Who for GC?

in message <[email hidden]>, Andee Pollard

(') said:

With Basso, Ullrich, Mancebo, et al withdrawn... who do you think is
going to be up at the top?

Obviously Kloden and Valverde have the potential, but who else would
you give a chance?
-Evans, Landis, Rogers, Mayo (if he can finish)....??

BTW: is Vino one of those withdrawn? I can't see him on the rider
list...

He's out because, after all the riders in his team who were on the list
were removed, they hadn't enough left to start. Vino was not himself on
the blacklist.

Interestingly, Valverde and two others who were on the list have been
allowed to start. I very much doubt they'll be allowed to finish.

My pick:

1: Carlos Sastre

Sastre is a really good mountain man and a better than OK time trialist.
CSC is a machine, a really 'all for one and one for all' team.
Furthermore, CSC isn't Basso's machine, it's Riis' team. Without Basso
Sastre will lead CSC, and whoever leads CSC is going to do well.

2: Sandy Casar

Young and French; a good climber, with a good team behind him. Benefits
from home advantage. Team unaffected by scandal.

3: Michael Rasmussen

Of last year's finishers, he's the second placed still in. Rabobank is a
strong enough unit to get him to the finish, if his rather delicate
health and temperament will get him there. And provided he doesn't need
five bikes to ride a time trial. Against this, Rabobank might decide to
ride for Menchov.

4: Tom Boonen

Quickstep is a good unit; disciplined and cohesive enough to do well.
World champion, for what that's worth. Tom would probably not get to the
top in a normal year, but this isn't a normal year.

5: Levi Liepheimer

Gerolsteiner is not really a strong team. But Liepheimer is a good rider
and, on last years result and on his Giro form, ought to do reasonably
well.

Other predictions:

None of the Spanish teams will shine, not even those apparently not
affected, because of turbulence. Note that the Basque team does not count
as Spanish for the purposes of prediction.

Neither the Discos nor T-Mo will score in the top five. T-Mo is Ullrich's
machine. Without him, there's no clear leader, and the team will not
work as a unit. Disco were never going to work as a unit this year -
again there's no clear leader, and the contenders won't work for one
another.

What will be really interesting is to see how Bouygues will respond to
the new strategic landscape. They are breakaway specialists and their
announced strategy was to go for breakaways. But they have a team of
very good riders, and if they decided to go for GC then either Thomas
Voeckler or Sébastien Chavanel could be up there. Either would then have
all the advantages that Casar has. Their problem is that their official
leader is Didier Rous, and I don't see him up there. Will he be prepared
to domestique for the young guns?

And lastly:

Alejandro Valverde is not on my list. His dog's name was on exactly the
same business card that Ivan Basso's dog's name was on. No other
evidence has yet been produced against Basso. In natural justice you
cannot exclude one of them and not the other.

Gilberto Simoni is not in my top five. His form is good enough, but I
don't believe he deserves to do well. His allegations about Armstrong's
doping, whether or not they're true, prove that Gibo knows much more
about the theory and practice of doping than any innocent man needs to.
In the year that so many better riders have been excluded because of
unproven innuendo about doping, Gibo does not deserve to shine.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; when in the [censored], the wise man plants courgettes

Quoted message said:

3: Michael Rasmussen

I'd forgotten about Rasmussen until after the prologue

Quoted message said:

And provided he doesn't need five bikes to ride a time trial.

felt so sorry for him in that TT last year.. just one of those days I guess

Quoted message said:

Against this, Rabobank might decide to ride for Menchov.

I was going to mention Menchov - I have him written down as one of my
pre-race picks, but he's one of my outside shots.

BTW: thanks for clearing the Vino thing up for me... but now my tour won't
be as fulfilling.. I really enjoy watching his total commitment.. my fav.
rider 🙂