Tour de France 2009, who do you like?

W

WhiteH2O Horn

250+ Posts
Because of what he brings in terms of fitness, skills & experience in the relevant disciplines of Grand Tour stage racing, and overall team strength, I have to say that Alberto Contador is the overwhelming favorite to win. The only things I see in his way are misfortunes due to crash, onset of some illness, or the outside possibility of Lance being stronger.

If Armstrong ends up riding to support the GC hopes of Contador, I see Cadel Evans once again finishing second, the present version of Joseba Beloki. Great rider, great preparation & desire, and pretty strong team, just cursed to be in his prime at the wrong time.

I like Armstrong to finish on the podium in third. He'll still be great in the TT's to keep himself high in the GC, but lose a little time in the high mountains in support of Astana's leader Contador. Even in support of Contador, I think that Armstrong can best the likes of Denis Menchov, Andy Schleck, and defending champ Carlos Sastre to get on the podium.

Of course, if Lance comes out dominant early and Contador gets discouraged, who knows how it will play out? For now, my 2009 Tour de France podium looks like this:

1. Alberto Contador
2. Cadel Evans
3. Lance Armstrong

What do y'all think?
 
I think it is hard to make the podium if you have to ride in support of someone else, but I would like to see it play out that way, because the final mountain is the next to last day this year, and if two or three of the big dogs on Astana are still in the running, it would be an epic stage. It would be hard for a team manager to give orders at that point-would Lance Armstrong drop back to support Contador in a situation like that if he had the best legs remaining?
All that internal team management will make this tour very interesting. Looking forward to the start, July 4, right?
 
It looks like Astana has a pretty stacked teama and I think that Contador of Lance could both be pretty good contenders for the overall win. I'm just wondering how long into the tour we will have to wait to see who gets the nod. I'd like to see Sastre put up a good fight, but I don't know if he has the team behind him to do it.

Whatever happens I am looking forward to watch Cavendish win a couple stages. I also want to see how well the new P4 does for the CTT in the time trials.
 
With Levi, Kloden, Popo and Zubeldia available to support Contador's effort I think the team can leave Lance free to freelance a bit on the mountain stages and see what he can do on the big climbs essentially on his own. Contador will still have a better cadre of mountain support riders than anyone else. I have no doubt that Astana will dominate this race whenever and wherever they chose.

I can't argue with whitewater's picks.
 
Lance said that he will be gladly ready to ride in support of Contador.


I think his intention is just to ride in "support" of Contador in the mountains and then go hell bent for leather in the Time Trials and let the chips fall where they may.
 
Lance said that he will be gladly ready to ride in support of Contador
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I call ******** on that one.
 
Pleaseeeee - no doping scandals this year.
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I think LA will ride in support of Contador, and will not work to undermine the team's chances of winning. But if he is right there at the end, with a shot of winning, and Contador falters on one of the last climbs, I think he would sieze the reins and go for the victory. And I think the team would support that.
There are three or four others on that team who can hope for a similar scenario, as well.
 
Besides not having any doping I would also like this tour to be an exciting injury free race with all riders finishing the tour. This would mean no crashes.

Of course this is probably wishful thinking.
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We will know soon enough what Astana's and Lance's strategy is for the big climbs with the first HC finish in stage 7. The contenders will finish together at the front, and the pretenders won't.
 
If Lance and Contador somehow emerge as co-dominant, I can envision Armstrong 'letting' Contador win a TDF given the appearance that it occurred out of Armstrong's generosity. Beyond that, we're talking about one of the greatest TDF riders in history who is undefeated this decade. His competitiveness is just too ingrained in his nature to be a domestique in the traditional sense.

I'm reminded of the incredible stage finish a few years ago (mountains with a level sprint finish in a town) where Armstrong and Floyd Landis were out front ~20 sec of Ullrich, Kloden and a couple others with 2-3 km to go when Lance looked over to Floyd and said "you want to win a stage?" and gave Floyd the nod to take off and win it. The others sensed what was up and absolutely hauled *** to catch Landis.

Kloden then expoloded out front down the final ~1000m, but then in an unbelievable display, Armstrong kicked it into some superhuman gear and caught Kloden to beat him at the line.

Assuming Lance is true to form, that's what I might envision. He'll support Contador, carry him, and set up an opportunity to give him the win, but won't hold back in the heat of the moment if Contador can't finish it.

edited above: it was Landis that Lance gave the shot to win in that incredible stage finish Lance ended up winning himself. Stage 17, 2004 TDF:


ARMSTRONGARR17a-849.jpg
 
I will give Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong equal odds. I think once it gets going that if Lance thinks he can win it, he goes all out and does it. If he feels he doesn't have it then and only then I can see him being there to support Contador.
 
Sounds like Lance knows he is producing numbers like he did in years that he won the race. The question I see is whether his body can recover overnight for three weeks straight like it used to.
 
Man, I can't wait to watch this tour. It sounds like LA and Contador are co-leaders, and they may not be real friendly, although I may be reading too much into that. One is Spanish whose English isn't great, the other American whose Spanish isn't great, so they don't communicate a lot.
But I read this morning that while Astana had financial problems, LA went out and spent considerable time trying to find replacement sponorship money, while Contador went out and tried to line up other teams to sign up with. And while Brunell managed Contador to victory last year, he also ran the team's LA won seven tours for, so he may have divided loyalties.
Could there be internal politicing, intrigue, or outright hostilities by the end of this thing? The possibility is there. More likely the contenders will just play out their hands and see who is the strongest at the end, while helping each other on the way. We'll see.
 
Rather surprised at the results of the prologue. I didn't see any way Lance would be more than 15-20 seconds off the lead or that Contador would really blow him off the road.
 
Cavendish appears to be unbeatable in bunch sprints.

I HATE the "no time bonuses" thing this year. It seems to really reduce the stragery.
 
Having a technical short time with a little climb instead of a prologue pretty much made the sprint time bonuses worthless. That and having the team time trial so early.

With a regular prologue a sprinter might capture the yellow jersey with time bonuses but it isn't possible with this years setup.
 
H20,

Yeah, what does Bruyneel do now?

Lance made a pretty convincing argument today.

How bizarre would it be to see him back in yellow tomorrow?
 
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