No that burning is no the yellow helmets for the leaders of the team classification. More on that later.
1 What is Fabian Cancellara's role in
animating this race?
Fabian Cancellara (RSNT) is in an
interesting place. He is not a high mountain climber. He is a major
time trial threat in a race with a lot of time trial kms. He is also
the leader of the race. And he's racing on a team that seems to be in
total disarray, at least as far as GC is concerned. While Cancellara
is not the GC leader of his team, he is in 3rd place in
the points competition and could score more tomorrow with a similar
finish to stage 1 where he was 2nd. If that happens again
and with the time trial, is it possible Cancellara and his RSNT team
mount a point assault? It could happen, especially if the sprinters
start trying to conserve energy for the Olympics and don't contest
all of week 2's sprint checkpoints.
2 What is the impact of these
classic-like stages we have been seeing over the last few years?
Both Stages 1 and 3 look and act more
like classics than normal stage race stages. Last year had a couple
of these classic-like short climb finishes and 2010 had a
Paris-Roubaix like cobblestone stage. The impact on the race has been
positive. For one thing, the entire first week is no longer a
procession of sprints. While there is a place for sprints and a lot
of them, it's bad when sprints are every day of the first week as
they often can be when the parcours are unimaginative. At the very
least, these stages make a breakaway a possibility instead of a
doomed exercise in suffering for those involved. It also can upend
the GC at least a bit giving us more of a pecking order and that is
needed with no time bonuses to separate matters any longer. For
examples on GC, just look at the Paris-Roubaix stage in 2010 where
Cancellara drove Andy Schleck to a time gain that helped Schleck
immensely in his tour bid (that was ultimately doomed by Chain-gate
then given to Schleck because of Contador's doping DQ). This year
already, Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Chris Horner (RSNT) were
caught out yesterday on Stage 1 and lost time. If nothing else, the
pretenders are eliminated early and turned into stage hunters well
before they normally would be. I have no problem with that.
3 Are the overall contenders going to
attack tomorrow?
The non-time trial men among the
overall contenders need to gain time somewhere, even if it's only a
few second here and there. With 5 short categorized climbs compressed
at the end of the route tomorrow, it seems like a good day to attack
if the legs are good, especially with a few days of sprinting
upcoming. Still, with the exception of Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) and
Samuel Sanchez (Euskatel), none of the overall contenders that lack
high end time trial skills are know for their big attacks. It makes
me wonder if there is going to be a GC staring contest while the
breakaway rides up the road and takes the stage win (this result
would surely anger current yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara).
4 Given that the Team Time Trial is
normally around this time, which contenders will miss it and which
are glad it's gone?
Chief among those who will miss it is
Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp). His team's early TTT success helped
move him into the GC contenders at his Giro d'Italia win in May and
the Garmin team has made TTT success a hallmark of what they have
done since the squad was formed. Cadel Evans (BMC) will also miss the
TTT in part because his team has a couple of other strong TT'ers on
it.
Among those who are happy to see it not
included are Samuel Sanchez (Euskatel). Sanchez rides on a team that
is, at best, allergic to time trialing (seriously, being a Basque
climber generally means riding a good time trial is against team
regulations). For the first time in a long time, Sanchez isn't
starting with a 2 minute disadvantage on GC.
5 Can we get rid of the awful yellow
helmets already?
Seriously, these things are crimes
against fashion and humanity. Can we get rid of them before a team
like Lampre gets a hold of them, please. Just imagine the pain that
would cause the eyes. As for so far, here is Team Sky wearing them.
They aren't so bad there, at least in comparison to what could
happen. **shudders**
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