. Present and accounted for in all of Lance's wins, George has improved his time-trailing and climbing every year. Since he has never ridden for himself, nobody knows how well he could do on his own. He is almost as strong as Floyd in the time trials, and he can climb very well for a tall lanky guy. You really have to love him and pull for him, he's so gregarious, but as I say, he's a wildcard.
I will also add that there is no Team Time Trail this year, which hurts Basso the most becuase he would have taken time there, because his team has American Dave Z(abriske) who will likely give Ulrich a run for his money in the TTs. Furthermore I haven't looked closely at the course, but I have heard it said that it is more suited to Ulrich, because there are two very long time trails. Basso has said he expects to lose 2-4 minutes to Ulrich in them. Basso will have to climb even better than in past years to make that up in the mountains - but he showed in the Giro d'Italia that he is capable of that.
posted by Mark @ 7:17 AM
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