***CONTADOR WINS THE TOUR DE FRANCE 2013***

Have you considered that no rider since 2009 (incidentally when Bertie himself won the Tour) has finished worse than second in their final race prior to the Tour. Unless Bertie rides in his National Champs ahead of the Tour, like he did in 2009, and finishes 2nd like he did in the ITT, the spread is severely against him. He hasn't won a race this season, whilst Froome has finished second earlier in the season in the Tirreno-Adriatico, and won four races since, including the best preparation lead-in race available; the Criterium du Dauphine.

Froome also won the Tour of Oman at the start of the season, beating your Contador, and then beating him by one place in the Tirreno-Adriatico. But if you thought Contador's prospects were improving as the season went along than you'd be wrong, because he could only manage a poor fifth in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, and a dismall tenth in the Dauphine, where he was thoroughly trounced by the winning-smiles and I-don't-have-much-else-to-do-ahead-of-the-Tour-attitude of Froome.

For anyone who watched the Dauphine - as I did - Contador looked positively uncomfortable and out-of-form. Not once did Contador get around Froome, and the day he tried, in the fifth stage up to summit of Valmorel, Froome had his measure plus an extra 4 seconds on the line.

There was basically no positives for Contador in the Dauphine, and perhaps only one Australian TV network host's stupid question sums up your fantastical story of Bertie win: Is Bertie foxing here at the Dauphine? Umm... yes, he is, he is foxing in order to improve his price in the market and win a motza when he blows everyone away by five minutes on the Queen stage! Ha-ha!

On paper, Froome looks better than even Wiggins did last year at about this period of the season, having one additional win in the bag in GC races. It's a fair price for Contador, and he'll likely shorten a bit, but the records suggest he can't win.

But, if you believe his form is just around the corner than that's something quite familiar to you since Oman. Ha-ha!

There's no doubt that he has his fans, and traders may like him, but essentially you are hoping for Froome to crash-out or get sick whilst still keeping fingers crossed for an out-of-form rider to finally come good. 3/1... is money out the window, I'm afraid.

Cheers,
SP

i picked up some contador at 4/1 and 9/2 which i'll lay off at 3/1. i think he could surprise at le tour with an altitude camp and doping programme. my main cheer will be saxo bank for team classification which is a huge bet for me at 18/1.

i see vincenzo nibali is a big price do you know if he will be doing the tour de france this year

No Nibali. Should be 1K.

Agree that the Sky train looked very impressive in Dauphine, very accomplished and professional; and even if they didn't have Froome they might have a legitimate GC rider in Porte, they way he performed in that race.

Cheers,
SP

Froome off the leash will put serious time into Bertie in one of the MTF stages as well as the time trials. The only hope is for McQuaid to engineer a Sky positive during the tour in order to taint cooksons bid for UCI presidency.

I think they knew that Wiggins wasn't up to scratch this year and formed the team around Uran targeting white, which worked for them, and they were looking good for Pink with him for a time. This is upported by the fact that the Giro-Tour double is such a rare thing, and wouldn't have risked their chances with putting too much miles into Wiggins' legs by making him face such a test ahead of a chance to defend 2012 result.


This confuses me.

Uran wasn't eligible for white, and the fact that he lost 90 seconds on Stage 7 going back for Wiggins after he "descended like a girl" doesn't to me say that they knew Wiggins wasn't up to it.

As for the 2nd sentence I really don't understand that at all.

I'm sorry you're confused, perhaps I wasn't as clear as I normally am, and you are correct about Uran being ineligible for white. What I meant to have said was, that I thought, that no modern team would target the Giro-Tour double when the prestige of defending their Tour title with a fit champion rider would always take precedence. I lodged my view that Sky team expertise and capabilities will be vastly different for the Tour than it was for the Giro, simply because Wiggins had question marks going into the race over his knee injury. As a fall-back measure they formed the team around Uran, in what Sky management must have believed would be their main hope once Wiggins retired through failure or retired because of positive signs he would okay for the Tour. Wiggins would never have finished the Giro -- one way or the other he was going to retire, and did!

The Giro was a weird race for Sky, and it matters not if one forms an equally weird view on the team machinations which brought them to the Grand Depart in Naples. The fact is that some things behind closed team doors will never be known to outside viewers, but at the end of the day Wiggins didn't perform, his team-mate Uran did, and there simply won't be a Wiggins in France as a direct result of what happened in Italy. That is just fact, so I anticipate that you won't be too confused by that? I will continue to hold my view that the Giro was a wait-and-see (a test) approach on Wiggins' knee injury, and at that time he was to have ridden the Giro for a week or so if the knee held up, or he was feeling good.
Basically any positive signs would have caused the team to retire him from the race. Nevertheless, by stage 7 Wiggins was still the proposition, after all he finished 2nd after a puncture in the following ITT, so of course Uran would have been ordered to fetch Wiggins. I don't see any conflict here, Wiggins was still in the test. Therefore, I think you'll find that the "sit down", the honest examination of where Wiggins was at for the Tour, in fact, occurred at the conclusion of stage 9, when naturally the only GC rider Sky had from the outset should such a point be reached with Wiggins, one way or the other, was Uran. That's why I maintain this race was for Uran.

Nevertheless, if you are somehow inferring that the Sky team will appear more like their Giro team as opposed to the team that took the start line in the Dauphine than you have hardly drawn-out your argument in any compelling fashion.

As far as answers worth observing in the Giro, please find that Sky won the TTT.

Cheers,
SP

The Giro was a test on Wiggins' dickey-knee. Period. Sky would never put that much riding into his legs ahead of the Tour, to do so would be foolhardy given the poor record/results of riders in the Tour who rode the Giro earlier in the season. I believe your supposition doesn't hold any ground, since it neglects to take into account the prestige of going into the greatest cycling race in the world with the defending champion. Every team would love to have the defending champion in the team -- the media, exposure, hype, everything... is quantified and increased with maximum bang-for-your-buck status and command on the world's greatest stage! To think that Sky would've chosen Froome over Wiggins for the Tour prior to the Giro, is just not based in any reality I encounter. You say he could have done his talking on the road whilst overlooking this important fact about him: Defending Champion!

Cycling, like most of professional sport nowadays is a business -- investment over return. Wiggins was like the fully-franked share paying out handsome dividends to the business just by showing-up on the starting in the Tour.

Wiggins wasn't up to it in the Giro because he went into the Giro with a major question mark over his knee injury. Of course Sky knew this and had the only backable GC rider in the team with him: Uran. If you don't see how I can come to this conclusion than it only confirms you're like a horse with blinkers. I mean, please provide some examples of consistently good results by riders in the Tour whom rode the Giro first? Most of the riders have a big fat DNF beside their name on the Tour's GC. For obvious reasons, actually, it's just too much riding, and why I am at a loss to understand why Cadel Evans would have chosen such an option??

Froome's season has been a buildup from the start for the Tour. He's hit every target and yet you think that if Wiggins showed well for 10 days or 2 weeks in Italy that Sky would completely change course and get behind Wiggins for it?

I don't disagree with Froome's performance this season, he is in superlative form and you'll notice I make this point earlier in the thread when I compare it to Wiggins' form at about this period last year. However, having the defending champion on your team is worth far more to a team than an odds-on winner in Froome. So, no, I'm afraid you don't give "chances" to the greatest asset on your team. You simply don't say, you've got your chance to prove yourself in the Giro and if you win it we'll give you a start in the Tour. Umm... you just don't disrespect YOUR defending champion in this way! Proving the strength of a dickey-knee for the first week or so, is another thing altogether, and why my Uran theory holds good ground.

I don't disagree with the depth of the Sky team, you've overlooked the fact that I've contended the team will resemble their Dauphine outfit more than their weird Giro assortment!

In fact, since the team was just announced, let us examine how correct my prediction was:

Crit du Dauphine	Tour 2013		Giro
EBH	EBH		Henao
Froome	Froome		Wiggins
Porte	Porte		Knees
Kennaugh	Kennaugh		Pate
Lopez	Lopez		Uran
Kiryienka	Kiryienka		Puccio
Stannard	Stannard		Cataldo
Thomas	Thomas		Zandio
	Siutsou		Siutsou

Err... one of the ways to test one's knowledge of team politics and dynamics, and strengths and weaknesses, in order to understand teams' strategy and guile for an upcoming race... is to make your own team predictions, as closely - or not - as one is willing to observe or has the time for.

Cheers,
Dan

People do realise that Froome's record in Grand Tours is not great don't they? Last year's Tour was p!ss poor - this year's far stronger and harder

Yeah, Froome's record in Grand Tours is piss poor. He's only had a podium in the Vuelta and a podium in The Tour de France. He could easily have won both if things had gone right for him. In fact, he had actually completed the Vuelta course in a quicker overall time that Cobo who won.

We'll never know whether Froome would have beaten Wiggo given his head in 2012, but this course was always going to favour a climber who can time trial rather than a time triallist who can climb (Wiggo).

If you're using the Vuelta as a Contador v Froome formguide you're in trouble. For Froome it was post-Tour training, (in the same way Wiggins took on the Vuelta the year before his crack at yellow) but for Contador it was his main objective of the season. Froome was well over the top by then. He is primed for this. Contador looks undercooked to me.

It's possible the first two weeks of the Tour will get Contador firing, and especially if Sky have to defend yellow for 2-and-a-half weeks you could see them falter in the last three stages, but for now I think Froome is a very worthy favourite.

Saying that, I'm not playing. Yet.

That's six starts, not five, for Froome in GTs -- he also rode the Vuelta last year and finished in fourth place.

2008 84th in the Tour.
2009 36th in the Giro.
2010 DSQ in the Giro.
2011 2nd in the Vuelta.
2012 2nd in the Tour.
2012 4th in the Vuelta.

Cheers,
SP

While your posting Froome's Grand Tour record, why don't you post the Grand Tour record of Bertie??

Only one race has mattered to Contador this year and it's the Tour. He hasn't given a monkeys about the others. All building towards this. You call me deluded and then tip someone who is woefully out of form in Rodriguez!!!! You are contradicting yourself big time

There is no doubt Contador has a great record in GTs, but it's a tarnished record:

2005 Tour   31st
2007 Tour    1st
2008 Giro    1st
2008 Vuelta  1st
2009 Tour    1st
2010 Tour    1st
2011 Giro    1st
2011 Tour    5th
2012 Vuelta  1st

I agree that with top class athletes such as Tiger Woods and Roger Federer, major championships mean more than standard season events, and that the same may be said with Bertie aiming for the Tour. But even with these stars they rarely just show up and perform, they do the things that will put them into a competitive condition in advance. Bertie tried to do that at the Dauphine and failed badly.

If you are backing him with any confidence than that is based on his name and past performance, and not any good present conditioning. Basically it's a fan's bet, where you hope for the best while ignoring the worst. But just admit that that is the case... sometimes the; I just have a feeling bets work out well.

Cheers,
SP

As marychain1 said: "For Froome it was post-Tour training, (in the same way Wiggins took on the Vuelta the year before his crack at yellow) but for Contador it was his main objective of the season. Froome was well over the top by then."

I reject your assertion that I'm hurting after the Vuelta. Was the first GT in several years I didn't bet on as I was away on holidays. The purpose of a forum is to test your beliefs against a variety of informed people. I'm happy to throw some money on Bertie as a small saver, but your case hardly makes compelling reading, beyond the; trust me I know Bertie line.

Cheers,
SP

A lot of people have short memories and they are not describing what happened in the Vuelta fairly or correctly. Bertie went into the Vuelta undercooked due to his ban. He didn't have the same zip in the first week, got better in the 2nd week and was close to his peak in the 3rd week. He showed his class by attacking when everyone least expected it.
Froome over the top, Bertie undercooked.
But one thing I took from the Vuelta was that Froome couldn't take the constant attacks. They attacked and he could respond. They attacked again and he was hanging on....by the 4th and 5th time he was blown away. Constant attacking.
And it wasn't a strong Vuelta field? Froome, Bertie, Valverde, Rodriguez....I beg to differ. The Vuelta field was strong than the TDF field last year.

One of the biggest indicators of how important the 2012 Vuelta form is for the 2013 TDF is that even on/after the stages where Contador was leaving Froome for dead on the climbs, his price for this race never went above 3/1.

I'm not writing Contador off at all, I just think the prices are about right.

I agree Clay no one should back anyone at odds onn in a 3 week gruelling race like this. And i also agree that Contador is one of the all time greats. I lived in France for the last 5 years and have been at the tour, at all the alpine summitt finishes in that time, and have seen Contador do some great things. I was camped at lake Annecy when he blitzed the time trial there 4 years ago, i am well aware of Contadors brilliance, and so yes there is always a chance he returns to his best and wins here.

But i think Contador is way too short at 5/2 or 11/4!! When you consider rodriguez is available at 20/1! They have both been equally out of form this year and they were very closely matched in the vuelta last year, and for me Purito was very unlucky and was clearly the best climber at that time.

Thats why im against contador, i just think he is priced on past reputation and form, not what he has actually done in the last 12 months. I would have contador and Rodriguez price much closer together than they currently are. But i don't think either of the will beat a fit and in-form Froome this year.