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.
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.
22 Teams will start the Tour de France and in advance of previews for the yellow and green jerseys here’s a wider look at the other teams and riders in the race, this time on a team by team basis.
Here’s a downloadable calendar of the Tour de France for your electronic diary or phone with brief details of each stage. There’s also a look at the TV coverage ahead for July.
A quick look at each of the Tour de France stages. If there’s a theme to this year’s route it’s variety with short stages, long ones, sprints, cobbles, new summit finishes and more.
Regularly used, rarely celebrated. The Col de Peyresourde is often a hyphen, linking different places during a stage of the Tour de France and that’s its charm, a crossing point with a useful halt at the top.
Yvette Horner was at the intersection of French popular culture in the 1950s and 60s when she played the accordion at the Tour de France, a publicity stunt that made her famous and jump-started a career that took her from the bars and cafés of Tarbes to Nashville, the big stage and prime time television.