If Sastre is too old and fading fast as many said he was last year, then what makes you think somebody who's getting to the same point of his career, has had more injuries and was never as good at his peak will do better?
CVDV got a top 5 in 2008 due to:
- the ride of his life
- being a bit of an unknown quantity as a GC rider
- a not especially mountainous parcours
- a not especially strong or deep field including contenders being thrown out (Riccò), or making major errors (Valverde).
CVDV got a top 10 in 2009 because of:
- good riding + being the last domestique for Wiggins
- a number of better riders - including the previous year's entire podium - having absolute nightmare races (Menchov, Sastre, Evans)
- a parcours that helped the TT-centric at the expense of the climber
In 2011 we have:
- a not especially strong field (positive for CVDV)
- a very mountainous parcours (negative for CVDV)
- VDV's 35th birthday (negative for CVDV)
- Garmin-Cervélo necessarily sticking a lot of their effort onto the sprints (negative for CVDV)
- very little TT mileage (negative for CVDV)
- a team on which he is no longer the sole viable GC option (mixed - could be positive as enables him to escape under the radar of some, but negative as it may take team resources away from helping him in the early days of the race when the GC pattern isn't set)
- lots of short, sharp finishes early on (negative for CVDV, though also for quite a few other GC guys)
All in all, he has the ability to top 10, maybe even top 5 again at a push, but the deck is stacked against him this year, and unless he gets a very nice parcours in the future he'll probably never replicate his 2008 showing.