Who will win the 2008 Tour de France?
Will we see a ”winner” in this year’s Tour?.
The 2008 Tour de France is almost ready to conclude despite all these doping scandals that have plagued cycling’s premiere event.
Of course, this year’s Tour is still something Cadel Evans to lose. He already has a firm grasp on that title and if everything works out as planned, I won’t be surprised to see this guy winning it. So who else will win this year’s Tour if Evans finds himself being tested positive for performance enhancing drugs?
First we have Damiano Cunego. He has shown considerable growth as a rider since winning the 2004 Giro d’Italia, the type of results and maturity that is needed to win the world’s biggest cycling race.
The 26-year-old won the young rider classification in his only Tour de France appearance in 2006 but failed to live up to his earlier promise until he won the Giro di Lombardia last fall. Add to the fact that he is a former winner of the Giro d’Italia, the ‘’little prince’’ who rides for Lampre is a huge talent in stage racing, especially in the mountains. Next we have Alejandro Valverde. Known as the ‘Green Bullet’ in some circles, he might just be blasting his way to the top of the Tour de France podium.
The 28 year-old Spaniard from Murcia who was brilliant throughout 2006 has that same spark this year, thanks to big wins like Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Dauphine Libere. The former was a welcome addition to Valverde’s solid palmares, but the latter, coming only three weeks before the Tour de France depart, indicates that his one-day racing legs have developed to handle stages races.
Alejandro Valverde is also a proficient climber who, over the past few years, has steadily improved in the often decisive longer time trials, Valverde has a real chance of becoming the second successive Spanish winner of the race following Alberto Contador, who is absent.
Surrounded by a strong team, including 2006 champion Oscar Pereiro, who has plenty of Tour experience, Valverde goes into every race with a psychological edge.
Making a name for himself in this year’s Tour is Denis Menchov, a two-time Tour of Spain winner. However, for some reason, he is generally considered more of a pretender than a contender.
A question mark seems to forever hover over Menchov’s yellow jersey pretensions, despite the fact that the Tour of Spain champion is a respected time trial cyclist and is likely to be one of the main protagonists in the mountains.
Denis Menchov is a class act to be watched. The 30 year-old Russian is the only one of the riders mentioned who will start the Tour de France with a Grand Tour in his legs, his consistency through the Giro d’Italia netted him a fifth overall finish.
And finally, we have Carlos Sastre. He has five top 10 places since 2002, and with third and fourth places respectively in 2006 and ‘07, Sastre cannot be discounted, especially in the absence of some of the bigger names who kept him off the podium in the past.
However, where Valverde and Evans recently displayed their pre-Tour form with first and second place finishes respectively in the Dauphine-Libere stage race, Carlos Sastre could only finish 20th after failing to fire in the race’s four mountains stages. He will pick up form as the Tour goes on, but will have to be hot to dislodge the two big favorites.
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2008 Tour de France Cadel Evans
