sigh, lots of riders have won the tour without being explosive climbers. this has been mentioned before. ullrich and indurain are the most obvious choices.
being australian, and being a big fan of cadel, it is sad to admit but i dont think he will be a contender in the tour again.
its strange how everyone now talks about sastre winning the tour last year on the alpe d'huez, but how i remember it was that evans lost it on the final TT.
i think he's better suited to going to the giro to win, but with a belgian team, i dont think its high profile enough for them vs the tour.
and i dont think silence/davitamon-lotto can be blamed for not putting together a strong enough team. theyve had some bad luck with kohl, dekker, injuries, lazy popovich and so on. they also let robbie mcewen go, as massive as he was in belgium, so that they could focus on cadel being a GC contender.
Have lotto had a team good enough to win for Cadel? No
Is that their fault? I dont believe so