Riders & Teams

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Riders & Teams

I have received a copy of the riders for each team from one of you (James Monahan - thank you) with a few minor changes still to be determined but the major players should be set for the Tour. Therefore, I am going to do the team analysis for this year a little early.

Before I started this analysis, I went over my analysis for last year and noticed that I had stated there were only five teams which had a reasonable chance of winning or even putting a rider in the top three for the Tour. I noticed that the first three teams I listed took first (Armstrong, USPS), second (Ullrich, Telekom), and third (Beloki, ONCE). Not a bad guess for being three thousand miles away.

I also told you that I expected Jalabert to finish worse on GC last year than the year before because of the climbing and he did in spite of the fact that he won the KOM title. Another thing I told you about was Bobby Julich needing to do something serious about his training problem or he would be riding this year as a domestique. He is now riding as a domestique for Telekom. You need to learn from these lessons to better understand how the industry works. It is a very unforgiving industry. You produce or pay the price. No mercy.

I see four teams as major players for the win and top three placings on GC for the 2002 Tour. They are looking good and it could be a good fight. The four teams I want to look at are US Postal, ONCE, Kelme, and CSC. With Armstrong being the three time defending champion and coming off a win at the Dauphine, he should be considered the favorite. BUT there are some things you need to pay attention to. First, no one is invincible. Every expert in the world expected Indurain to win six Tours in a row but he got slam dunked in the sixth Tour and never saw the podium again. NEVER take if for granted that a favorite will win.

Second, people have been saying, with supporting examples, that Armstrong is off form. If this is true, he could easily be beat. Even if it is not true, he can be beat if he believes he can't be beat, makes a mistake, or has a bad Tour. NO ONE is invincible.

Third, one of the most important riders who helped Armstrong win the first three Tours is not only, not on the team working for Armstrong but is on another team as the team leader working against Armstrong. ANY TIME a strong rider goes from working for you to racing against you it is like losing AT LEAST two riders from your team because you lose the work he did for you and gain the work he will do against you. I believe this loss will be Armstrong's biggest threat and damage for this year. It could also be one of the reasons why others are thinking that Armstrong is not riding as strong. Armstrong could now be doing more work to get the same job done and isn't as fresh when it comes time to make the winning move. If this is true, it could cost him the Tour.

ALWAYS REMEMBER, You don't know how significant a domestique is until you lose him!!!

Next, I want to consider ONCE. They are a very powerful GC team this year. Joseba Beloki finished third on GC last year and Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano finished fifth. They seem to be riding stronger this year and even Armstrong has stated that he considers Beloki to be his number one threat this year. ONCE also has Marcos Serrano who finished nineth on GC last year giving them another threat for Armstrong. This powerful and improved double (triple?) punch could be Armstrong's undoing. This will be a good battle. Watch for it.

It is very important to understand that, when you have two riders of this strength for GC riding on the same team, it gives your team incredible team leverage. A tactic to watch for here (especially with Hamilton missing from USPS) will be for ONCE to send one of them up the road in the mountains forcing Armstrong and the USPS team to chase while the other rider rests on Armstrong's wheel. When Armstrong and his team are beat from chasing the one rider, the other rider takes a flyer and wins the race. You will see this happen a lot with teams who are this solid with GC riders. The idea is to force you into a lose - lose situation. You lose if you don't chase him and you lose if you do chase him.

Kelme is the third team I want to consider for the 2002 Tour GC. They have Santiago Botero who got eighth on GC last year and Oscar Sevilla who got seventh. They recently finished first and second, respectively, in the Classic les Alpes. They are clearly riding strong and pose a significant threat. At the very least, they will be there waiting for Armstrong to make a mistake or faulter.

The fourth team you need to watch this year is CSC. Tyler Hamilton will be riding as the primary team leader but backed by Carlos Sastre and Laurent Jalabert. We know that, even when riding as a domsetique for Armstrong, Hamilton was right there with Armstrong on both the climbs and time trials. Hamilton is coming off of a second place in the Giro AFTER breaking a shoulder bone in a crash. He took time off to heal which probably caused him to permit his body to recover and develop to a higher fitness level. Hamilton could be the single biggest threat to Armstrong and could stop Armstrong's winning streak. Watch for this battle.

It is very important to remember that ONCE and Kelme dominated the top ten placings on GC last year and are returning those riders for this year. Two of the top five finishers are not returning leaving only the following top ten finishers:

1st Armstrong - USPS
3rd Beloki - ONCE
5th Galdeano - ONCE
6th Francois Simon - Bonjour
7th Sevilla - Kelme
8th Botero - Kelme
9th Serrano - ONCE
10th Boogerd - Rabobank

Five of those top ten are all riding on just two teams this year. That is a lot of combined team leverage. This is going to be another fun Tour.

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