I think that in the history of the Tour de France has never seen two top contenders,Chris Froome and Alberto Contador, retire from the race. Sure, or two or three contenders may have retired, but not the top two! But the Tour has to go on. It is still an unfinished book for now and in less than two weeks, it’ll all be written. Different characters for sure, but a denouement will be made.
I apologize for not mentioning Richie Porte as one of the favorites in my last article. In case you haven’t’ head of him, he’s the super domestique for Chris Froome and has taken over team Sky’s leadership for role.
Unfortunately, for the pretenders, it’ll just be a tussle for the 2nd and 3rd places. It’s clear that nobody is at the same level as Vincenzo Nibali is at the moment. I’d like to change my prognostication that Garmin’s Andrew Talansky will contend, he won’t. Tejay Van Garderen of BMC will be top 5 at most, I don’t like his climbing. Jurgen van den Broeckis still inconsistent, will be top 10.
In the end, I think it will be Porte or Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde for the lower podium spots. Another spot below them would be three Frenchmen- Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), RomainBardet (AG2R) and Jean-Christophe Peraud (FDJ). It’s a shame that the 4th Frenchman, Pierre Rolland lost time today, after gaining back some of it the other day.
What’s wrong with the French anyway? The last time they won the Tour was in 1985!
Broken Specialized
Speculation has been swirling about Contador’s bike when he crashed. One especially juicy rumor was that the bike frame failed, causing the crash. I’m not going to dwell that, that’s not for me to write.
However, I’m sure the fallout would be more than embarrassing to Specialized, one of the biggest companies in the industry and the most litigious. Specialized is a sponsor of three Pro Tour teams in the Tour- Quickstep, Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo. And I don’t think that they will just sit on these rumors.
Last year, Specialized, a US company, sued a small Canadian bike shop for using the name, “Roubaix”. But after pressure coming from social media, Specialized was forced to settle amicably with the bike shop.
For now, Specialized is all over the place, cleaning up the mess.