Preview

It is that time of the year again when The Falcon is your guide for a glorious three week tour of France. 2012 is a big year for Australia – Cadel Evans is the defending champ and Australia’s first ever professional cycling team, Orica-Green Edge makes their Tour debut. As always The Falcon’s definitive guide should be your first port of call for all things Le Tour.

The Route

This year’s route is a class of new and old. The new – less pure flat stages and more stages that have a classics like profile. The old – 100+ kilometres of time trialling! The idea behind this set up is to get the mountain men to attack as much as possible in order to counter the masses of time they will lose in the races against the clock. I think the idea has merit and we should see some animated racing throughout the three weeks. However, courses like this have backfired in the past, with TT specialists dominating early and then just sucking wheel over the Alps and Pyrenees. The result is racing that is boring as s**t. This is likely to be the tactic adopted by Bradley Wiggins and could potentially kill the race as a spectacle (of course if Cadel employs the same methodology it will be tactical genius!).

The Contenders

This year’s race looks to be a race in two – so you either have to be in the camp of either Cadel Evans or Bradley Wiggins. There is no way in hell I could tip Wiggo to win Le Tour so that means I am backing Cadel to go back-to-back! He will be suited by the mass kilometres of time trialling and showed last year that he can hold his own with almost anyone in the mountains. He should have the weight of the world off his shoulders after last years victory and if he plays his cards right he will be extremely tough to beat.

In their own Olympic year the Brits are screaming from the rafters that Wiggins is unbeatable but I don’t buy it. Sure he is the best time trialler of the contenders but for me he has yet to prove himself a consistent climber over a three week Grand Tour. He has won the Dauphine twice but that is a weeklong race and for me he has that mental fragility about him that Cadel had during his early cracks at tour favouritism. I’m banking he will blow up at some stage and I can’t wait to see it happen!!!

For third I like the Italian Vincenzo Nibali. A solid all round rider he should not concede too much time to the power riders in the time trials and can also hold his own in the hills. He is a former Vuelta winner and knows how to dose his efforst when required.  If Liquigas ride for him he is a definite podium threat.

The complete bolter is world time trial champion Tony Martin. If he can gain enough time on his rivals in the time trials (potentially 1:30 in each one) he might just be able to gets it out in the mountains to pull off the mother of all shocks.

The Sprinters

The Green Jersey this year will be determined by whether or not Mark Cavendish pulls out of the Tour early to prepare for the Olympics. If he gets to Paris he will win the thing but I reckon he’ll be gone before the Pyrenees.

That gives Aussie start Matt Goss every chance to wear the jersey in Paris. He won a stage at the Giro d’Italia and won Milan San Remo (the sprinters classic) in 2011. That suggests he has what it takes to drag himself over the mountains and for me he is the second fastest man in world cycling (as evidenced by his world championship silver medal last year). Go you good thing.

The man to beat is obviously young phenom Peter Sagan. This guy is the Phillipe Gilbert of 2012 in that everything he has touched has turn to gold – including four dominant wins in the Tour of California. He might not be quite as fast as Goss but he will be able to win those intermediate stages where the true sprinters get dropped. Last years’ Cavendish v Gilbert battle went to Cav though and for that reason I have gone with the pure sprinter.

There are a host of other contenders with the best two for mine Marcel Kittel and Tyler Farrar. Kittel could be the next Cavendish – he is extremely fast and knows how to win if he gets to the final kilometre in position. Farrar has been highly ranked in this competition in the past two tours and is likely to be there or thereabouts again this year.

The Climbers

Usually an absolute lottery to pick this jersey and no different this year. Generally you have to go with a guy not quite good enough to win the GC but with a fair bit of mountain ability. That has left me with Michele Scarponi, who is the official 2011 Giro D’Italia winner following the enforcement of the Contador doping ban. He won’t have the TT ability to hang around on the flat so he should be free to fly and chase mountains points in the climbs. Other hopefuls include Sammy Sanchez and Frank Schleck but they will have to put themselves out of GC contenders before they are allowed any rein. For a complete bolter a good Aussie hope is Matty Lloyd who won the climbing classification at the 2010 Giro.

The Youngsters

The bookies have Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk as the hot favourite for the white jersey coming off a strong classics season, but really this title is not really determined until late in the final week when we can judge how the youngsters are coping with the difficulties of a 3 week slog. Rein Taaramae must be a chance of avenging his narrow defeat in this classification last year, while if Tejay Van Garderen does not have to look after Cadel too much he is a chance of finishing high in this classification as well.

Brock McLean award for tweet of the day:

@FakePaulKeating on the SBS Tour fantasy completion

do you get refunds if a team member gets outed for roids? #TdF