Uphill climb for Cadel, Pun Intended

Wiggins and his sideburns celebrate

So I haven’t written about the Tour de France since my race preview. I figured blogging about the sprint stages wasn’t really worth it as it has no real impact on the race overall (besides the green jersey of course) and the main thing that happened in the first week was how many crashes and withdrawals the race has seen. The two biggest names out of the race now are Ryder Hejsedal and Olympic Champion Sammy Sanchez. It’s such a shame, but it does happen.

Until last night, Cadel and Wiggins had been sticking together, finishing every single stage in the same group and more often than not literally next to each other. The only gap between them was the 10 seconds Wiggins gained during the prologue.

Of course that all changed in the first full length time trial. Cadel did a good time trial, make no mistake about it. He paced himself in a way that got the best final time for him. At the first checkpoint it looked like he might be struggling but he knew the course suiting him on the back end and he finished the stage sixth overall. That’s a great job when it includes time trial specialists like Cancellara, who will beat him in the stage but don’t matter to the general classification.

The only problem for Evans is Bradley Wiggins, who damn sure does matter in the yellow jersey race, won the whole shebang. When a rider is as good a climber as anyone and then also is the best time trial rider, that’s a recipe for a yellow jersey in Paris. Not to mention that Wiggins has teammate Chris Froome sitting in third overall and they will work together in the high mountains to guarantee at least one of them wins the race.

Can Cadel still retain his crown? Absolutely. But he is going to need to break Wiggins in the high mountains, probably more than once. With the gap sitting at just under two minutes right now, it’s reasonable to suggest Wiggins will gain another two minutes or so in the last time trial. Therefore Cadel is going to need to go into that time trial with at least a two minute lead in yellow. For the mathematicians at home, that means Cadel needs to beat Wiggins by around four minutes in the mountains before they get to the last time trial on the penultimate day of Le Tour.

Also I need to comment on how good Kenyan/Brit Chris Froome has been. The guy looked stronger than both Wiggins and Evans in the two medium mountain stages we’ve had so far, came second overall in the time trial and is frankly just as much a chance to win the whole thing as Evans is. Yeah he will have to do work for Wiggins rather than the other way around, but they will expect Froome to be able to go with Wiggins and Cadel up the mountains, then it will just come down to that last time trial where it’s every man for himself.

The next 2 weeks will be fascinating and will have to bring out the attacking side to Cadel we all want to see, but right now, Wiggins biggest obstacles could be those sideburns.