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- Published on Tuesday, 28 June 2016 01:13
Tour de France 2016 Preview
Let battle commence!
This year’s Tour de France could be one of the most exciting and open races in many years, with Chris Froome looking to fight off a host of challengers over a challenging and varied course of 3,535 kms and take his third Tour title in four years.
The Giro and the Critérium du Dauphiné have been great appetisers with some very exciting racing, and all the main protagonists look like they will be turning up in top form and ready to put it up to Froome. We saw in the Giro that nothing can be taken for granted, with Steven Kruijswijk and subsequently Esteban Chaves both losing the race to a resurgent Vincenzo Nibali.
The Critérium reminded us that even when he looks like he is struggling, Chris Froome can boss a stage and win races. We saw at the Route Du Sud that Nairo Quintana’s preparation seems to be coming along very nicely indeed too, he seemed to be just toying with the field from the very first mountain on the first stage.
It also showed us that Contador is willing to fight anywhere and any time and that the French challenge is also going to be strong with Bardet, Pinot, Barguil and Alaphilippe. And there’s a queue of guys just behind them that, if they arrive at 100%, as they should do, will make it a real fight for the top 10, let alone the top 3.
The route is an interesting one this year, with some tricky opening stages in northern France, an early battle in the mountains of the Massif Central that could catch some off guard, followed soon after by a foray in to the Pyrenees and Andorra.
There’s plenty of opportunities for the sprinters, with the first stage likely to see Marcel Kittel, or one of his rivals don the first Maillot Jaune of the race in Utah Beach. Stage 2 will also be interesting as we could see the wind cause splits in the peloton, and not only that, possibly in the tricky, uphill 3km run to the finish.
In between the transition stages can offer up their own challenges and pitfalls, and the two days on week two with Mont Ventoux followed by the 35km TT on stage 13 are going to be pivotal to some’s chances. As always though it’s the last week where the race is likely to be won and lost, with the uphill TT on stage 18 one that the likes of Contador and Porte must be looking forward to, if you can look forward to a horrible challenge like 11kms uphill at an average gradient of 6%. And the race could still be in the balance heading in to the final two short and punchy mountain stages to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc and Morzine.
Chris Froome is rightly the 11/8 favourite for the race, he is the reigning champion who bossed the race last year, winning by 1’12” from Nairo Quintana and 5’25” to third place Valverde. He looked like he was not quite yet on top form in the Dauphiné, yet still won a stage, finished in the top ten in four other stage and took the overall by 12” from Romain Bardet, with Contador 35” back.
When he attacked on stage 5 and only Porte could stay with him, he looked his dominant, imperious self. He went hard - so hard that Dan Martin was expressing his shock at Froome’s explosiveness, something he prides himself on in those sorts of situations (and later showed himself).
Meanwhile in the Tour de Suisse, Tejay Van Garderen was cracking a little and maybe handing the BMC team leadership over to Richie Porte, although his stage win might just have saved him. Meanwhile, Porte really should have finished on the podium of the Dauphiné, only for nearly crashing in to Froome in the last 300m and he lost momentum and his 3rd place..
Alberto fought and scrapped but ultimately just wasn’t good enough to lay a glove on Froome, and Fabio Aru 
was not exactly inspiring confidence with his ride in the Dauphiné, finishing 45th and getting dropped on the key climbs of the race. Like Van Garderen though he rescued his race with a stage win, but that was with what looked like a fortuitous downhill attack that caught the others off-guard.
The race can be split in to three sections, as is often the case. The first 5-7 stages are generally about weeding out the weaker riders and throwing in some surprises for the GC candidates. We might get that with the wind up near the coast, the opening day’s nervousness or the tricky stage to the Lioran on Thursday of the first week. Crashes can also see a number of riders forced to retire before they even reach the first rest day.
The second week sees things calm down a small bit usually, but still maintain some of the edge and challenges, including the trip up Mont Ventoux and the 35kms TT. But it’s the final week with the trilogy of big mountain stages, two of which are in Switzerland, and the uphill TT sandwiched in between that should decide the winner of this race. The last two mountain stages are short at 146kms (both of them) and they should make for good attacking racing, maybe not just to try to win the race, but possibly all the way down the top 10.
A pretty cool video to whet your appetite..
There are going to be fascinating battles for the other jersey competitions too. The White Jersey competition for the best young rider is going to be fantastic with Warren Barguil, Wilko Kelderman, Louis Meintjes, Julian Alaphilippe Adam Yates and Eduard Sepulveda all in with chances.
The Green Jersey Points competition could also see a great battle, with Peter Sagan the short odds-on favourite, but a bunch of guys looking to stop his charge for a fifth jersey - Marcel Kittel, André Greipel, Mark Cavendish and Bryan Coquard will try to challenge him for it. And the King of the Mountains - well, who knows who is going to win that - Froome and Quintana are the two favourites, but the likes of Bardet (2nd last year), Rodriguez, Rolland or many, many more possibles could take it.
Whatever happens, it should be a memorable Tour – there’s so much variety and so many interesting stages that it should give many different riders the opportunity to shine and give challengers lots of opportunities to try to find weak spots in Chris Froome. Christian Prude-Homme, the Race Director said that he was hoping that the race was still in the balance going on to the last climb of the penultimate stage, and that it could even be decided on the downhill stretch to Morzine. Now that is unlikely to happen, but wouldn’t it be amazing if it turned out to be the case.
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