The Experts' Tour Picks - Stage 15

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Thomas Löfkvist : Mark Cavendish

Mauro Gianetti : Mark Cavendish

David Etxebarria : Mark Cavendish

Laura Meseguer : José Joaquin Rojas

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Bookmaker's favorite : Mark Cavendish

Interview - Claudio Chiappucci

To spice it up and get a fresh view on this year's Tour de France, here comes an interview the former Italian super climber Claudio Chiappucci who won the polka-dot jersey in both 1991 and 1992 and finish on the final podium in Paris in '91, '92 & '93.

Claudio, we are now half way through the Tour. Who has surprised you the most. Both positively and negatively?

Gilbert is sparking, he’s been like that since the beginning of the season! Very positive, Cunego as well. The others are more or less as we expected them to be. The two Schleck brothers are equally strong but Contador hasn’t lost the Tour yet.

Do you think he [Contador] is still capable of winning the Tour being 3-4 mins down already?

I think he can recover, but he has to find a way to attack his rivals. The problem is that there aren't that many occasions left to do so. I think Voeckler can keep the yellow jersey for one more week, he has a very good team.

Cadel Evans has turned out to be strongest of the favorites in the first half of the race. Do you think he can keep up like that?

Well, I think he has improved a lot. He is strong and he has been at the front of the peloton all the time. He is good on the climbs and in the time trials and I think he deserves to be on the podium based on his performances so far. 

Basso won the Giro last year, Nibali the Vuelta and now both Cunego and Basso are up there with the best in the mountains. How high do you see the chances for an Italian rider on the final podium in Paris?

I think Basso could end up on the podium, but he won’t win the Tour. Both  Evans and Contador have a strong time trial where they can take time on Basso, and then we have the Schleck brothers who can attack him from left and right in the mountains. It won’t be easy.

On Luz Ardiden the biggest surprise – except for Contador losing time – was probably Damiano Cunego staying with favorites. What do you think he can this year?

Cunego is not a top rider for the three week stage races anymore. On Luz Ardiden he did well but it will be hard for him to get close to the podium. Especially because of the time trial. He should target a stage win instead.

Leopard-Trek showed amazing team-strength on Thurday’s stage to Luz Ardiden, but in the end only Fränk Schleck gained a few seconds on the other favorites. What do you think about their tactic? 

They made a great effort and got the group down to only the best ones, but I think they need to pick a team leader. They need to sacrifice one for the other, Fränk never said he was the ‘gregario’.

What about ‘your’ jersey, the polka-dot, who do you think will take it this year?

Samuel Sanchez can win it, I would go for him. Among the others I don’t see a true climber. No one is attacking anymore. You have to attack in order to win this jersey. Maybe the riders nowadays have different targets and don’t want to risk everything on the jersey. It’s a shame…

Last one. It seems like the Italian people (sponsors and tifosi) are waiting for a new fall of champions to fall in love with. Like with you guys in the Giro and the Tour. You arrived after a crisis in Italian cycling and managed to give a great Renaissance. How do you see the future of the Italian cycling right now?

It was different time. When I was a rider I was attacking because I wanted to see what the others were capable of doing, I wanted to give them a chance to defend themselves. Indurain was very strong and attacking him wasn’t easy, but I felt that I had to try every time. You don’t see that nowadays. It’s not easy for the Italians either. The globalization brings new sponsors into the ProTour and Italy doesn’t play that big a role anymore. We only have two ProTour teams and I think it’s going to be difficult for Italy to get new big teams with Italian sponsors. It will be interesting to see what a guy like Daniel Oss and future youngsters can bring to the table. I just hope they won’t crack under the big pressure and expectations. 

Interview by Alberto Celani & Mikkel Condé

The Experts' Tour Picks - Stage 14

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Thomas Löfkvist : Alberto Contador

Mauro Gianetti : Ivan Basso

David Etxebarria : Andy Schleck

Laura Meseguer : Alberto Contador

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Bookmaker's favorite : Alberto Contador

Always follow your instinct!

Thor Hushovd once again amazed the whole cycling world, taking his first individual stage win in this year's Tour de France. Big Thor was the first to attack on Aubisque and even though he was two minutes behind Jeremy Roy at the top of the HC climb, the managed to take it all back on the descent and fly by Roy on the final km.

Non of the 4 experts had put Thor Hushovd down for the win today, but it could very well have been that way! When I talked with Laura Meseguer yesterday about her pick she actually pointed at Thor Hushovd as winner before ending up picking Philippe Gilbert. After the stage she sent out the following tweet:

@Laura_Meseguer: S**** yesterday I changed my pick from Hushovd to Gilbert. alwayslistenthefirstdecision

And just a few minutes later ex-rider David Etxebarria tweeted that he had the same plan, but also ended up picking Gilbert instead of the Norwegian Thunder God.

So remember, always, follow your instinct! ;-)

The Experts' Tour Picks - Stage 13

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Thomas Löfkvist : Sandy Casar

Mauro Gianetti : Philippe Gilbert

David Etxebarria : Philippe Gilbert

Laura Meseguer : Philippe Gilbert

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Bookmaker's favorite : Philippe Gilbert

The Experts' Tour Picks - Stage 12

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Thomas Löfkvist : Alberto Contador

Mauro Gianetti : Cadel Evans

David Etxebarria : Fränk Schleck

Laura Meseguer : Alberto Contador

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Bookmaker's favorite : Alberto Contador

Eagerness to perform sends home the favorites

What do Bradley Wiggins, Janez Brajkovic, Jurgen Van den Broeck, Chris Horner, Alexander Vinokourov and for this matter Christophe Kern have in common? For starters they all were listed as big GC hopes for the Tour de France but what’s more important; they all came to the Tour more ready and eager to perform than ever before!

After last year’s catastrophically Tour-performance Bradley Wiggins seemed to be fitter than ever and very determinate to show all his critics that his 4^th place in 2009 wasn’t a coincidence. His overall victory in Dauphiné proved he was back on track and must have boosted his moral sky high. The whole team was build around him and he couldn’t wait to show what he was capable of – unfortunately we never got to see it...

Like Bradley Wiggins, Jurgen Van den Broeck was flying in Dauphiné taking an incredible win on the first mountain stage and 4^th overall. It looked so easy for Van den Broeck every time it started to go uphill and suddenly only the a spot on the final podium in Paris seemed to be acceptable for the Omega-Lotto leader and his followers. Like Wiggins he was eager to show what he could do in the big mountains and like Wiggins he ended up leaving the Tour after a crash.

Other riders matching this profile are Team Radioshacks duo-leaders Janez Brajkovic and Chris Horner. Brajkovic build his whole 2011 season around the Tour. Nothing else mattered. His impressive win in Dauphiné last year, where he hold off Alberto Contador making it look like a walk in the park, made Bruynell and co. talk about a final top5 for the young Slovenian, if not the podium. Again a massive pressure being put on the rider and again he crashes out. Same goes for Chris Horner. Doing top10 last year, looking out for Lance Armstrong and the rest of the team, Horner was eager to show his own qualities. The very same qualities that made him win Tour of California with his closet rival being team mate Levi Leipheimer – almost 3 minutes ahead of Tom Danielson as third. Horner said before the Tour that he would make “Top5 for sure – if not more!” – well I am sure he would have been up there, but like the others he ended up in a ambulance.

You probably see where I’m going with all this, but let us just take a few more examples. Alexander Vinokourov. Last Tour de France in his life. Ready to do whatever it takes – on the bike – to fulfill his life-long dream and get at least one day in yellow. On stage 8 it looks like it’s about to happen, but the strong head wind knocks Vinokourov out on the last couple of hundred meters. The very next time – and probably the last change to get yellow – Vinokourov ends up in the forest on a slippery downhill section. Was it because the Garmin riders were riding too fast or was it because Vinokourov was too eager to stay in front and try to get the jersey?

Last example for now is Christophe Kern. The big sensation in Dauphiné. Before a heavy time trialist, but after losing 11 kg in the winter season, suddenly a strong climber and gunning for the GC in the Tour. Kern won a stage in Dauphiné and was, if not the strongest, definitely one of the strongest in the race. Those performances made Christophe Kern rethink his Tour de France ambitions and went from “helping out team mate Charteau in the mountains” to “stage win, polka dot jersey and hopefully a good GC”. Like all the others mentioned here, Kern crashed and abandoned the Tour.

So is all this just bad luck? Could it have happened to anyone? Well, it probably could have. But it didn’t. It didn’t happen to Cadel Evans who nearly nobody counted in for the final podium. It didn’t happen to Ivan Basso who’s Tour-ambitions got knocked down a bit after his crash in May on Etna. It didn’t happen to Frank Schleck, a rider who normally crash as much as Cavendish wisn and it didn’t happen to Tony Martin, another rider who many seemed to forget while picking out favorites. I did in fact happen to Alberto Contador – the biggest favorite of them all – but is he out of the Tour? No Sir, he is not.

This little write-together could have been even longer if I got started on Robert Gesink (finally being the team leader in the Tour, going stronger than ever), Levi Leipheimer (winning Tour de Suisse and finally seemed back to former strength) and Andreas Klöden (Winning Paris-Vasco & 2^nd in Paris-Nice) but even though they too are in a lot of pain cause of their crashes, they are still in race, fighting to prove me wrong…