Who will win the Green Jersey?

[BroDeal]

true but as cipo will tell you "the giro aint no tour" (but in italian)

This year (looking at the course) the Tour ain't no Giro.

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

Brigitte Bardot ain't no Sophia Lauren.

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

Freire in green agian.

 

[toppermost]

Exactly! No offense to the Giro at all but can you imagine Salvodelli or DiLuca winning a Tour? Never!

I dont think Cipo even finished a Tour did he? If will not even start to believe Cav finish until he has summited Ventoux inside the time limit.

No green jersey this year for him.

 

[karlboss]

Unfortunately I can't see the stage profiles, but the green has been won by sprinters just going for stages. I tip Cavendish to do this, he'll fight for points if he has a shot later in the race as mcewen did a few years back.

The interesting part will be to see which teams work to pull in breaks.

 

[Bala Verde]

The interesting part will be to see which teams work to pull in breaks.

The onus, again, will be on Columbia. Unfortunately, everyone knows that Cavendish is the man, so who in their right name would want to help him win a stage? Rabobank will most certainly not want to waste energy doing that. They don't even have people to launch Freire. Cervelo has Sastre, so I doubt they will throw in a bunch of equipiers to pave the way for Hushovd/Hausler. Lotto, well, they have v Avermaet, but the rest is Evan's team.

Leaves Milram, with Ciolek and Skill with van Hummel and the frenchies are the ones they need to chase down!

For once, we might actually see some break aways succeed...

If Columbia is smart (ahem they have Greipel and Cavendish on the team, send Greipel away in every break - so he can win the sprint of the group if no one wants to chase them down - and when they are recaptured they finish it off with Cavendish

 

[karlboss]

So Columbia won't hold anything back for GC? I thought they might and hence some more breaks might succeed. I imagine we'll see one rider from each sprinter's team not in the break pulling, a little, to get them back to within sight, and maybe columbia will put 2 up. The finale they'll try for the train and everyone will get involved.

 

[auscyclefan94]

So Columbia won't hold anything back for GC? I thought they might and hence some more breaks might succeed. I imagine we'll see one rider from each sprinter's team not in the break pulling, a little, to get them back to within sight, and maybe columbia will put 2 up. The finale they'll try for the train and everyone will get involved.

Kirchen and Rogers will only scrape into the top 10 if their lucky. why would you waste a team on gc when they have a liability like Cavendish to get stage wins and possibly the green jersey.

 

[karlboss]

So why take GC riders at all? Maybe so they can contest for KOM, probably not a bad way to go actually, good publicity in securing loads of stage wins plus KOM and green jerseys. Can attack all day and not be considered a fool and who knows if a long points gathering day works out...


and cav is not a liability, unless you refer to the fact he isn't much help in a GC fight

 

[msjett]

I think Cav needs a few more tours...that being said, he only left early last year to prepare for the olympics.

As a few have pointed out, he has to make it through the mountains..

 

[auscyclefan94]

sorry,wrong words

So why take GC riders at all? Maybe so they can contest for KOM, probably not a bad way to go actually, good publicity in securing loads of stage wins plus KOM and green jerseys. Can attack all day and not be considered a fool and who knows if a long points gathering day works out...


and cav is not a liability, unless you refer to the fact he isn't much help in a GC fight

Sorry i got my words mixed up, Cav is a reliability when it comes to the sprints. i really don't know why they would take the gc riders when they'll struggle to do much at the tour(especially without a team behind them). i think it would be better to take riders like rogers, kirchen, lovkist, sioustsou plus anyone else who can climb and have a go at the vuelta where they could get someone on the podium. does anyone know if any big riders are actually going to the vuelta?

 

[Sneekes]

On a personal note, I'm disappointed Barloworld didn't get an invite this year, would have loved to see Robbie Hunter give it a crack.

Me too, but that's what you get when you lose riders like Gasparotto and Pfannberger and replace them with Michele Merlo (no offence to Merlo intended).

I think Cav finishes the tour but freire wins green.

 

[39*23t]

just looking at last year's tour. Cav took four stages but never once wore the green jersey.if he wants green this year he'll have to do more than win stages

 

[TRDean]

Great comments!!

My heart is with Kenny van Hummel. But my head is saying Thor. Cav will win it but not this year. We shall see.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

According to radsport-news.com Greipel wants a stage win & to have a go at the green jersey.

 

[Andre.J]

I think if Boonen races, he'll win easily.

Andre

 

[Jasper]

According to radsport-news.com Greipel wants a stage win & to have a go at the green jersey.

Too bad he's not riding the Tour this year

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Too bad he's not riding the Tour this year

Ha ha, that's because I meant Ciolek of course.

 

[Peloton94]

You say you'd like to see Robbie Hunter in a mass-sprint in tdf? Remember what happend when Boasson Hagen and Hunter sprinted in the Giro? Hagen kicked his *** with 3-5 meters even tgh. Hunter had Hagens wheel!

 

[BigBoat]

Yeah what about Boonen winning it...he's all angry over his issues and no doubt is smoking some crack and training super hard to get ready.

I wish an outsider like Hunter would win though. What ever happend to Cooke? Why is he always on $hitty teams?

 

[laurentiu46]

An outsider like Hunter,but not Hunter himself,as Barloworld isn't riding.
Cooke maybe will have a shot at the points jersey in the Vuelta,i saw Vacansoleil are in.
He is out of the spotlight though,he didn't produce any special result after his 2003 green spell.
Anyone fancies FDJeux's Hutarovich for a stage win?
Oh,and don't count out Ciolek for the green. He goes well over the hills,and should take advantage of this ability to snatch some points,while the majority of sprinters won't.

 

[toppermost]

C'mon the answer is SO obvious.

Boonen!

Remember there's a white line at the of the race!

(too easy but I couldn't resist)

haha.... headlineL

"Boonen Takes Mont Ventoux - Police Drive Him Down Mountain."

 

[greenjersey]

Thor....................

 

[ingsve]

I'm very curious about what Cervelo is thinking. I'm pretty sure Thor has some agreement or even in his contract to be backed for the green jersey in the Tour. It's been his focus since his first tour in 2001 so I'm sure he wouldn't sign for Cervelo without some insureances. He's been riding with Brett Lancaster in most races training lead outs specifically for the Tour so I'm pretty sure Brett will get a spot.

Then you have Haussler who has also talked about stages and green jersey etc. To me they need to decide who to back and then have the other work for the main sprinter. My prediction is that Haussler will be the 2nd to last lead out ahead of Lancaster for Hushovd. On stages where Haussler can sit with main group but Hushovd gets dropped I'm sure Haussler will be sprinting on his own, He'll probaly go for some big breakaways in the end of the tour as well. They can't have both of them sprinting side by side, that would ruin both of their chances.

With the exclusion of Simon Gerrans from the tour it seems that Cervelo won't be filling up all spots with help for Sastre. Perhaps Sastre feels that he won't be in top shape for the Tour so it's better for the team to get good help for stage wins. I'm guessing that apart from Hushovd and Haussler there will be at least two more helpers for the sprints. One of which is Lancaster and the other either Roulston, Rasch or Klier or perhaps even two of them.

 

[Jasper]

A new factor to add to the equation: Danilo Napolitano will start for Katusha.