Who Will Finish Third in the Tour?

Tour de France winner odds bookmakers

The odds on Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France are now so short that the some bookmakers price him as a safer pick than Lance Armstrong in 2003. Cadel Evans is a close second but as the table above from oddschecker.com shows, everyone else is far out. Madness?

Possibly and we should note that the odds are a price and not a probability, it is likely that a lot of people have been putting a lot of money on Evans and Wiggins and this has shortened the odds. But precision apart, Wiggins and Evans are the two prime contenders. Who are the others capable of finishing on the podium?

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Boyer Fired From Cofidis

Eric Boyer Bikini Women Tour de France

Eric Boyer has had happier times in July. That’s him in the picture “reaching out” to a fan on the last stage of the 1992 Tour de France. This year he faces sitting at home after being fired as manager of the Cofidis team.

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Oleg Tinkov Returns

The Saxo Bank team unveiled a new co-sponsor today: Tinkoff Bank. The team will now be called Saxo Bank – Tinkoff Bank, a mouthful that will be awkward to pronounce and type.

It marks the return of Oleg Tinkov to the sport. A Russian entrepreneur, he is a lively character with a past unlike almost anyone else in the sport.

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Saturday Shorts

Sylvain Chavanel French jersey

It’s the weekend of the national championships across Europe. Whilst America, Asia and Australia have different weekends, pretty much everywhere in Europe sees simultaneous national championships. In some European countries these races can take on a strange feel with several teams of 25 riders starting, making the tactics completely different from your usual race.

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Thoughts on the Giro

Giro wallpaper

The organiser of the Giro d’Italia Michele Acquarone has a blog on cyclingnews.com and his latest piece opens the floor to thoughts on the 2012 edition, the route and the racing. It’s good PR, opening up to the fans and seeking ideas. We’ll see what the response is and in time whether any thoughts are taken aboard by the “Pink Admiral”*

I don’t know if he’s a reader but Acquarone raises some interesting points about the Giro and the nature of racing. To summarise the last 100 years of cycle sport in a sentence we’ve seen races shorten in distance, the epic tests of 400km a day with dawn starts and gravel roads are gone and today pro cycling remains a gruelling test of endurance but it is increasingly defined by television.

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Tour de France Guide

Tour de France route map

A quick note to say you can now read a Tour de France guide on here: inrng.com/tour.

Each stage is analysed, each jersey is explained and once more information is available there will be full list of riders and other content that’ll be updated every day so you can dip in and out during the next few weeks.

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Are They Stupid?

Several riders are being sucked into a sporting and judicial vortex after police investigations claim links them the infamous Doctor Ferrari. In his defence Filippo Pozzato claimed he did work with Ferrari from 2005 to 2009 but it was an innocent deal where he just paid for training plans. La Repubblica says he paid €40,000-€50,000 a year for the service.

If possible, try to stop the laughs and give Pozzato the benefit of the doubt. Let’s actually imagine he and others have been paying €50,000 for training plans because this still involves big risks.

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The Altitude Tent

Altitude tent

Altitude training has long been a fixture for endurance athletes. It has been common for riders to head for the mountains for some time. As well as familiarising themselves with the local passes and working on the pedal stroke riders are also subject to hypoxia or oxygen deprivation, triggering a set of responses in the body.

But riders need not go to the high mountains for this. It is possible to sit at home yet experience the conditions of altitude thanks to what is commonly known as an altitude tent.

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Strava Face Lawsuit After Rider Death

Strava logo

William “Kim” Flint was a 41-year-old electrical engineer who died in a cycling accident in the summer of 2010. It appears he was descending a road in the Oakland Hills in California, braked hard and lost control and the crash proved fatal. It’s a sad story by itself but the difference here is that Flint’s family are now suing Strava for negligence.

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