It is only the first rest day of the Tour de France, and with nine stages down most of the pre-race contenders are are left with the conundrum of clawing back several minutes on 2013 Tour champion Chris Froome.
While many are watching to see what inventive strategy Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) can come up with, and waiting to see if Tejay van Garderen (BMC) can continue his impressive run when the race hits the high mountains, there are still some outside contenders who could surprise.
Gone are Pierre Rolland (Europcar) and last year's Tour runner-up Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), both have an insurmountable gap that only an epic Floyd Landis-like breakaway could solve.
ADVERTISEMENT
AG2R's Jean-Christophe Peraud, third last year, is now 3:30 behind. His teammate Romain Bardet, Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) are around four minutes or more behind, and while a final podium could be possible, winning the Tour is well out of reach.
But there are still a few riders who can animate the race: men with strong teams and smart directors who could make life difficult for Team Sky. Cyclingnews looks at the status of the dark horses.
Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quickstep) 6th at 1:18
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1O2IF0D
No comments:
Post a Comment