Strongest Tour field in years?

[Eldrack]

I was just having a look at the top 20 of this years Tour De France so far and honestly, the pedigree of the field is pretty damn good.

1 Andy Schleck: 2nd place TdF finish.
2 Alberto Contador Velasco: 4 GT wins.
3 Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez: 2nd at Vuelta, Olympic gold
4 Denis Menchov: 3 GT wins.
5 Jurgen Van Den Broeck: 2nd at Giro.
6 Levi Leipheimer: 3rd at Tour, 2nd in Vuelta.
7 Robert Gesink: 2009 Tour white jersey. 6,7th at Vuelta.
8 Joaquin Rodriguez: 6,7th at Vuelte (whilst being a domestique)
9 Luis León Sánchez Gil: Paris Nice winner.
10 Roman Kreuziger: Tour of Romandie, Tour de Suisse.
11 Ivan Basso: 2 Giro, 2nd, 3rd TdF.
12 Alexander Vinokourov: Vuelta, 3rd TdF
13 Ryder Hesjedal:
14 Nicolas Roche:
15 Carlos Sastre: TdF, 3rd Giro, 2nd Vuelta.
16 Bradley Wiggins: 4th TdF
17 Michael Rogers: 3x World TT champion.
18 Cadel Evans: World Champion, 2nd TdF (x2), 3rd Vuelta
19 Thomas Löfkvist:
20 Andreas Klöden: 2nd, 3rd TdF

Obviously that's not the entire list of their accomplishments but there's one hell of a lot of GT wins and podium placements! I can't remember a Tour in recent memory with so many potential winners in the ranks. Although obviously this year the number of potentials has now been cut to two.

 

[limerickman]

Great list, Eld.

Calibre of the GC top 20 is very very strong : as strong as I've seen it since early 1990's when you had GT winners like Zulle, Jalabert, Indurain, Mauri, Berzin and former winners and classement winners like LeMond, Robert Millar, Stephen Roche, Pedro Delgado all in the mix as well.