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Riders & Teams

General Classification

Discovery
One of the two strongest GC teams this year has to be Discovery because it has Lance trying for his seventh consecutive Tour win backed by Savodelli, Popovych, Azevedo, and Beltran among other strong riders. Discovery has four riders capable of winning this Tour; Lance, Savodelli, Popovych, and Azevedo because they can all climb and time trial strong. This provides the GC power they need and Lance has stated that, if necessary, he will ride for one of these to get the win for the team. This is something he may very well have to decide and, possibly, during a stage. The big question I would ask is, “does Lance have the determination and focus to win this year with him looking forward to retiring immediately after the Tour?” The reason I ask this is because it only takes a little drop in mental focus to go from first to fifth in pro racing. If his “I want it” isn’t enough, he can lose it off of that alone.

T-Mobile
This is the other of the two strongest GC teams in this Tour. With Ullrich at the helm and Vinokourov, Kloden, and Sevilla backing his action, this team is probably the biggest threat Lance has ever faced and could be the team to beat Lance. They have a really huge triple punch in Ullrich, Vino, and Kloden because all three have finished in the top three in the Tour showing that they are each individually a threat to win it. If they get two or more of them close enough to first, they have the power to force one of them into the win. If they work well enough together, this is just an amazing team and can get the job done. They are so totally focused on the Yellow Jersey this year that they dropped Zabel from their Tour team. They really want this one. Remember, I teach in my book that the three most important words in the world are “I want it” and the next two most important words are “How much”. They are answering both questions quite adequately.

The media are hyping Vino all over the place and ignoring Kloden, but are they right?  Now, let me give you a strategic analysis that I know you won’t get anywhere else and this is what coaches get paid for, to figure out the competition so you can beat them.

You are the coach for T-Mobile, if your team gets in a place during the Tour where Vino is your best chance for a team win or top placing, you use him because you have to get the sponsors their exposure, called paying rent. But, if you are in a point to where you can choose between winning or getting a top placing with Vino or Kloden and you think they can both do the job, who do you use?

The answer is easy, Vino’s contract with T-Mobile runs out at the end of this year, Ullrich will be retiring soon, possibly at the end of this season, and Kloden will be your new team leader on GC for the Tour. You don’t chose Vino to win or place if Kloden can also do the job because you don’t want to create a Tour winner or high placer for another team when you can do so for your team. You can bet that Kloden is the number two man on the team and the journalists are missing it completely but T-Mobile may want them to so T-Mobile can use Vino as more of a threat and give Kloden a better chance.

If it comes down to a choice between Vino and Kloden and the coach thinks they have the same chance, Vino is cannon fodder and Kloden is the man. You will only get that from my site which is why you keep coming to my site. :-)  There is much more to team strategy than individual ability.

CSC
Normally, with Basso, Jullich, Sastre, and Voigt, I would consider this team a serious threat. The question we will see answered in the Tour is, “did Basso recover enough from riding sick in the Giro to do the job right in the Tour?” If not, this team will ride for stage wins and KOM though Riis has made some strong head way in developing a number of his riders and could have some surprises left for us in riders like Jullich, Voigt, and Sastre. You never know with Riis.

Phonak
With Landis as team leader and Botero riding strong again, this team could easily be the spoiler to sneak past the best teams and steal the goose that lays the Yellow Jersey. Landis is strong at both climbing and time trialing. With enough team support, he could pull off the win. Botero is showing the best form he has in years and is good at both climbing and time trialing. He could get himself another top five placing this year.

Euskaltel
Mayo and Zubeldia are back at the helm for this team this year but we really have not seen anything of them showing how well they are riding. If they are in top form, they could pull off the win because both of these riders have shown they are top GC material because they are both good at climbing and time trialing though, most likely, Zubeldia will be in the support position for Mayo. At this point, this team is a big question mark partly because Mayo seems to be having confidence problems.

Liberty
This team is being considered a threat because of Heras and the fact that he is backed by strong riders like Beloki and Galdeano. But Heras has traditionally had trouble losing time in the time trials. It should be stated that he showed considerable improvement last year and Saiz has stated that he is even better this year. We will see. I think you need to keep an eye on Beloki as a possible surprise threat because, before his crash a few years ago, he was one of the two best in the world with Lance and we were told he wouldn’t even be riding the Tour this year. Beloki’s biggest problem seems to be his confidence following the crash. Does Saiz have something up his sleaves? Keep an eye on this.

Gerolsteiner
Leipheimer and, increasingly, Totschnig make this a long shot team you have to at least keep an eye on. These long shots have a tendancy to surprise you if you fall asleep on them. As a coach, I have learned to never assume a team like this won’t be a threat and it is safest to at least watch them. Any little improvement on such a team or with such riders and be very dangerous. This is one of those “be careful” teams.

Illes Balears
As a younger, developing rider, Mancebo showed a lot of promise and has yet to fulfill that promise. He may never do so but these riders can turn into a sleeper who sudden wake up one day and blow up in your face. Just be careful with this team but most likely they will be racing for a podium spot. I would like to see Mancebo after a year with Riis. Scary thought, huh? :-)

GC Analysis
The main battle will come from Discovery, T-Mobile, Phonak, and, possibly, CSC, Euskaltel, and Liberty pending fitness for different riders and the recovery of Basso. There are too many question marks on some of these teams to make a very accurate prediction. Watch for innovative and increasingly complex team tactics like I teach in my e-book. We have already seen the top teams using those tactics this year and you need to know them to better follow the action in this Tour.

I would look for either Discovery or T-Mobile to take the lead and try to get at least one other top GC rider as close to the lead as possible so they can force the other teams to race for second as I teach in my e-book. I would also expect the other team to try to get as many riders as they can as close to first as possible and then use team leverage to force the other team to wear down so they can be broken and the lead can be stolen. The additional flatter stages following the mountains this year make this even more possible because the team which takes the lead too early has to control and defend for long enough that any team can be broken. We have seen Lance almost lose the Tour twice because his team broke but no one pounced and Lance survived. This year, you can bet T-Mobile will be waiting to pounce and will probably even be trying to break the Discovery team, if they take the lead too soon. They have the muscle to do it.

Add to this the threats and attacks from the other strong teams, and a team taking the lead too soon in the mountains could be committing suicide. This almost happened the year Beloki crashed but the other teams made the mistake of going after each other before they broke Lance and put him out of the race. We may very well get to see if they learned from their mistake or will they repeat it.

I easily expect one or both of Discovery and T-Mobile to get two riders in the top five for maximum team leverage in the closing stages. If not, the other team could more easily destroy them.

My big guess this year, and this is really and increasingly a blind guess, is:

1. Lance
2. Ullrich
3. Kloden
4. Landis
5. Basso
6. Savodelli

Of course, this is not factoring in crashes and illness.

Sprinters

Credit Agricole
Hushovd and Kirsipuu have to make this one of the best stage winning teams in the Tour this year. Hushovd has really shown an emergence the last few years and they can both get the job done.

Davitamon
McEwen still has to be considered a threat even though he is down in performance some this year. On the other hand, Steels has shown a little improvement in a few earlier races. Watch them for stage wins.

Francaise
With Cooke and McGee, this team has to be considered a strong contender for the sprints and stage wins.

Cofidis
Of course, you can’t ignore the ever dependable Stuart O’Grady who will be riding for more stage wins and the Green Jersey. With the climbing early in the Tour this year and Zabel out of the Tour, the new format favors O’Grady and increases his chances at winning the Points Title because O’Grady can sprint and climb.


Sprinters Analysis
With both Boonen and Zabel out, it looks like the sprinter game is pretty much up for grabs and this could really alter how the race is ridden and even make it tougher to hold the lead longer for GC. In the last few years, the GC leader could control the first part of the flatter stages knowing the sprinter teams would bring almost all breaks back in towards the end of the stage. But this year, there may not be that kind of power for the sprinters and the race leader’s team may not have this to fall back on forcing them to do all of the work in the flats. It could also mean that more stages will be won with breaks than in the past few years. This could make the racing very interesting and upset everyone’s apple carts. Who knows, if the top teams blow themselves apart in the flats, maybe O’Grady will win the Tour this year.  :-)

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