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Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

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    Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

    Time then to start looking forward to the 103rd Tour de France which starts Saturday week in Mont St Michel. The local farmers have already got their sheep prepared for the Grand Depart.



    Here’s the route.



    The first week contains several punchy uphill finishes at Cherbourg, Le Lorian and Limoges to generate small time gaps before the race hits the Pyrenees. The first two mountain stages end in the valleys before Andorra sees a summit finish. Across the south of France in the race’s dog days before Mont Ventoux on Bastille Day. The first time trial follows - a reasonably hilly 37k for anyone with fresh legs. Over to the Alps for summit finishes at Finhaut - Emosson and Le Bettex which sandwich another time trial - 17k more or less uphill. The final mountain stage is in Morzine on the penultimate day and finishes with a descent into town off the Joux Plane. That’s a good idea given that a lot of last year was raced on the descents.

    Last year also saw the big pre race excitement for the potential of the “Big Four” going head to head. That didn’t really happen, as Chris Froome rode away on the first Pyrenean stage and won the race. All will be at the start again, but the shifting sands of the sport also bring others into play.

    Froome will start favourite to win for a third time. It’s easy to see how he would go about winning - avoid falling off in the first week (easier said than done for him), attack to Andorra, cement a lead by attacking on Ventoux where he’s won before. Then grab some more time in the time trials and defend in the Alps, even if somewhere like Finhaut-Emosson looks tailor made for him. His form has been similar to last season with a win in the Dauphine after a quiet early season. Sky are stronger than ever, much as it pains me to say it. Win this and we’ll say this is “the Froome era”. Geraint Thomas rode the Tour of Switzerland and finished 17th, his form has been a bit iffy since Paris - Nice in March. He goes in as number 2 to Froome and with protected status, but it’s hard to see him cracking the top 10 even if Froome crashed out on the first day. Mikel Landa is also expected to ride in support, he was good enough to lead Sky at the Giro d’Italia before abandoning through illness.

    Nairo Quintana has been runner up to Froome twice. He won the Route du Sud at the weekend, admittedly not against a stunning field. He’s developed the habit of losing time early on and then being stronger in the third week, but not by enough to regain time lost and win the race. He’ll lose time in the longer time trial too. Also backed by a formidable team at Movistar, including last year’s 3rd placed man Alejandro Valverde, who may well win in Cherbourg, but their team tactics are sometimes inexplicable.

    Alberto Contador seems to have shelved his plan to retire at the end of the season even if his Tinkoff team is folding. He’s probably the most tactically savvy of the contenders and could attack anywhere, but was off the pace when the heat was on in the Dauphine. You have to go back to 2009 to find the last time he won the Tour, the only rider to have gone so long between wins is Gino Bartali from 1938 to 1948.

    Vincenzo Nibali won the race in 2014 but is likely to be knackered after winning the recent Giro (which Valverde also rode). Fabio Aru will be co-leader at the Astana team, he won last year’s Vuelta a Espana, but was going like a bag of spanners in the Dauphine’s high mountains. Aru may well join that long and illustrious list of big name Italian riders who come to their debut Tour and fall flat on their face.

    There’s co-leadership at BMC too, Tejay van Garderen and Richie Porte. van Garderen was on course for the podium last year before falling ill and abandoning in the Alps. He won a stage in Switzerland last week but fell away in GC. Porte has a history of being excellent at one week races and mediocre at three week ones, and is an inexplicably short price with the bookies.

    The emergence of young French riders has got the home fans excited, although none of them quite look winning material just yet. Thibaut Pinot was bigged up massively in the French press before last year’s race before having a shocker which was redeemed by him winning at Alpe d’Huez. He’s actually kicked on since and got some excellent results, but didn’t look to have the legs at the Dauphine. That race included him winning a stage by outsprinting Romain Bardet, which came after Bardet had done all the attacking and most of the work. Bardet won a stage last year, he is an excellent descender and might fancy his chances on one of the early Pyrenean stages. He could make the podium with a fair wind. Both ride for French teams who have put resource and effort into making them real contenders. Warren Barguil had an eventful ride to 14th last year which included almost colliding with a cow and knocking Geraint Thomas into a ditch. He was in decent form in Switzerland and should continue his development by cracking the top 10.

    There should be around seven stages for the sprinters. Marcel Kittel has started winning again after moving to Etixx and is undoubtedly the fastest man going, the question will be how much effort his team will put into providing a functioning sprint train. Andre Greipel will pick up stages here and there. Mark Cavendish looks a bit past his best now and may have an eye on the Olympic track stuff, not hard to see him climbing off a week from the end. Peter Sagan will probably win the green jersey again thanks to his relentless (wasteful?) aggressive riding and may finally win his first stage since 2013 - Limoges looks a Sagan day. Though “every stage is a Peter Sagan stage” as he once said.

    TV viewers in Britain will have a different experience this year as ITV4 have finally ditched the Liggett / Sherwen commentary. It’s not been formally announced who we’re getting as a replacement but I assume it will be the Ned Boulting / David Millar pairing.

    #2
    Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

    That’s all a conventional way of looking at the race, but post WW2 Tours when the year ends in a 6 have had some very odd winners, many of which you’d put in the “worst Tour winners of all time”.

    1956 - Roger Walkowiak. Utterly unheralded rider who got in a big break in the first week, inherited the jersey and managed to keep it to the end. In France a shock winner is known as “a la Walkowiak” - indeed there were a couple of “Leicester City a la Walkowiak” references in the French media recently.

    1966 - Lucien Aimar. Jacques Anquetil’s mountain domestique who got in a decisive break on the first Pyrenean stage. He gained a chunk of time and after that Anquetil just marked Raymond Poulidor out of the race.

    1976 - Lucien van Impe. Fine climber, but not a great victory as he essentially was bullied into attacking by his manager Cyrille Guimard. There’s a book about this race “The Great Bike Race” by the late Geoffrey Nicholson which has just been reissued after years out of print.

    1986 - Greg LeMond. OK, this is the outlier, he beat Bernard Hinault in a famous race. There’s a book about this one too called “Slaying the Badger” though the film of the same name is better.

    1996 - Bjarne Riis. An excellent demonstration of the benefits of EPO.

    2006 - [strike]Floyd Landis[/strike] Oscar Pereiro. Enough said.

    Comment


      #3
      Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

      Some teams have already released long lists, many don’t bother. We’ve had the first confirmed riders this morning from Ag2r. Bardet, Vuillermoz, Bakelants, Gougeard, Cherel, Pozzovivo, Gautier, with two more to be named after this weekend’s national championships.

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        #4
        Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

        You superstar longeared, fantastic preview. With the Euros and the terrible weather it's been hard to get my head into "TdF is just around the corner" mode.

        Bouhanni has been racking up the wins this year, but we haven't seen much of him head to head with Kittel. However he is a bit crazy and could get under the German's skin. Always love the Tour's sprints because they really bring the top guns together. That said, Kittel has been a cut above for the past few years.

        Cavendish is still two stage wins short of joint second place with Hinault in the all-time standings.

        Sagan should get the green but there's no reason why someone like Michael Matthews couldn't challenge him. I hope it's more of a contest this time.

        I think the yellow prediction really does have to be Froome. I thought it would be last year (simply assuming that he wouldn't fall off again as in 2014) and this year's looks more Froome-friendly than that did. But hopefully there'll be some interest at the top of the GC into the final week, even if it doesn't necessarily rival the Giro. A couple of other names for the top ten I'd put out there are perennial challengers Kelderman and Talansky.

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          #5
          Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

          As ever, time for me to chime in: if you fancy a go at being a Directeur Sportif for the Tour, feel free to join us in the OTF league fantasy cycling game:

          fantasy.road.cc

          OTF mini-league ID 76546 for anyone who'd like to join.

          Comment


            #6
            Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

            Confirmed Bora-Argon team: Shane Archibold, Jan Barta, Cesare Benedetti, Sam Bennett, Emanuel Buchmann, Bartosz Huzarski, Patrick Konrad, Andreas Schillinger, Paul Voss.

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              #7
              Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

              Some decent breakaway options in there.

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                #8
                Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                IAM: Jérôme Coppel (Fra), Stef Clement (Ned), Dries Devenyns (Bel), Martin Elmiger (Swi), Mathias Frank (Swi), Reto Hollenstein (Swi), Sondre Holst Enger (Nor), Oliver Naesen (Bel), Jarlinson Pantano (Col)

                Not too much to get excited about there. Frank slipped into the top ten last year but hasn't shown much form this. Pantano won the final stage in Switzerland on Sunday and will ride in support of Frank. The rest are likely to get in breaks and go for stages, Elmiger is particularly good at the former. The team is folding at the end of the year so they'll be on the hunt for new contracts.

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                  #9
                  Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                  Dimension Data (was MTN-Qhubeka last year) have a long list:

                  Natnael Berhane, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Mark Cavendish, Steve Cummings, Bernhard Eisel, Tyler Farrar, Jacques Janse van Rensburg, Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, Serge Pauwels, Youcef Reguigui, Mark Renshaw, Daniel Teklehaimanot, Jaco Venter.

                  Pretty much as expected really. Boasson Hagen could provide a variety of stage threats. He might even be a dark horse for the green jersey. Cav will be Cav.

                  Teklehaimanot of course became the first African rider to wear the polka dot jersey last year.



                  I imagine he will be out in the breaks again.

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                    #10
                    Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                    Lampre-Merida (via Google translate)

                    Yukiya Arashiro : 31 years old, Japanese, 5 participations in the Tour
                    Matteo Bono, 32, Italian, 4 participations in the Tour
                    David Cimolai , 26 years old, Italian, 3 participations in the Tour
                    Rui Costa: 29 years, Portuguese, 7 and 3 participations in the Tour stage wins
                    Kristijan Durasek : 28 years, Croatian, 2 participations in the Tour
                    Tsgabu Grmay: 24 years, Ethiopian, rookie
                    Louis Meintjes: 24 years old, South Africa, the first participation in the Tour*
                    Luka Pibernik : 22 years, Slovenian, rookie
                    Jan Polanc : 24 years, Slovenian, rookie

                    The reserves are: Mattia Cattaneo and Mario Costa.

                    Will be seven nations represented by the Lampre-MERIDA Tour (Croatia, Ethiopia, Japan, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and South Africa), 3 continents (Africa, Asia and Europe).
                    The average age of the blue-fuchsia-green selection will be 26.6 years.
                    Three debutants in the Grande Boucle, the two Slovenian and Pibernik Polanc and Ethiopian Grmay, who will enter the race history as the first rider of Ethiopia to participate in the Tour de France.
                    Arashiro has instead marked two records in 2009, having been the first Japanese rider to get into a top 5 stage of the Tour de France and finish the Grande Boucle.
                    * Maybe something is lost in translation but this is not true. He started last year's race but didn't finish it.

                    Also they call Polanc a rookie, despite him having won a Giro stage last year.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                      The "rookie" thing is a bit of translation issue, as they are referring only to the riders' history in le Tour.

                      I don't have an explanation for Meintjes, as they made the same error in Italian (where it isn't standard only to consider someone as having raced in a Grand Tour if they finish it).

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                        #12
                        Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                        Lampre generally don't give a shit about the Tour, so that's Rui Costa and Meintjes to try and get a result, and seven others who must have pissed the management off.

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                          #13
                          Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                          are they using rookie as shorthand for the fact they are in the white jersey competition?

                          Edit: That's 25 and under isn't it?

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                            #14
                            Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                            Not in Italian, where they are using "esordiente", which is best translated as "Tour debut".

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                              #15
                              Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                              Yeah, white jersey is anyone born 1991 or later, regardless of previous experience in the race.

                              Katusha: Alexander Kristoff, Joaquim Rodriguez, Ilnur Zakarin, Alberto Losada, Michael Morkov, Jurgen van den Broeck, Marco Haller, Angel Vicioso and Jacopo Guarnieri.

                              Rodriguez is probably the best Grand Tour contender this century who hasn't actually won one. He won't do so now either as he's past his best. He won two stages last year and is capable of mountain wins again, he might drop some time in the first week to save energy and enable an attack. Kristoff is an excellent sprinter who won two stages in 2014. He won't win flat out pure sprints, rather he's a good slow sprinter who wins on the days Kittel etc have been distanced or the finish is uphill and into the wind. Zakarin is a young Russian rider who has had some decent results in Switzerland and Italy. He also served a suspension when younger for doping. No chance of any controversy there if he does well then! Good support from the rest of the team too, van den Broeck, Losada and Vicioso for the mountains, others for the flat.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                Etixx QuickStep: Julian Alaphilippe, Iljo Keisse, Marcel Kittel, Dan Martin, Tony Martin, Maximiliano Richeze, Fabio Sabatini, Petr Vakoc, Julien Vermote

                                Etixx often only have a first week, and a lot of their team is selected around supporting Kittel and maintaining a cohesive sprint train. No Stybar who won into Le Havre last year I see. Tony Martin may well leave early to prepare for the Olympic time trial. Once we get to the mountains the focus will switch to Dan Martin and Alaphillippe. Martin isn't really suited to a GC challenge at the Tour, the climbs are too long for him, he might win a stage. Alaphillippe is an exciting young rider who is making his Tour debut, be interesting to see how he goes.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                  Sky: Chris Froome, Sergio Henao, Vasil Kiriyenka, Mikel Landa, Mikel Nieve, Wout Poels, Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas.

                                  Crikey, that's terrifyingly strong. Froome as leader, Thomas as back up. Someone like Cannondale would probably quite happily have a team leadership of Poels, Kiriyenka and Henao, here they'll just be domestiques. Stannard and Rowe will do hours on the front in the wind. Kwiatkowski surprisingly misses out, he's been off form lately.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                    LottoNL-Jumbo: George Bennett (NZL), Dylan Groenewegen (HOL), Wilco Kelderman (HOL), Bert-Jan Lindemen (HOL), Paul Martens (ALL), Timo Roosen (HOL), Sep Vanmarcke (BEL), Robert Wagner (ALL), Marteen Wynants (BEL)

                                    Kelderman is the team leader here, though the lower reaches of the top 10 will likely be the summit of his ambitions. Groenewegen is a young sprinter with several wins to his name this year including the first stage of the Tour de Yorkshire, but this is a big step up for him. Gesink absent after he crashed out in Switzerland, Kruijswijk not considered after his Giro ride.

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                                      #19
                                      Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                      FDJ
                                      William Bonnet, Matthieu Ladagnous, Anthony Roux, Jérémy Roy, Steve Morabito, Sebastien Reichenbach, Thibault Pinot, Arthur Vichot, Cédric Pineau

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                                        #20
                                        Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                        BMC: Richie Porte, Tejay van Garderen, Rohan Dennis, Brent Bookwalter, Marcus Burghardt, Damiano Caruso, Amael Moinard, Michael Schär and Greg Van Avermaet.

                                        Strong line up there, Porte and van Garderen as co-leaders (...), Dennis and Van Avermaet won stages last year, some good diesel engines for the flat.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                          Giant - Alpecin: Warren Barguil (Fra), Roy Curvers (Ned), John Degenkolb (Ger), Tom Dumoulin (Ned), Simon Geschke (Ger), Georg Preidler (Aut), Laurens ten Dam (Ned), Ramon Sinkeldam (Ned) and Albert Timmer (Ned)

                                          A team who've had a difficult season after a Brit drove into several riders in a training camp in January. They've got a lot of options here, Barguil a young GC rider and ten Dam has had high finishes too. Said crash badly affected Degenkolb's spring and he's still not found his best form, he'll be near the front on sprint stages. Dumoulin almost won the Vuelta last year though is likely to be riding here in training for the Olympic time trial where he is one of the favourites. The domestiques are strong, Geschke and his magnificent beard won a stage last year.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                            Yeah, I like the look of that squad a lot.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                              Lotto - Soudal: Lars Bak, Thomas de Gendt, Jens Debusschere, Tony Gallopin, Andre Greipel, Adam Hansen, Greg Henderson, Jurgen Roelandts, Marcel Sieberg.

                                              Largely focused around supporting Greipel, who has ten stage wins down the years. Gallopin is the GC rider though he tends to get spat out the back early when the sort out begins. Hansen starts his 15th consecutive Grand Tour, he's finished all the previous ones. Quite risky of them to pick Lars Bak after he was badly injured in a big Giro crash.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                                Usually there's a flurry of teams confirming their line up on Sunday evening and Monday, which has begun with Ag2r: Romain Bardet, Jan Bakelants, Mikaël Chérel, Cyril Gautier, Alexis Gougeard, Domenico Pozzovivo, Alexis Vuillermoz, Samuel Dumoulin and Ben Gastauer.

                                                Strong line up with Bardet the main focus, but unlike FdJ the back up offers a range of options should anything go wrong. Vuillermoz won on the Mur de Bretagne last year and should make the top 20. Pozzovivo makes his Tour debut (at 33!) after years of spending July resting after the Giro. Gougeard is an interesting selection, he won a Vuelta stage last year but hasn't really built on that.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Mont St Michel, my belle - Tour de France 2016

                                                  Orica GreenEDGE: Michael Albasini, Luke Durbridge, Simon Gerrans, Matthew Hayman, Daryl Impey, Christopher Juul-Jensen, Michael Matthews, Ruben Plaza and Adam Yates.

                                                  Another team that largely only has a first week, plenty of riders for the punchy finishes who might grab stages or a jersey. The only real GC rider is Britain's Adam Yates, who went well in the Dauphine and should be aiming top 20 minimum. They're an old bunch too, Albasini, Gerrans, Hayman and Plaza are all 35 or over.

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