Tour de France 2011

[Troy]

It is that time of the year again, I can't believe it has been a whole year. Tour de France starts tonight.

I have watched the Tour for many, many years and always look forward to some late nights in July following the racing. The last few years it has been great seeing an Australian, Cadel Evans, challenge for the yellow jersey. This year he will be a contender for the podium again.

Alberto Contador is the favourite but comes into the tour under a cloud of suspicion since his incident with a piece of beef. He tested positive to a banned substance but claimed it was from eating meat. The appeal is shockingly still going, how can they not have sorted this out before the Tour!

Andy Schleck is the second favourite and it will be good seeing him battle it out in the mountains.

For the green jersey you can't look past Mark Cavendish who will probably finish with five stage wins.

Always a good tour and this year should be no different!

EDIT: I am backing Gilbert to win the first stage.

 

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Gilbert won stage one, $2.40 was nice odds for a sure thing.

Incredible stage one yesterday and that is why I love the Tour. The first four hours was normal stuff with a break away of three riders being caught with about 20 kms to go. Then with 9km to go all hell broke loss when an idiot spectator leaned too far onto the road and took out one rider. That caused a domino effect which took out 3/4 of the peloton. Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck were somehow caught in the hold up. Amateur hour by both riders, all top contenders know they should ride up from to ensure they miss incidents like that. Then with about 3km to go there was another crash which split the leading pack. Gilbert was leading the way after a great lead-out from his team and then Cancellera made a break for it on the last km which involved a climb. Gilbert easily chased him down and cruised past to get the win. Surprisingly Cadel Evans was second on that stage. Huge day for him getting a big amount of time on the top contenders.

Team time trial tonight. Garmin-Cevelo, HTC and Radioshack are the top three favourites for the stage. I am going with Radioshack, back when they were team Discovery they were always strong in the TTT and they have four top riders that should get them home. I got on them at $4.50. A small sneaky bet on BMC (Cadel Evans team) who are at odds of $101. BMC had three riders pushing at the end of the stage so that they could get a good position for the TTT today. They are really going to go for it and at those odds they are worth a $5 bet.

 

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Damn I nearly turned $5 into $505. BMC finished second only four seconds behind. Evans is now in third only one second behind and in a great position. To correct my previous post Andy Schleck wasn't caught in that crash in Stage 1.

Tonight is a flat stage so it will be a sprinters paradise. Cavendish at $1.73 is my pick.

 

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Been a good first week so far. Lots of drama and lots of crashes with some big names (Wiggins) out of the tour. The top ten is still remarkably similar to earlier in the week but tonights stage will change that completely. It is a mountain finish and so Hushovd will certainly lose the yellow jersey. Vinokurov is a sneaky chance to win the stage.

Cadel Evans winning a stage a couple of days ago was a welcome surprise. He looks good this year and has a much better team surrounding him.

 

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Final mountain stage tonight and this is where we will see lots of attacks. Last night the Schleck brothers took their chance and it paid off. Andy raced away to a four minute gap and the peloton didn't want to chase it so Cadel Evans had to do it all on his own and he took back two minutes all on his own. Can't believe no-one else helped especially the yellow jersey leader and another guy Rollard that is close to the white jersey lead. Anyway tonight Cadel needs to lose no time to the Schlecks. He can beat him by a minute in the TT tomorrow so he just can't afford to lose more time.

At the moment Contador has tried to breakaway and the Schlecks, Evans and Vockler have followed him.

 

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Shit! Evans bike gave out and he had to dump it and wait for the team car to get another one. No luck for Evans and he is now 70 seconds behind.

 

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Evans is riding like a champion again. He went to the front on his own again and has cut the gap from 90 seconds to 30 seconds. Cadel is a good descender and hopefully he can catch them before the next climb. Cadel needs a few friends from other teams to help him and make it a bit easier.

 

[Troy]

CADEL EVANS!!!!!

Last night I stayed up once again and watched the Individual Time Trial. Evans was third to last out of the starting block and right away he set a great pace. He is a good time trialler whereas Andy was always going to struggle the question was whether 57 seconds was enough. In the end Evans smashed that and won by 1 minute and 34 seconds. He came close to winning the stage as well, only seven seconds off the winners time and he took second for the stage. This is one of the greatest sporting victories in Australian sporting history, it is up there with winning the Americas Cup. The Tour de France is the biggest annual sporting event and there should be a public holiday on monday to celebrate this.

Tonight is the final stage and as always there will be no attacks on the leader. First of all there is a gentleman's agreement where no-one attacks plus if anyone tried they wouldn't get far on this flat stage as they would be caught at the end.

I was so happy last night when he won, I have watched the Tour for many years now and I watched him get second twice by less than a minute but finally he has done it. Proud moment to be an Australian