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PRE-TOUR TECH AND NEWS: RBA’S TOUR DE FRANCE SPECIAL
Tim Maloney-European Editor Photo: Roberto Bettini
June 9, 2008
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The 95th edition of the Tour de France starts Saturday July fifth in Brest and concludes in Paris on Sunday July 27th. With 21 total stages, the 2008 Tour course covers 3500 kilometers with ten flat stages, five mountain stages, four medium mountain stages and two individual time trial stages with a total of 82km against the clock. There will be four mountain-top finishes and two rest days, one in Pau, France, and another in Cuneo, Italy. Tour director Christian Prudhomme said of the 2008 Tour, “We wanted to put rhythm into the first week, with different scenarios. There will be possibilities to attack in every stage. The first week in Brittany and western France will not just be for sprinters; for example, Stage 1 finishes with a two-kilometer climb.” And the Tour will not have any time bonuses throughout the three-week race, a twist that may make the racing more open. After the successful Grand Depart in London last year, the Tour De France begins with a return to its roots with three days in cycling-mad Brittany, home of a five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault and three-time Tour champ Louison Bobet. Unusually, for the first time since 1967, the Tour will not start with a prologue time trial.
Last year’s Tour de France was marked with doping scandals, as race leader Michael Rasmussen, Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov, and Italian Cristian Moreni and his Cofidis team were all kicked out of the 2007 Tour de France. And 2007 Tour winner Alberto Contador, who moved to the controversial Astana team over the interseason, was not invited back to defend his title. Amaury Sport Organization president Patrice Clerc said, “We are fed up with the [doping] affairs. Let’s go back to sport”; while Tour Competition director Jean-Francois Pescheux explained, “We want the Tour to rediscover its romanticism.”
Five teams from France will start; Bouygues Telecom (BTL), Credit Agricole (C.A.), Cofidis Le crédit par téléphone (COF), Française Des Jeux (FDJ), AG2R—La Mondiale (ALM), Agritubel (AGR). Gerolsteiner (GST) and Team Milram (MRM) from Germany, Quickstep-Innergetic (QST) and Silence-Lotto (SIL) from Belgium, and Team CSC (CSC) from Denmark also earned a Tour invite. Three Spanish squads, Caisse d’Epargne (GCE), Euskaltel-Euskadi (EUS) and Saunier Duval-Scott (SDV) will take the start in Brest. Two American teams, High Road (THR) and Slipstream-Chipotle (TSL) will be there, along with British-registered Italian team Barloworld (BAR), two Italian squads Lampre (LAM) and Liquigas (LIQ) and Netherlands squad Rabobank (RAB). With Contador and Rasmussen sidelined, the logical favorite for the 2008 is Silence-Lotto’s Cadel Evans, who was Tour runner-up in 2007, just 23 seconds behind winner Contador. Now backed by ex-Discovery Channel rider Yaroslav Popovych who was eighth in the ’07 Tour, Evans has showed excellent form, solid performances and exceptional determination in 2008. The Aussie will be hard to beat in the 2008 Tour.
CSC’s triple threat of experienced veteran Carlos Sastre and the Schleck Brothers, Frank and Andy, will give Evans a real challenge for Tour supremacy in 2008. Caisse d’Epargne’s Alejandro Valverde is a huge talent and his strong sixth place in the 2007 Tour de France could be his steppingstone to the Tour podium in 2008. Team High-Road’s Kim Kirchen was consistent in the ’07 Tour with his seventh place and could move up in ’08 as the stone-faced Luxembourger is having his best season ever. But the real dark horse that could emerge to win the 2008 Tour de France is Rabobank’s 30-year-old Russian Denis Menchov. The two-time Vuelta d’Espana champion is an excellent all-round rider and with a strong young Rabobank squad behind him, Menchov could be a major menace to capture the 2008 Tour de France win. Quickstep-Innergetic’s Tom Boonen looks like a strong candidate to take a second consecutive Points Classification Green Jersey, while Barloworld’s climbing Colombian, Mauricio Soler will certainly seek his second consecutive Best Climbers Classification Polka-Dot Jersey.
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