Team Discovery Announces Le Tour Squad
Yep! It's time to throw up some cycling news and commentary, Tour de France style, on the old blog.
Team Discovery has just announced their squad to compete in this years Tour de France. The breakdown:
Alberto Contador | Vladimir Gusev | George Hincapie | Levi Leipheimer | Sergio Paulinho Egoi Martinez |Benjamin Noval| Yaroslav Popovych | Tomas Vaitkus
I don't think there are any real surprises; however, I'm guessing Jani Brajkovic's exclusion is due to a crash he had at the Tour de Suisse. Leipheimer will be the expected leader and I'm thinking he should be on form after a somewhat less than stellar performance at the Dauphiné (yes I know he can't win them all). My expectations for Contador and Gusev are for them to mix things up in the peloton and for Contador to put some hurt on some people in the mountains. Martinez and Noval are experienced domestiques with Hincapie providing veteran experience throughout the three weeks. Vaitkus is an unknown for me and I'm not sold on Popovych or Paulinho being able to make any significant noise.
Also I'm a little disappointed not to see "Chechu" Rubiera on the roster to provide some support in the mountains.
As for my predictions of whom will stand atop the podium in Paris, I'm not quite there yet. The early money is Vinokourov (Team Astana) and Cadel Evens, Denis Menchov, Leipheimer, Alejandro Valverde, Oscar Pereiro will be the ones garnering the most attention.
This years tour looks to be wide open and as such I'm not so sure we won't see a surprise winner come along and claim the top spot in Paris.