The Next 5 Time Tour de France Champion

philoakley

I cannot understand why Karpets is seen as a future winner of the race. Yes, he has won the white jersey but he finished 13th in this year's race (Greg Lemond and Jan Ulrich finished on the podium). He looks a competent time trialist and climber but is not great at either discipline. In my opinion he has done nothing to say that he will be better than Giles Delion(best young rider in 1990) or Mancebo. Personally, i think that his teammate Menchov has shown more promise. As for Cunego, Saronni never developed into a Tour rider whilst Italian Giro champions have a poor track record at the Tour. He will need to be come a better time trialist and probably skip the Gito (something that it will be very difficult for him to do) in order to have a chance in the Tour.

Popovych looks the best bet of these three. He is a good time trialist and can improve on the climbs. His move to Discovery with the assistance of Armstrong and Bruynelel give him a chance of winning the Tour. To predict a future 5 time winner is impossible.

Tuschinski

A long shot:

Thomas Dekker.

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tcklyde

Actually, I think he has done this to an extent: Ullrich beat Basso in both Time Trials in the Tour and Basso still came out ahead in the end just on time he made in the mountains. If you take Lance out of the equation, Basso beat the Best TTer just by dominating in the mountains.

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philoakley

I understand your argument, but my point is that Basso did not attack to gain his advantage. He just happened to be the strongest non US Postal rider and benefitted from the weaknesses of others. As we saw with Kloden, this would have been insufficient to win the tour in 2004. If Ulrich is strong enough to be in the main group in the mountains in the future, will Basso be able to drop him? My point is that Basso will have to gain time in the mountains like Pantani in order to win the Tour as his time trialing is not good enough to beat Kloden. Basso has yet to demonstrate that he is this type of rider.

gntlmn

Vladimir Karpets will turn 23 in 2 weeks. He is very young, even younger than Cunego. That's why he's a wildcard. He's not flaming out now. He's making steady progress in the Tour, just like Miguel Indurain did when he rose through the ranks. So I wouldn't count him out. I think he deserves to be in the mix not as a prediction, but as a possible. His age is right, and he's progressing well. We'll see.

As far as taking bets, you'd make a lot of money if you took even odds and bet against everyone anyone would be willing to bet on to win 5 tours. The odds are that each will fail. Let's face it, it's tough to win even one Tour. But it's a lot of fun to consider the possibilities.

As for Popovych, I'd say he picked great company. Discovery is probably going to continue their tradition of going only for the final GC and ignoring the glory of the sprints. If he starts out with a Tour de France win the first year Lance is absent, he will be a big draw for future support riders to continue the tradition. If he loses, he might attract some who would rather win than support.

There are so many variables which affect this guessing game.

Virenque

karpets is not the only young and talented cyclist! every year there is somone new, like valverde last year, voeckler, cunego this year! and everyone can surprise like cunego did..

gntlmn

I don't know why Voeckler keeps getting mentioned as a big surprise. He was gifted the lead because the top contenders knew he wasn't a threat. If Ullrich had been in that breakaway pack with Voeckler, the pack would have reeled him in.

Karpets is the unsung hero on this tour as a young rider. Voeckler got the publicity; Karpets got the best young rider award.

Virenque

hehe yes, youre true...I really dont know why I mentioned him

Tuschinski

Mmm.... yes and no. Voeckler had the "luck" of the big break, but he kept close even though everybody was running around with him. In the end he broke, but in all I say he did wonderfully. And it's not just the TdF, he also became National Champion... so yes, he is a revelation.

Will he ever win a GT? Hell no

On Karpets: Well, like everyone else he is a follower. I am not putting my money on him unless he shows himself as a defining rider. For now I have more faith in Menchov and Cunego.

*shrug* I am probably completely wrong anyway, as I never remotely expected Lance winning one GT and if you had said he would win 6 I would have given you the direction to the Loony bin

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gntlmn

When we need a laugh, we'll just log into Cycling Forums.

I thought Lance was going to die. I would have never said that to anyone he remotely knew at the time because it's good to have a positive attitude. But I saw the way he looked with his hair gone--pale and emaciated. I'm surprised he survived. He was pretty far along before they detected it.

Craig Walsh

What to people think of Alejandro Valverde's chances?

hilljunkie

i'm surprised nobody mentioned Ivan Basso. He was the only one that shadowed Armstrong on all of his climbs in the last tour. I saw he recently won a single stage road race in Italy beating Jan Ullrich amongst other competitors. He is around 28 and could be Armstrongs top rival in the next tour. That's assuming Armstrong rides in the next TdF. He very well could take a year break from TdF for one year and ride the Giro instead. Which would leave a wide open field.

oely

I think Rogers could do with some more of a mention. We all know the guy can mix it with the best in the TT (which will improve even more) and his climbing is decent and importantly improving all the time. He needs to get his body a bit stronger or something, at the moment he can win the smaller stage races but he needs to show alot more at a Grand tour.

Im not convinced of Cunego or Valverde just yet, i think to be able to win MANY tours your TT has to be strong and neither has that right now. Maybe they can TT well enough to hold onto advantages gained in the mountains against most guys but still to win or hold on to a lead against the real top riders is a differant story. Like when Basso took an advantage over Kloden in the mountains but he also lost 2nd place to Kloden coz he cant TT with the very best. Voeckler made the tour really entertaining this year it was my highligh, but other than that i have not seen that much from him. No doubt they are great talents though.

I´d back Popyvich and Rogers before those other guys at the moment. Also I think the question of which rider would be capable of winning the tour multiple times would be fairer as opposed to the next 5 time winner, gotta be pretty special to do that.

philoakley

You make some good points here. I think the ability to dominate the time trials is the key to being a multiple Tour de France winner. All the 5 timers have been the best time trialists of their respective eras and were more than competent climbers. I don't think that there are any young riders out there at the moment who have demonstrated that they possess these qualities or look like doing so soon. Rogers is a solid time trialist but has not shown great TT ability in the Tour. Karpets, Popyvich, Cunego and Valverde are all mediocre time trialists.