Tour de France Overview

The countdown to the start of this year’s Tour de France is officially underway with Nicolas Roche poised to carry Ireland’s hopes of a stage win in a race which promises to be anything but predictable.

Defending champion Alberto Contador (Astana) is clearly installed as the pre-race favourite but this year’s Tour is a much tougher assignment for the two time winner whose only certainty is that he can take nothing for granted.

Dauphine winner Janez Brajkovic (Radioshack) exposed a chink in the Spaniard’s armour on the Alpe d’Huez stage proving that it is possible to restrain or to stick with him should he attempt to reproduce the devastating attacks witnessed at Arcalis and Verbier last year.

Seven time champion and seasoned tactician Lance Armstrong (Radioshack) has already shown flickers of his old self at the Tour of Switzerland, while two time runner-up Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) has experienced a renaissance since becoming world champion.

Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) also starts as a favourite but the 2009 runner-up may yet play second fiddle to brother Frank whose win at the Tour of Switzerland revealed that he can now time trial almost as well as he can climb.

The top tier of potential winners is not complete without Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) whose motivation is drawn from the potential to become the first British rider to win the race and to emulate his success of finishing fourth last year.

While all six riders rank among the favourites to win the race the list of riders capable of upsetting their ambitions and of securing one of the three places on the final podium in Paris is considerably longer.

Giro winner Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Doimo), Carlos Sastre (Cervelo Test Team), Robert Gesink (Rabobank), and Levi Leimpher (Radioshack) are going to be there or thereabout while Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo), Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Transitions), Michael Rogers (HTC Columbia) and Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) are all solid outside bets.

The battle for the King of the Mountains and Best Young Rider classifications will be attractive to watch but the real dog-fight is scripted to take place in the Points Competition with Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia), Thor Hushovd (Cervelo Test Team) and Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Tranistions) playing leading roles for the possession of the green jersey.

Cavendish will have every opportunity to confound the critics but another six stage wins is unlikely and the battle with Hushovd et al is destined to be fought at the intermediate sprint points as much as it will take place at the big finishes where the Norwegian will be bidding to record back to back wins in the classification.

Whether or not Farrar can upstage his two rivals is a much different proposition to last year. The American has shown a marked improvement and his experience has grown with his confidence as he demonstrated by picking up two stage wins at the Giro d’Italia off the wheels on a significantly improved lead out train.

This year’s Tour is a real beginning to end race and those with an eye on overall victory will not have the luxury of using the first week to ride themselves into the race while biding their time for the high mountain stages.

The opening week starts with a traditional prologue in Rotterdam and accommodates five of the Tour’s nine flat stages. The race will not be won in the first week but it could easily be lost.

The stage which will cause the most concern is stage three from Wanze to Arenberg Porte du Hainault which tips its hat to Paris Roubaix with no less than 13.2 kilometres over pave.

The riders will negotiate the first three cobbled sections in Belgium as they make their way back into France where four pave sections totalling 11 kilometres will have to be negotiated before the finish at the entrance to the notorious Arenberg ‘Trench’

It has been six years since the Tour last encountered the cobbles and a full 27 years since the distance over the ruffled surface was greater than that which is set to test the mettle of the GC contenders this time out.

Roche has already reconnoitered the French section of the stage and is not alone in concluding that they present the potential to put a primer on the face of the final GC.

The second weeks includes all but one day in the medium or high mountains as the race snakes its way through the Alps for the first real showdown between the climbers and GC contenders.

The first of two stages posing the greatest challenge to the ambitions of the GC men is stage nine from Morzine-Avoriaz to St. Jean-de-Maurienne where the disruption of the previous day’s rest day could be just as damaging as the four categorised climbs which culminate with the monumental Col de Madeleine.

The second is the stage ten from Chambery to Gap where the notoriously steep Cote de Laffrey could reveal the cracks which the stronger riders will be only to willing to open up on the undulating and twisting roads to the finish.

The transitional stage taking the race into its final week are dangerous but are nowhere near as daunting as those chosen to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Pyrenees inclusion in the Tour.

These stages are the preserve of pure climbers and spectacular racing is guaranteed on stage 14 to Ax-3 Domaines and stage 15 over the Port de Bales to Bagneres-de-Luchon before the following stage to Pau which includes the famed Col du Tourmalet and Col d’Aubisque.

The Tour returns to the Tourmalet after the final rest day where the mountain top finish is destined to prove decisive on the ‘queen stage’ ahead of the race’s only individual time trial which takes place over 52 kilometres the day before the traditional finish on the Champs Elysees.