News Jul 6, July 24 β Stage CarcassonneβBagneres-de-Luchon, mountain As in, Tour de France, the greatest spectacle and toughest endurance race on the planet. And the Tour must go on. The race covers 3, kilometers over 21 stages. There will be 22 teams and each team will have eight riders. This is a reduction from past editions where teams had nine riders each. The ASO made the reduction to try and enhance rider safety and to make the racing less predictable and controlled.
The defending champion, Chris Froome, will be gunning for his fifth overall β and fourth consecutive β yellow jersey. Froome has not been without controversy this year. His case dragged on for months and no resolution appeared to be in sight. This gave him the green light to go for yellow. The last rider to successfully do the double was Italian Marco Pantani two decades ago.
Froome also has the most experienced team of riders to support him in this quest and is the unquestioned leader of Team Sky. He is undoubtedly the five-star favorite to win. I have Froome landing on the podium with a third-place finish overall. In fact, he won the Giro with an audacious solo attack on a steep dirt road 80k from the finish line.
Nibali is known as the Shark of Messina. Like Froome, the Shark has won all three Grand Tours. He is one of the most complete riders in the peloton and has the rare ability to win both Grand Tours and one day, Classics. He is the reigning champion of the one-day classic, Milan San Remo, which is kilometers and one of the five Monuments of Cycling. In addition, he is one of the most respected riders in the peloton and will have no shortage of allies if he finds himself in a position to win.
He has shown great form recently and won a difficult Tour of Switzerland last month in his final warm up for the Tour. He has a talented and experienced squad to support him and can expect to take significant time out of Nibali on the Stage 3 team time trial and potentially put some time into Froome as well. He is a talented and aggressive rider but has not proven himself in a Grand Tour yet.
