Tour hits the mountains
Stage 7 of the Tour de France was today and the Astana team continued their dominance, finishing the stage with four of the top six riders overall. They have so much talent that an Astana sweep of the podium in Paris is not out of the question.
Armstrong and Contador are now just two seconds apart in 2nd and 3rd place. First place has six seconds on Contador, but is not a General Classification (GC) contender, so we can expect him to drop in the coming stages.
Armstrong did exactly what he said he would do before stage 7: “I know Alberto wants to assert himself in the race. I don’t need a team meeting to tell me that. I know he’s ready to go. If he does – and no one can go with him – I will just hang back and stay with the other leaders.”
Contador attacked near the end of the stage. Evans looked like he might follow and Armstrong got on his wheel. When it quickly became clear that Evans wouldn’t be able to keep up with Contador, Armstrong stuck with Evans and other top GC contenders. Wiggins even thought it looked like Armstrong might have had the legs to follow, but chose to block for his teammate instead. Interesting. I can't imagine Armstrong has given up his own hopes for a Tour win just yet, but he might be planning to make a go of it late in the race if he's still close to the yellow jersey.
Here's how I see the chances of the top contenders coming into the Tour after the first mountain stage:
I rank Leipheimer and Kloden lower than perhaps their times would suggest. That’s because they would have to beat their teammates Contador and Armstrong to win and not only would that be very difficult, but so far it looks more likely that they will work for the top two instead. As for all but Armstrong, Contador, and Andy Schleck being long shots or worse, I'm just saying it's going to be very difficult to put time into Contador and Armstrong and that's what all the other contenders have to do now. Andy Schleck is a great climber and is rapidly maturing as a rider. Two years ago at the age of 22 he was runner up at the Giro. I give him the best shot of getting a break on the Astana pair.
Top contenders:
Contador, Armstrong, A. Schleck
Long shots:
Vande Velde, Leipheimer, F. Schleck, Sastre, Evans
Really long shots:
Kloden, Kirchen
Forget about it:
Menchov, Pereiro
Dark horses:
Martin, Wiggins (consider them really long shots, but they've been impressive so far)
Armstrong and Contador are now just two seconds apart in 2nd and 3rd place. First place has six seconds on Contador, but is not a General Classification (GC) contender, so we can expect him to drop in the coming stages.
Armstrong did exactly what he said he would do before stage 7: “I know Alberto wants to assert himself in the race. I don’t need a team meeting to tell me that. I know he’s ready to go. If he does – and no one can go with him – I will just hang back and stay with the other leaders.”
Contador attacked near the end of the stage. Evans looked like he might follow and Armstrong got on his wheel. When it quickly became clear that Evans wouldn’t be able to keep up with Contador, Armstrong stuck with Evans and other top GC contenders. Wiggins even thought it looked like Armstrong might have had the legs to follow, but chose to block for his teammate instead. Interesting. I can't imagine Armstrong has given up his own hopes for a Tour win just yet, but he might be planning to make a go of it late in the race if he's still close to the yellow jersey.
Here's how I see the chances of the top contenders coming into the Tour after the first mountain stage:
I rank Leipheimer and Kloden lower than perhaps their times would suggest. That’s because they would have to beat their teammates Contador and Armstrong to win and not only would that be very difficult, but so far it looks more likely that they will work for the top two instead. As for all but Armstrong, Contador, and Andy Schleck being long shots or worse, I'm just saying it's going to be very difficult to put time into Contador and Armstrong and that's what all the other contenders have to do now. Andy Schleck is a great climber and is rapidly maturing as a rider. Two years ago at the age of 22 he was runner up at the Giro. I give him the best shot of getting a break on the Astana pair.
Top contenders:
Contador, Armstrong, A. Schleck
Long shots:
Vande Velde, Leipheimer, F. Schleck, Sastre, Evans
Really long shots:
Kloden, Kirchen
Forget about it:
Menchov, Pereiro
Dark horses:
Martin, Wiggins (consider them really long shots, but they've been impressive so far)
posted by Patrick at
9:45 PM
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