The 104th Tour de France starts in Dusseldorf on July 1st. It’s an unusual route this year, both in terms of the direction of travel and the composition of the stages.
There’s only three summit finishes, the Planche des Belles Filles in the first week, Peyragudes in the Pyrenees and the Col d’Izoard in the Alps. The organisers have set a challenge to climbers to find other ways of breaking the race apart, there’s three stages where the final climb is followed by a descent to the finish in the valley - in recent editions these types of stages have tended to produce gaps as groups form and split on the downhill rather than everyone looking at each other. There’s also an interesting 100k stage on Bastille Day which crams in three first category climbs. Two time trials, one on the first day in Dusseldorf, the other on the penultimate day in Marseille where the start and finish are in the Stade Velodrome.
The main theme of the contest is that of Master v Apprentice. The master is Chris Froome, winner in 2013, 2015 and 2016. His win last year was his most dominant yet, and his Sky team are stupidly strong, support could include some of Mikel Landa, Sergio Henao, Michal Kwiatkowski and Geraint Thomas, any of whom could be leaders on other teams. We also know from past performance that the team will sacrifice all other prizes and achievements in return for the overall win. The big fly in the ointment is his form this year - he hasn’t won a race at all, and in the recent Criterium du Dauphine (effectively the dress rehearsal) he had some days where he looked near his best, and others where he was well off it. He’s said he wants to peak later this year, but reading between the lines he isn’t where he wants to be.
Apprentice is Richie Porte, who was by Froome’s side for his first two wins. He went his own way to lead the BMC team last year and has firmly established himself as a serious contender. People on here (um, me) have called him names for a long time, but he’s got a new purpose and confidence this year, he’s been talking a good game all winter and has shown strong form this season. There seems to be a new found resilience to his performances, instead of collapsing mentally from a duff day he recovers and has taken some good wins as a result. He was the strongest in the Dauphine but lost the race on a bonkers last day, he got isolated from his team which is the big weakness, they have neither the strength in depth nor the cohesiveness to match Sky.
The route was designed to benefit the home favourite Romain Bardet, who was runner up last year and is a fine descender. His form this season has been a bit sketchy, though he was apparently due to put in more high intensity work before this race. He does seem capable with coping with the enormous expectations that fall on any half decent French rider, which many have struggled with. There hasn’t been a home win since 1985, he’s got a chance.
Nairo Quintana has been runner up to Froome twice and was third last year. He made a big thing of trying to do the Giro d’Italia / Tour double this year, which fell apart when he was runner up at the Giro after his increasingly familiar tactic of waiting too much on the summit finishes. His Movistar team are renowned for incomprehensible tactics which will no doubt crop up again. Alejandro Valverde has had a fine season and will back up Quintana when (and only when) he loses time himself.
There’s about eight sprint stages for the fast men. Mark Cavendish will be attempting to chip away at the all time stage win record, but it’s not clear if he’ll start. He didn’t race from March to June because of mononucleosis, which is something with no definable recovery period. He’s been doing the Tour of Slovenia this week in an attempt to prove some fitness, he got round which at least keeps him in the mix to take the start. World Champion Peter Sagan will likely win the green jersey again through a combination of his speed, ability to contest hillier finishes and willingness to go in the break to pick up intermediate sprint points. Sagan is quite a character and made some truly splendid adverts for his sponsors.
For the first time ever all the stages are being televised live in their entirety. On the face of it this is great, in practice it means there will be a load of dead hours where nothing much is happening. There’s a day where ITV are starting their coverage at 9.45am!
There’s only three summit finishes, the Planche des Belles Filles in the first week, Peyragudes in the Pyrenees and the Col d’Izoard in the Alps. The organisers have set a challenge to climbers to find other ways of breaking the race apart, there’s three stages where the final climb is followed by a descent to the finish in the valley - in recent editions these types of stages have tended to produce gaps as groups form and split on the downhill rather than everyone looking at each other. There’s also an interesting 100k stage on Bastille Day which crams in three first category climbs. Two time trials, one on the first day in Dusseldorf, the other on the penultimate day in Marseille where the start and finish are in the Stade Velodrome.
The main theme of the contest is that of Master v Apprentice. The master is Chris Froome, winner in 2013, 2015 and 2016. His win last year was his most dominant yet, and his Sky team are stupidly strong, support could include some of Mikel Landa, Sergio Henao, Michal Kwiatkowski and Geraint Thomas, any of whom could be leaders on other teams. We also know from past performance that the team will sacrifice all other prizes and achievements in return for the overall win. The big fly in the ointment is his form this year - he hasn’t won a race at all, and in the recent Criterium du Dauphine (effectively the dress rehearsal) he had some days where he looked near his best, and others where he was well off it. He’s said he wants to peak later this year, but reading between the lines he isn’t where he wants to be.
Apprentice is Richie Porte, who was by Froome’s side for his first two wins. He went his own way to lead the BMC team last year and has firmly established himself as a serious contender. People on here (um, me) have called him names for a long time, but he’s got a new purpose and confidence this year, he’s been talking a good game all winter and has shown strong form this season. There seems to be a new found resilience to his performances, instead of collapsing mentally from a duff day he recovers and has taken some good wins as a result. He was the strongest in the Dauphine but lost the race on a bonkers last day, he got isolated from his team which is the big weakness, they have neither the strength in depth nor the cohesiveness to match Sky.
The route was designed to benefit the home favourite Romain Bardet, who was runner up last year and is a fine descender. His form this season has been a bit sketchy, though he was apparently due to put in more high intensity work before this race. He does seem capable with coping with the enormous expectations that fall on any half decent French rider, which many have struggled with. There hasn’t been a home win since 1985, he’s got a chance.
Nairo Quintana has been runner up to Froome twice and was third last year. He made a big thing of trying to do the Giro d’Italia / Tour double this year, which fell apart when he was runner up at the Giro after his increasingly familiar tactic of waiting too much on the summit finishes. His Movistar team are renowned for incomprehensible tactics which will no doubt crop up again. Alejandro Valverde has had a fine season and will back up Quintana when (and only when) he loses time himself.
There’s about eight sprint stages for the fast men. Mark Cavendish will be attempting to chip away at the all time stage win record, but it’s not clear if he’ll start. He didn’t race from March to June because of mononucleosis, which is something with no definable recovery period. He’s been doing the Tour of Slovenia this week in an attempt to prove some fitness, he got round which at least keeps him in the mix to take the start. World Champion Peter Sagan will likely win the green jersey again through a combination of his speed, ability to contest hillier finishes and willingness to go in the break to pick up intermediate sprint points. Sagan is quite a character and made some truly splendid adverts for his sponsors.
For the first time ever all the stages are being televised live in their entirety. On the face of it this is great, in practice it means there will be a load of dead hours where nothing much is happening. There’s a day where ITV are starting their coverage at 9.45am!
Comment