In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Craig Walsh, a sports fan and cycling enthusiast from Australia, joins us to preview the upcoming Tour de France. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Craig Walsh

On July 1, the world’s biggest and well known bike race begins in the French town of Strasbourg, near the France-Germany border, without its biggest protagonist. Seven times winner Lance Armstrong is absent due to his retirement from professional cycling at the end of last year’s race. He will be there though, but in one of the team cars giving advice and support (he is still technically under contract till the end of the year) to his team-mates who begin life for the first time in 7 years without him.

Instead for the first since 1999, we will begin without a defending champion, the 1997 winner Jan Ullrich was absent to injury, and the late Marco Pantini the winner of the 1998 winner was absent due to having too high of blood haematocrit level after being disqualified in that year’s Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy). Ullrich will begin the Tour as the only current rider in the bunch, who has won the Tour, and this represents his biggest chance since, and it could be his last serious chance. At 32 and in his final year of his big contract with his German team T-Mobile, he will be motivated to do win the only his second Tour. He was second in 1996 (his debut Tour), 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, fourth in 2004, and third in 2005.

Ivan Basso of Team CSC has been in great pre-Tour form, winning the Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy) in such dominating fashion, by over 9 minutes to his nearest challenger, and winning three stages along the way. He also won some smaller stage races earlier this season. Basso has shown such pedigree in the race before, finishing 2nd last year, 3rd in 2004 and winning a stage, 7th in 2003, 11th in 2002 and the best young rider competition, before crashing out and breaking a wrist whilst in a break and being forced to abandon in 2001, his debut year. With such progress shown, one would think this year since has been in red hot form will be his year and so therefore starts as the other favourite. His team boss Bjarne Riis of Denmark was a former winner back in 1996 and was a team-mate of Ullrich.

Other major candidates include Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan who rides for Astana – Wurth team (formerly Liberty Sergous), who has finished 3rd in 2003, and was a team mate of Ullrich up until last year and won two stages along the way. Vino as he is nicknamed, left to realise his chance of trying to winning the Tour, and this was compounded after being chased down by his own team-mates when he would regularly (and sometimes ill-advised) attacks of the front of the peloton, his main help will come from former podium placer Joseba Beloki, Alberto Contador (tipped as a future winner of the race), Luis Leon Sanchez, and in the sprinting department you have talented Australian Allan Davis. You also have Francisco ‘Paco’ Mancibo of Spain riding for the French AG2r team, who has been a regular in the tour 4 or 5 in the Tours of France and Spain. Helping him is veteran Christophe Moreou, has finished fourth in the race himself, and is constantly in an around the top 10.

You then have the likes of Ajejandro Valverde (Ciasse D’epargne – Illes Balears) of Spain, a winner of a stage before having to abandon due to a knee injury, Cadel Evans of Australia (Davitamon – Lotto), 8th last year in his debut year, Floyd Landis (Team Phonak) of the USA who took 9th last year after switching from being helper at US Postal for Armstrong to being leader at Phonak. Another outsider is Russian Denis Menchov (Rabobank), who has won the best young rider award in 2003, won last year’s Tour of Spain. Making his debut will be Damiano Cunego (Lampre – Fondital) who won the 2004 Giro.

For the Discovery Channel team, they are going in with three leaders in the form of George Hincapie, a man who has been with Armstrong in all of his 7 Tour wins, was rewarded with a stage win in the toughest stage in the Pyrenees, a sprinter who has turned climber; Yaroslav Popovych of the Ukraine, winner of the BYR award in 2005, and finished 3rd in the 2003 Giro and Italian Paolo Savodelli (nicknamed‘ll Falco’ meaning ‘The Falcon’), a stage winner last year, and two time Giro winner. His best or most impressive trait is ability to go down hill.

Watching him fly down a hill really is a treat. They enjoy this time the position of underdogs and sitting back letting T-Mobile and CSC doing the work of controlling the race, and this could lead them to take advantage. Another American Levi Leipheimer on the German team Gerolsteiner, another former team-mate of Armstrong, has been a consistent Tour top-10 placer, and is a good bet for a spot on the podium

In the sprinters competition, Robbie McEwen (Davitamon – Lotto) a two time winner will be lining up for a third, but he will he will have to take care of Belgium superstar and current World Champion Tom Boonen (Quick.Step – Innergetic), who won two stages last year and was leading the competition until several bad crashes forced to him to go home. Boonen is the man of the moment with a staggering 17 wins this year. Oscar Freire of Spain (Rabobank) – three times World Champion, and Erik Zabel (Team Milram) are also good outsiders for the Green Jersey. With plenty of flat stages in the opening, there will be plenty of opportunities to win stages and stich up the Malliot Vert (Green Jersey).

Expect in the first and a half, to expect plenty of stage wins for the sprinters, but plenty of attacks to try and win the stage and potentially the yellow jersey if they finish with a big enough lead. If a break is big enough and there is representation from at least 4 or 5 teams, expect them to be given the chance to break away and try to win the stage. Despite a midweek time trial, the race is going to be predictably fast and hard, before they hit the mountains with two tough days in the Pyrenees and after that a brutal week in the Alps where they go to the famed La Alpe d’Huez and to La Toussuire (the Tour has never finished there) before heading back down to Paris, not with out another long time trial at Le Creusot.

If one is to be critical of the Tour route, is that there is too many flat stages in the beginning, and not any major hills in the opening week to spice up the race and not make it a green jersey benefit show, and the length of the TT’s (over 50 km each except for the opening prologue), and perhaps drop them down to around 35-40 km. Also the length of a lot of stages, with many stages over 200 km long, shortens them and the riders might be fresher, and the breaks will have better chances of not being caught. To see the full map of the race visit here.

Teams taking part are: Discovery Channel, T-Mobile, T-Mobile, Team CSC, Team Milram, Rabobank, Caisse D’epargne, Davitimon – Lotto, AG2r – Prevoyance, Quick.Step – Innergetic, Lampre – Fondital, Astana – Wurth, Euskaltel – Euskadi (they are Basque), Saunier Duval – Prodir, Liquigas, Gerolsteiner, Phonak, Française des Jeux, Bouygues Telecom, Credit Agricole, Cofidis, Agritubel.

My tips:

Overall: 1) Ivan Basso (he is more in form and has the drive) 2) Jan Ullrich 3) Mancebo

Sprinters competition: Robbie McEwen (well he is a Gold Coaster and he is a member of the same cycling club as me)

Mountains competition: Michael Rasmussen

Best Young Rider competition: Damiano Cunego

Best Team: Team CSC

Most Aggressive Rider competition (it is a minor one): Oscar Pereiro

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.