The old Usenet acronym TIOOYK “There is only one you know” for the Tour de France is certainly applicable once we hit July. Sure the Giro and Vuelta are often better races, but for good or bad it all comes down to the Tour.
You can look on all the different web sites and everyone says the same thing. Evans is the favorite, and Valverde, Menchov, Cunego, Sastre are right behind. The order of the other 4 is the only thing that varies. As much as I would like to think someone will deliver a surprise win like Sanchez, one of the Shlecks, Ricco, or Jimmy Casper (okay that is a stretch), but history shows very few surprises in the Tour. If you look at the winners only Pereiro stands out as a surprise with hindsight. In the past 30 years only Fignon and Lance in their first wins, and maybe LeMond in ‘88 were a surprise at the time. All other winners were listed as favorites at the start of that years Tour. While certainly one of the more open Tours in the past 15+ years the list of potential winners is still less then 10. Assuming there is not a breakaway like 2 years ago opening the door for Pereiro.
So I am going with one of my favorite riders Valaverde to win it all and hope that for a change the big story will not be some top rider being kicked out.
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