Tour de France 2008: Pre-race Talk

hawkeye87

You have that right! Well, especially for Bennati. But Thor is still racing!

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -- Wayne Gretzsky

Anticyclone

Which French rider will come out of this the best? With the chance of this being the cleanest tour for ages will a Frenchman target the overall hoping to sneak into the top 10? Admittedly this contains the assumptions that this tour will be the cleanest and that the French have been held back by not doping or by doping less than others but both are possible. Moreau won the Dauphine last year but crashed in the Tour and finished 37th. Maybe this year will see him have better luck although he is getting pretty old now. Cyril Dessel did well in the Dauphine but again he is getting on as well. Maybe Sylvain Chavanel will aim for a top 20? Pretty slim pickings really. Probably the best chance of a high placing is for someone who is capable of about 30th being let go in one of those breaks that stay away and gain half an hour on everyone. Maybe one of the above will go for breaks in the mountains and try to get the polka dot jersey?

mitosis

True. I think he has only failed to finish one TdeF out of 10 and that was when he was injured last year.

Crankyfeet

Has anyone seen the Quick Step line-up for the race? Is Devolder going to get more support now that Boonen is a non-starter?

Here's the start list I just dragged off CN. Haven't got much of a clue as to the strengths of the domestiques.


Carlos Barredo (Spa)
Matteo Carrara (Ita)
Stijn Devolder (Bel)
Steven De Jongh (Ned)
Sébastien Rosseler (Bel)
Gert Steegmans (Bel)
Matteo Tosatto (Ita)
Mauro Facci (Ita)
Jurgen Van de Walle (Bel)

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thunder

you can send him a few of crankiesfeets jock straps for extra support.

Crankyfeet

Thanks for the expert analysis...

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thunder

Carlos Barredo (Spa) all round domestique, but think he will be a stage hunter
Matteo Carrara (Ita) hmmm not sure off hand
Stijn Devolder (Bel) wont do jack shit anyway
Steven De Jongh (Ned) good sprinte in his own right, Steegmans leadout man
Sébastien Rosseler (Bel) good tter, domestique duties, work in leadout train
Gert Steegmans (Bel)
Matteo Tosatto (Ita) leadout train,
Mauro Facci (Ita) not sure, assume decent all round rider/domestique role
Jurgen Van de Walle (Bel) not sure, see above

Crankyfeet

From some cursory research... most of your unknowns look like leadout train guys with some allround capabilities.

Carrara (29yrs and 72kg) has a fourth in the 2007 Tour de Suisse, a 6th and 10th in the 2006 Giro di Lombardia and Milan-Sanremo respectively... and points classifications in 2003 Tour of Qinghai Lake and the Osterreich Rundfahrt. He was riding for Lampre in 2004, Barloworld in 2005, Lampre again in 2006, and Unibet in 2007.

Facci (26yrs and 70kg) is a late young switch replacement for Van Impe. His sole pro palmares are in Team Time Trials. He was with Barloworld in 2006... and QS since.

And Van de Walle (31 yrs and 75kg) won the Belgian U19 Road Race in 1995 and came second in the Belgian U19 TT that same year. He was with minor Conti teams before joining QS in 2006.

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lucybears

For startlist info
http://startlist.cyclingfever.com/

Crankyfeet

Some nice TdF intro videos that play automatically on Versus' site.

http://www.versus.com/tdf



Versus will be streaming the first two stages live on the internet prior to the TV coverage starting at 8:30am EST in the US.

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Crankyfeet

Horner picks his tour favorites... from cyclingnews.com


http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/200...08_chris_horner


PS - Does everyone here read CN and linking to there is just a waste of time?

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thunder

yep

confusedfan

true, many likely read CN - but with so many sources and articles to read about Tour stuff these days, I appreciate (even if thunder doesn't ) the links to articles others found interesting in case I missed something (eg. I hadn't yet noticed this Horner article, so thanks!)

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confusedfan

re: Horner interview on CN - Horner always seems to have good insight about strategy stuff ... his comments about Beloki in 2003 (ie, why was he riding so aggressively in the first place when he crashed?) were interesting, never thought about it like that before.

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