Here’s a look at the contenders for the biggest prize in pro cycling, the maillot jaune in Paris. Chris Froome returns once again but this time his rivals will hope to profit from fresher legs and the toughest route in years. With luck the predictions below will be totally wrong.
This one’s hard to predict because of the points scale and a lottery touch, getting in the right breakaway can count for so much. Here’s a look at the competition for 2018 with the contenders and what’s new with the points scale.
Peter Sagan looks like an obvious contender to win the points competition. In recent years the sight of him in the green jersey has become as much a cliché of the Tour de France as images of the peloton riding past a field of sunflowers. If he wins his sixth green jersey he will equal the record set by Erik Zabel in 2001.
Sagan has competition, a route that doesn’t help him as much as usual and a points scale tilted against him. Here’s a closer look at the competition, the points system and the sprinters as Dylan Groenwegen and Fernando Gaviria as the new generation looking to take on the establishment.
There’s a race happening in France soon and in the final part of three, here’s a closer look at the last eight teams to name their rosters for the Tour de France.
Chris Froome goes from persona non grata to all clear in the space of a couple of days, the UCI has announced the salbutamol case from last year’s Vuelta has been closed. The *asterisk of pending resolution is deleted, the Sword of Damocles sheathed and ASO suspend the action they began three weeks ago to block Froome from riding the Tour de France. But all the same things won’t return to the state they were when things were normal.
The second part of three looking at the Tour de France teams. One of the advantages of the Tour is the vast media coverage, there’s so much happening on many levels that July becomes a soap opera with daily episodes.