GRAHAM'S VIEW
June 27, 2012
Many weeks ago, before the Giro d’Italia ended, and well before races like the Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse could give an accurate guide as to who might win or challenge to win the Tour de France, an Australian client asked me to name my top-five favourites for the great race. I put Bradley Wiggins down to win, from Cadel Evans, Levi Leipheimer, Robert Gesink and Andy Schleck. If that same question was asked of me today, the only changes I’d make to that top-five is to switch Leipheimer with Gesink and remove the injured Schleck, putting Sammy Sanchez or Ryder Hesjedal in instead. The fact is, with so much time trialling on a supposedly un-mountainous course, this is a Tour for Wiggins to lose, so dominant has he become in 2012, and so easily did he win the Dauphiné. But that does not mean he’ll win as easily as I first thought, back in May…for the mountains of the 2012 route are harder than most people realise.
As defending champion of Le Tour, Evans chances of a repeat victory would seem to be reduced following his quieter-than-before season to-date, and a time loss to Wiggins of 1’ 26” in the recent Dauphiné. But in that Dauphiné I saw the emergence of a new Evans, a more canny one who is enjoying the lack of attention on him while quietly getting himself very much in shape for the Tour. In 2011, Evans won the Tour exactly in the way he’d planned to, by keeping out of trouble, by covering all the moves in the Pyrenees, by crushing the threat of Andy Schleck in the Alps – and then delivering the coup-de-grace in the long Grenoble TT. As such, Evans won the 2011 Tour with a relative ease, and the world never saw the reserves the Australian had held back. I think this year’s race will see the ‘other’ Evans, a man who enjoyed the fame his victory brought him in 2011 and who is determined to win again, even if he has to win from behind.
Evans could look to Gesink for a co-operative climbing challenge against Wiggins, for the Dutchman has made such vast improvements in his time trialling that a podium place is well within reach if he can also create a few climbing opportunities along the way. Winner of the Tour of California this May, and a fine 5th in the long TT of the recent Tour de Suisse, Gesink is one of the few favourites to possess a ‘kick’ when he climbs flat-out. It is this advantage that should place Gesink above Leipheimer, a man who’s gradually coming to-form after an injury-ruined season but who lacks that extra ‘zip’ on the climbs. Sanchez will want to be at least the best Spaniard, and craves a top-three spot in Paris to go with his Olympic Gold medal of 2008. While Hesjedal, winner of the Giro and a man who’s still discovering himself late in life, will want to show his Italian success was no fluke – which it wasn’t. Trying to predict an entire top-10 of a Tour is impossible, but expect a Frenchman – Pierre Rolland; a Belgian – Maxime Monfort; a Luxemburger – Frank Schleck; and an Italian – Vincenzo Nibali – to be up there at the sharp-end of the game. Then there’s Spain’s Alejandro Valverde, back from his drug-enforced ban and eager to make a point to his rivals and critics – he too might make the top-ten in Paris.
So strong is Team Sky that a co-ordinated effort against them in the mountains is the only way to isolate and unsettle Wiggins to the point that he becomes, perhaps, vulnerable. Yet at the Dauphiné, Sky didn’t just resist the many attacks made against them in the Alps – they saved their best until last by placing four of their top men with Wiggins on the race’s hardest ascent, the Joux-Plane. In doing so, they laid down a marker for the Tour, a kind of intimidation for their rivals. Still, a closer look at this year’s Tour route reveals that it is much tougher than people realise, and that Sky will either reign supreme or break apart with the pressure of expectation upon them. The four Vosges/Alpine stages are split by the 41-kilometre TT at Macon, and unless Sky have let a lucky escape go clear in that first week, Wiggins is likely to be in control for those Alpine stages – for that’s the way he and his team want to race this Tour. But the Pyrenean stages - 14, 16 and 17 – offer a tougher proposition after two weeks racing, and with the longer 53-kilometre TT still to come. With these last mountain stages close to Spain, a habitual motivation for that country’s cyclists to do well, Sky can expect assaults from Movistar and Euskatel, with surreptitious support from the few Spanish cyclists still racing on ‘foreign’ teams. I envisage Sanchez and Valverde working in unison against Wiggins, with the ‘other’ Sanchez – Luis Leon - sending his Rabobank troops into the battle, a move that will also benefit Gesink.
Can Wiggins be defeated? Yes, of course, but huge lessons have been learnt since he crashed out in 2011, and his team has been re-inforced almost to the point of invincibility. Wiggins’ teamates will make sure they keep him in front this time around, make sure he isn’t allowed to lose concentration and drift back into the middle of the peloton like he did last year. Sky will have learnt a lot from the way BMC rode at the front for Evans in 2011, keeping their man clear of most dangers until the mountains made their natural selection in the peloton. Wiggins is strong enough to ride at, or near, the front for three weeks. He’s fast enough to outpace all his rivals in the TTs, and he’s trained so much at altitude in the mountains, that there is likely nothing that scares him. But a bad day awaits even the greatest champions if little things start to go wrong. Some people say Sky is too organised, too controlled - too perfect. Such an outfit could be toppled if their perfect-plan gets compromised, and they also have Mark Cavendish to consider as well.
If it is so hard to predict the way this Tour will be raced, imagine how the teams make their plans? Tactics planned overnight might need to be changed if a rider falls ill or crashes, or if rival teams make an unexpected move, obliging everyone to throw their plans out of the window and start anew. There are so many side shows to the main event, either one of them could change the way the race is run. Most French hopes will be on Thomas Voeckler to repeat what he did in 2011 by escaping on a ‘transitional’ stage but gaining enough time to take the race-lead and, almost, defending it to the end. No-one expects Voeckler to be allowed to go away this time, but if he does then it might change an entire week’s racing. Schleck is an interesting cyclist, and will almost certainly go on the attack in the Pyrenees if he’s lost a fair few minutes in that Macon TT – he too could spoil the plans of many a team. But it is the Points competition that carries the greatest speculation, for it involves Sky and Cavendish in their quest to win a second Green Jersey for the sprinter.
The Tour has retained its one-sprint-per-day competition that Cavendish used to win last year’s Green Jersey. The Manxman would be lead-out by his then Columbia team, take the flying sprint, and either sit up for the rest of the day or prepare himself for the finish-sprint as well. But with Sky’s eyes more focussed on winning the Yellow Jersey, Cavendish may have to fend for himself a lot more this July, unless he builds up some early advantage in the competition and obliges his team to balance their loyalties. The 2012 Tour sees the debut of Peter Sagan, a raw talent from Slovakia who can climb hills almost as well as he can sprint. It is not just the likes of Greipel, Rojas, Farrar, Petacchi or Renshaw who threaten Cavendish – it is Sagan and his ability to get to those flying sprints ahead of the sprinters, and even take a stage-win or two if there’s an uphill finale to help him. If Cavendish finds himself with a hefty deficit after week one, I fully expect Sky to switch him to a helping role – literally a domestique – to re-inforce the chances of Wiggins. In return, Cavendish will earn 100-percent of Wiggins’s support in the Olympic Games road race. Now that’s not a bad asset to have.
As always, I’ll go to this Tour full of excitement at the prospects ahead. I am British, and would love to see Wiggins win for Great Britain – especially in this London Olympic year. I’d love to see Cavendish win the Green Jersey too – even though that would mean covering up his glorious Rainbow Jersey. But my eyes and hopes are spread further afield than just British cyclists and teams. I’d love to see Evans challenge Wiggins and even win – for that would make for a great Tour, and prove what a truly great cyclist the Australian really is. And I could actually enjoy seeing Voeckler win for France – now that would really change the face of the Tour in its host country. You see, like it or not, the Tour de France is what we all live for each year. It dominates our lives in a way that only becomes apparent when the race actually starts. Races before or afterwards pale into a respectful sort of insignificance - they entertain us but merely form the pecking order of races that make the Tour seem so powerful.
And of course, the Tour is so much more than a bike-race. When I’m not working with my camera, or passing too many hours editing the 500 images I retain each day, I’ll be keeping an eye on which restaurant tempts me the most, which bottle of wine catches my eye, and if my fellow-travellers are enjoying themselves as much as me. No, they couldn’t possibly be! Vive Le Tour, vive La France – it’ll soon be coming your way! I’ll be taking just about every bit of camera gear I own, for the Tour gives off many more photo opps’ than any other race, and I would not want to be lacking in any department. Two Nikon D4 bodies, six lenses - ranging from a 16mm Fisheye to a 200-400mm zoom – two flash units, a spare D3 body, an iPad, a battery pack, a lap-top, cables, connectors, an iPad and a piece of chamois leather to clean everything. Now that’s before I even think about what clothing to cram into my already overladen bags! Yet this three weeks will pass so quickly I won’t even have time to consider such banalities as what to wear each evening. The Tour eats up every living minute of one’s day, and most of the night as well. Yet five days after the Tour ends, I’ll be trekking into London for the Olympic Games road race. So maybe only in October will I be able to consider if the 2012 Tour was a great one, or merely a good one. GW
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