Wiggins is putting big time in some key rivals here. Be ideal if Cancellara takes yellow and Wiggins takes some time out of the rest.
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Tour De France 2012
- Thread starter davek
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zed
Player Valuation: £25m
did you take any banned substances last week while you were away?
Wow that was good 
Man love for Cancellara there.
Man love for Cancellara there.
Evans 9 seconds back of Wiggins. Good result for Brad there.
If you lost your moobs you could be a contender
Flagging this.
*giggle*
Leave Goat alone mate.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Cancellara - no surprise him winning that. Hesjedal had a decent day too.
Hope Wiggins does it. I cant see it though. Sean Kelly made the point that he's not as mentally tough as, say, Cadel Evans, and that, though he's a very good climber now, he can be taken advantage of on the steepest of climbs - and there's plenty of them in this edition of the tour. The Vuelta performance last year backs that up. Unless he's found something over the last 9 months he'll lose out when the hammer comes down in the high Alps and Pyrenees.
Hope Wiggins does it. I cant see it though. Sean Kelly made the point that he's not as mentally tough as, say, Cadel Evans, and that, though he's a very good climber now, he can be taken advantage of on the steepest of climbs - and there's plenty of them in this edition of the tour. The Vuelta performance last year backs that up. Unless he's found something over the last 9 months he'll lose out when the hammer comes down in the high Alps and Pyrenees.
He can afford to lose a bit of time in the mountains though as he'll gain minutes in the time trials. You have to remember too that the team here is much stronger than at the Vuelta. In most of the races this year Porte has been setting such a fast tempo that no one has been able to attack. In the Dauphine the only real attacks came on the descents. With Porte, Froome and Rogers to help in the mountains it's hard to see anyone taking enough time to compensate for the time trials.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
I think there's a couple long TTs. I'm not sure just how superior he is to Evans against the clock. What would you see him putting into Evans over a 50KM TT for instance?
That said, I dont think Evans is an explosive rider in the climbs either. Maybe Kelly reckons he's capable of hanging on a little better than Wiggins when the last few digs are harder to get out of your legs toward the end of the Tour. If BW has a better team around him, as you say, they might be able to pace him over the worst of it. Looking at his team though, who is better to do that than Froome - who he had in the Vuelta alongside him? I think he'll be looking at the same scenario again, tbh. Hope not.
I think the main time trial is almost a replica of the one in the Dauphine recently, and Wiggins put 1 minute 45 seconds into Evans in that ride. That's a lot of time to make up in the mountains, especially with another time trial to come too. I could see a pure climber doing it but not Evans.
Re the team, Froome seems to me more of a natural climber. Certainly the way he attacked Cobo in the Vuelta was very impressive. Porte and Rogers though are more similar to Wiggins in that they can set a strong tempo but without the accelerations of others. Add in Boassen Hagen and Sky have plenty of riders to set a strong tempo on the mountains, which is the kind Wiggins likes. Someone like Schleck could break away but as we saw today he's so far down in the TT that he won't threaten. Just can't see a Menchov/Haesjadal/Evans having the acceleration to get away.
A potential risk could be Sky trying to do too much, especially with Cavendish in the first week and burning out, but with Radioshack having yellow now they shouldn't have to defend much early on. One thing they have to their advantage is that they could do what CSC did the year Sastre won. They had a few people in the top 10 that year and Sastre attacked on Alps D'Huez, with the Schleck's sitting in the lead group. It forced Evans et al to chase, but they didn't want to do too much and have Frank/Andy jump them.
Sky could have a similar scenario with Porte/Rogers/Froome all likely to be near the front, so they could feasibly put Froome up the road and see if Evans will chase him down. Of course it'd mean gambling with Wiggins chances so I don't know if they'd do that, but it's an option.
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