2013 Tour de France Preview (From a Guy That Can’t Ride a Bike)

Chris Froome at the Vuelta a Espana

If you know me well you know how much I love the Tour de France. Well this year’s edition, which begins on Saturday, is the 100th edition of le Tour and they have gone all out to make it a cracker.

For the first time in a decade le Tour doesn’t leave French soil, with the first three stages being held on the island of Corsica for the first time. We also will see two individual time trials and a team time trial as well as a stretch through the Alps described (at least on Wikipedia) as brutal, including a double climb of the famed Alpe d’Huez, which happens to be my favourite mountain the Tour regularly climbs.

One thing they are doing without this year is the Prologue time trial stage at the beginning of the race, so instead of seeing Fabian Cancellara (who isn’t even racing) in Yellow for a few days, we will likely see one of the top sprinters like Mark Cavendish in yellow come stage 2. However with it going straight into the mountains the next day, that won’t last long.

If you happen to be one of those fans who for some reason prefers the sprinters fighting it out for the Green Jersey then this probably isn’t the year for you. There are only seven flat stages and they are spread out over the three weeks, plus I think quite a lot of the sprinters will struggle to make the time limit to finish the stage in that last week through the Alps, especially on Stage 18.

So that’s a bit about the structure of this year’s Tour, but what can we expect during the race itself?

Well first and foremost you can expect Chris Froome to win. Froome, if you don’t know, finished second last year to his teammate Bradley Wiggins, but many thought he was the strongest rider last year and if the team had let him he very possible could have won the race for himself. This year Wiggins has pulled out of the race and appears to never be returning, so Froome, who has been in even better form this year, is the unbackable favourite to wear the Maillot Jaune on the steps in Paris.

That said, anything can happen during the three weeks and crashes or illness or injury can change everything. So if things go awry for Chris Froome, who else is in with a shot?

Well this year Aussie Richie Porte will be doing the role for Froome that Froome himself did for Wiggins last year. Porte is in great form himself and the main thing stopping him contending is the fact that his job is to help Froome win as opposed to himself. But if Froome struggles, Porte will be given the green light to try to win it for himself and he is a very big chance to do so if given the chance.

Old favourites and former champions Alberto Contador and our own Cadel Evans are still there and always in with a shot, but I have a feeling neither will be able to quite keep up and we will see the next generation of riders surpass them once and for all. Contador certainly has the ability, but he has never been the same since he got off the juice. But that kind of goes without saying now doesn’t it.

That dastardly Andy Schleck will be competing without big brother Frank this year and is being counted out. I agree with counting him out as he hasn’t quite been up to it lately and two time trials will ruin his chance. The time trials will likely also ruin the chances of some of the great climbers, such as Pierre Rolland and some of the Spanish climbing specialists.

I think we will see great performances from young guns like American Tejay van Garderen, who last year was supposed to help Cadel Evans, but when Cadel couldn’t keep up, Tejay went out and finished fifth overall himself. Similarly Evan’s former teammate Jurgen Van Den Broeck finished fourth last year and continues to improve. I expect to see the Belgian on the podium in Paris with Wiggins and 2012 third place getter Vicenzo Nibali not in the field.

I also think we might finally see Canadian Ryder Hesjedal live up to a lot of the hype he had going into le Tour last year. I don’t think he will podium, but he is a chance to do so and there will probably be at least one stage where he looks like a real threat.

In terms of the Green Jersey, the obvious duo of Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish are the only two considered a chance to take it out. Sagan is favourite as he is much more adept than Cav at getting through mountain stages, as well as joining breakaways to pick up extra points along the way. I also worry about Cavendish finishing the race at all, a concern I don’t have for Sagan. In terms of value betting, Cavendish’s former teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen is paying huge odds to win the Green Jersey and he, like Sagan, is a sprinter who can also handle the mountains and enjoys picking up extra points out on the course. Plus he no longer has to worry about helping Cavendish and whilst his team will be focused on the Yellow Jersey, he is a chance to give the Green Jersey a shake.

However, much like with the expected winner of the Yellow Jersey, I think the favourite will end up winning the Green Jersey as well, with Sagan top of the pops in Paris.

The Polka Dot Jersey for best climber is much less clear. The betting favourite is everybody’s favourite Frenchman Thomas Voeckler. It quite simply isn’t a Tour de France if Tommy V doesn’t break away and wear the Yellow Jersey for a few days. Second favourite for the jersey is Voeckler’s teammate and climbing specialist Pierre Rolland. Two years ago Rolland did an incredible job helping Voeckler hang onto the Maillot Jaune for a lot longer than people expected and they are a formidable and entertaining duo. Rolland however drew the ire of many riders last year when he attacked during the “Tacks on the Road” fiasco that left many riders, including Cadel Evans, with flat tyres.

Beyond the Team Europcar duo there is a plethora of climbers and aggressive riders who will be looking to win the jersey, especially in a race filled with climbs. It will be a year of attacks and counterattacks and the Polka Dot jersey will be one to watch in 2013.

As mentioned earlier, the Tour this year features a Team Time Trial stage. The thing about TTT is that it heavily favours those riders with stronger overall teams, even more than having a strong team helps on regular mountain stages or building a lead out train for a sprinter. It doesn’t matter how good an individual time trialist you are if you are on a weak team and have to slow down to stay with your weaker teammates. This is yet another reason why Froome is so heavily favoured to win this year, as Team Sky is so strong from top to bottom and will not lose much time on the TTT stage.

I hope to see the Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE perform well in the TTT stage as a lot of the boys on the team are very solid individual time trialists and it would be good to see the Aussies shine for a stage or two.

If you are someone who likes to support riders based on their names I offer you two solid options. First there is Dutch rider Lars Boom. Boom isn’t a chance to win the Yellow Jersey or anything, but he is a great time trialist and might be involved in a few breakaways. Also his name is Lars Boom.

If that doesn’t tickle your fancy and you are more into TV, New Zealander Jack Bauer is your man. To be honest he likely won’t be a factor too much during the race and I guess it is unlucky for him that the race never reaches a Stage 24. No word yet on whether Bauer and his team will spend the entire race communicating via very loud whisper.

Overall, despite the fact that the winners of the Yellow and Green Jerseys seem to be predictable, the 100^th edition of the Tour de France could still be one of the most entertaining ever. The course is one that big fans of the race are super excited about and hopefully there are no doping scandals or major crashes and injuries to change the focus. It would also be great if people on the side of the road kept their dogs on a leash as there always seems to be at least one Labrador that gets in the way at some point.

I will be getting very little sleep throughout July and I invite you to stay up late with me and get involved in all the banter. I’ll be tweeting a lot (@DanCuzns) and my mates over at SBS and Stackla have put together a great Social Hub to get involved.

Download the SBS Tour Tracker now as well to keep up to date during the race or the following day.

See you on the road.

We Made It! But Now What?

The Socceroos' fan section Terrace Australis

After making hard work of the qualification campaign, the Socceroos are going to Brazil for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Finals. That’s fantastic news for all us Aussie football fans, but until things became dicey we were expecting to qualify with a bit more ease than we did. That’s not to take away from the achievement that is qualifying for the third consecutive time, but I think many fans are at a point now where they believe qualification is just expected.

Whether qualifying is expected or not, I think we can all agree that anything short of qualifying is considered an abject failure. That goal was big for the Socceroos, but it was even bigger for the career of Holger Osieck, who would have been sacked virtually on the spot had we not qualified.

It also turns out that with Jordan going on to beat Oman later that night, a draw would have been enough to qualify anyway, but hindsight is 20/20 and we needed to beat Iraq. Fortunately, we did.

So we are now about a year away from the World Cup Finals themselves and a lot can change between now and then. As one of the first nations to qualify, we don’t know who else will be joining us in Brazil and we are months off from finding out who is in our group. Obviously we could luck into a comfortable group draw or we could be unlucky and draw the dreaded “Group Of Death”, where my luck of the draw, several highly ranked or big name teams are put into the same group, with only two able to qualify for the Round of 16.

That said we do know we will get a top seed, at least one other very good team and then the fourth team is a real wildcard. So what are realistic expectations for the Socceroos in Brazil?

Personally, I have low expectations. I am certainly not ruling out the possibility of coming second in our group, especially if we can avoid a smashing at the hands of the top seed we draw (Germany 4-0 ring any bells), however I think this is a transitional period for the Socceroos.

We are at a weird place right now where a large portion of our team are on their last legs, past their primes and Brazil will be their farewell to the international stage, whereas the rest of the team are young and yet to reach their prime.

Of the 11 who started these last three qualification matches, I would say only Mark Milligan and maybe Brett Holman are in their natural primes, in terms of age. A case could be made that Luke Wilkshire, in his early 30s, is still in his prime, however from what I have seen of him I think he is already slipping and probably will be making his last World Cup appearance in Brazil.

Schwarzer, Neill and Bresciano are way past their primes and others like Cahill, Ognenovski and McKay are certainly on the decline.  I doubt we will see any of them still around for the 2018 qualification campaign.

What is really unfortunate is that 2010 was the perfect time for much of the old guard to have their best World Cup showing, but we were unfortunately stuck with Pim Verbeek as manager at the time and wasted an opportunity that comes but once every four years.

2014 was always going to be that transitional period where the previous generation are on their last legs, but the new guard aren’t totally ready yet either. Tommy Oar and Robbie Kruse are stars of the future and Tomas Rogic is possibly our most talented prospect, with fantastic efforts off the bench in the last two matches, but clearly Osieck isn’t quite ready to hand them the keys to the midfield just yet.

This means the upcoming club football season will be a massive factor in both who will be in the Socceroos starting 11 next year and just what our ceiling is. Rogic has moved to Celtic and a big season from him could see him take either Bresciano or Holman’s spot in the side. I personally can’t see Bresciano still being up to the job in a year’s time. He is already too slow and too poor defensively to play against decent opponents, as evidenced by the towelling he received at the hands of Japan. Another year in the mediocre Qatari league and I think we will be in serious trouble if Holger is still expecting him to be that midfield general he was so for many years.

Holman also has many question marks on him as despite the fact that he should be in his prime, his career is in a state of flux. He is at a decent club in Aston Villa but he needs to be getting regularly playing time or go to a club where he can play more. For years I was a Holman hater but he was probably our best player at the 2010 Finals and I started to like him. However, after a good performance against Japan, I thought he was poor in our last two matches. It’s a big season in the career of Brett Holman, for himself and for the Socceroos.

Robbie Kruse and Tommy Oar are both locked in to their spots in the team and with Kruse moving to Bayer Leverkusen, he could have a breakout season on a large scale. If Rogic, Oar and Kruse all have big seasons, that is a great sign for our chances and even better for our future.

However other areas of the field are a concern. We are playing Tim Cahill out of position as a target man striker because we don’t have a heap of options. Josh Kennedy is obviously one and scored the winning goal, but whether Osieck thinks he can start in Brazil, I’m not sure. Archie Thompson can provide speed and energy off the bench, but I don’t think he is good enough to start.

What I’m hoping for is a breakout season for young strikers like Bernie Ibini who has just moved to China to play for Shanghai East and Kerem Bulut who is now playing in Turkey for Akhisar Belediyespor. If either of them can take a step this year, we might have another solid option up front.

Defence is another concern. Lucas Neill doesn’t have a club and whilst he played well for Australia, didn’t even seem to be that good at an A-League level when playing for Sydney FC. I have no idea where he is going to be this season, but he needs to find a job somewhere. Ognenovski is a rock and I trust to be fine, but Wilkshire’s performances were concerning to myself and others and Matt McKay isn’t really a left back.

We might end up playing Ivorian Adama Traore of Melbourne Victory once he is declared eligible for the Socceroos and Michael Zullo is also an option at left back. At right back I think Wilkshire will continue to start, but he needs to step up from his recent performances.

Then there is Schwarzer. Despite having a mediocre season at Fulham, he continues to be a pillar of strength when he plays for the Socceroos. I must admit that before the Japan game I was concerned about him and wondered whether we should be moving on already, but he proved that wrong. I am happy for Mark to start in Brazil and then retire and hand the job over the Mitch Langarak or Matt Ryan. But for right now he needs to find a club. I am sure a decent enough team will snap Schwarzer up but until then, it’s a concern.

Overall the future is bright. I think 2018 is Russia is when we will be at our next peak, with the primes of the Kruse, Oar, Rogic and Co. era. I don’t expect us to get out of the group stage in Brazil, but would just like us to be competitive and not play negative as we did in South Africa because of tactical mismanagement. The nature of our performances is more important to me than trying to play for draws or freaking a 1-0 robbery win. If the team can be competitive and do the country proud, then that’s a successful campaign to me.

In 2018 I see us having an Australian manager (perhaps Popovic, Postecoglou or Vidmar) and a team that will scare a lot of opponents. The A-League is coming off a breakout season and moving forward and we have a great young generation of players coming through. Australian football is in it for the long haul and has to be thinking about the long term plans and right now we are headed in the right direction.

Brazil will be a nice farewell to the stalwarts of the old guard and a great showcase of the new guard. Just don’t put undue pressure on the event with unrealistic expectations. We just accomplished our expectations by getting there at all.

Ice Hockey for Dummies

Nathan Horton scores for the Bruins against Chicago earlier this season

Tomorrow the NHL Finals gets underway between the Chicago Blackhawks and my Boston Bruins. Many of you are probably already bored just reading that first sentence because you have no interest or knowledge about ice hockey, but hopefully I can convince you to give it a go.

Ice hockey is a sport Australians simply don’t get because it’s not a sport we grew up with as we don’t have the climate for it. Only in recent times have we started to develop athletes who can compete at an elite level in winter sports and even that is typically only in two or three events.

But as the sports addict that I am, I took an interest into learning about ice hockey as a kid, mostly through the EA Sports NHL series of video games and then after attending a game in person several years ago my passion for the game only increased.

The first thing you need to know about hockey is that it is the best sport to see in person in the world. That may sound like a very big statement, but ask any of your friends who have been to a game and very few will disagree. Now I will qualify my statement by saying that you do need to have decent seats, close enough to the ice, because the puck is small and can be hard to see from a distance. For the same reason, hockey was a terrible sport to watch on TV for a long time, until screen got bigger and TVs got to HD and just general higher quality.

But because of the speed and exciting nature of play, hockey is incredible in person.  If you ever travel to the US and want to catch a sporting event, I strongly recommend getting to a hockey game.

Now, none of that actually explains the game itself so I should probably teach you a bit about the game.

Hockey has a lot of similarities to basketball and soccer in the way you score and move the puck or ball. The aim is of course to score a goal and you have five outfield players and one goalie. Much like basketball and soccer you pass the puck around, try to create angles or take the puck past an opponent to then take a shot. The score lines are typically comparable to soccer but on average a little bit higher.

Hockey also invented the idea of the sin bin, or as it is known in hockey the penalty box. Any foul committed results in that player being sent to the box for two minutes, or for some more serious fouls 5 minutes. However, if the team with the extra player scores in that time, the penalised player gets to come back out on the ice. It’s a system I have advocated for to be used in the NRL for years.

Whilst controlling the pick and passing is difficult enough whilst ice skating, the game is also very tough. Guys get smashed onto the ice and into the boards/glass on the edge of the ice. A good legal hit in ice hockey is a thing of beauty. However there are rules for how and when you can smash a bloke and if you do a hit that is considered dirty, your reputation takes a nosedive and you often will face retribution.

Whilst fighting is considered common in hockey and it would be hypocritical of me to praise it after I wrote about Paul Gallen in State of Origin, all fighters are immediately sent to the penalty box for a 5 minute major penalty and depending on the cause of the fight can also be suspended afterwards. Hockey fights are a lot better policed than you might imagine. Then again hockey players are known as the nicest, most down to Earth professional athletes around.

When I was in Boston and was staying in a hotel where visiting NBA and NHL teams stay, I got to experience the difference between NBA players and NHL players firsthand. You truly wouldn’t know that hockey players were famous, because they sure as hell don’t show it externally, nor do they want that lifestyle. Any player who seems to embrace that lifestyle is actually laughed at. NBA players on the other hand… well that’s a different story.

But what makes hockey so interesting an exciting?

Well the game is played at such a frenetic pace and the action is constant. As soon as a team takes a shot, they either get the puck again for another one or the other team is off to the races to get one of their own. The pace is so tiring that attacking players typically only play for about a minute at a time before subbing out. You see in hockey, you don’t just make substitutions at breaks but on the fly mid game. A team will dump the puck at the other end and several of their players will race to get back onto the bench, whilst their teammates jump over the railing and take their place.

On the ice at a time a team has a goalie, two defensemen, two wingers and a centre. The wingers and centre are considered the forwards or attacking players, but defensemen nowadays have to be proficient attackers too, especially with the always entertaining slap shots from distance. Overall a team during a game has three ‘lines’ of defensemen and four ‘lines’ of forwards. So the forwards sub between the four lines regularly and the defensemen sub between the three lines a little less. Of course they have more backups beyond that in case of injury, but they tend to play 19 players a game or 20 if they decide they need to switch to their backup goalie.

One downside to hockey is that every time their CBA is up for negotiation between the players and the league, they seem to end up having a lockout and either missing an entire season or at least having a shortened season like the one we are coming to the end of right now. The biggest reason for this is that the league is run by a man named Gary Bettman, who may be the most incompetent man in the history of humanity. But that is a story for another article one day.

Another awesome thing about hockey is the Stanley Cup itself. Without question it is the best trophy in sports, it is over 120 years old, although the current version is just short of 60. Unlike other sports, they don’t make a new version each year for teams to keep, they simply give each winning team the actual cup for one year and each player gets to take it home and do all sorts of crazy shenanigans with it. Then they give it back, with a whole bunch of new stories. If only the cup could talk. Just look at this beautiful thing.

Obviously I haven’t gone into the nitty gritty details of the rules or the strategy, although I’m always happy to talk hockey if you contact me. I hope this gives you a taste of an amazing sport that is about to have its 7 game Finals series get underway between two of the ‘Original 6’ franchises of the NHL. It is going to be an amazing series and I implore you to try to watch.

Finally, my friend Sarah demanded I include this wonderful ‘Together We Can’ video that came out during the recent lockout. It’s goose bumps stuff.

Go Bruins.

Turning Blue

Greg Bird applauds the fans after Game 1

So Origin 1 is behind us and finally NSW will play the series from in front. It was a fascinating game, which had incidents, some brilliance and a potential sign of a change of fortunes.

Overall New South Wales were fantastic and it was exactly the sort of win they needed to allow them to play with confidence for the rest of the series to try and end the Queensland streak. Going into the game, most people seemed to believe that NSW held the edge in the forward pack whilst Queensland had a more dangerous backline and of course held the edge in the all-important spine of 1, 6, 7 and 9.

New South Wales built their foundation on that forward pack and overall they destroyed the Maroon’s forwards, forcing Thurston and Cronk to play on the back foot for most of the game. Guys like Gallen, Watmough and Greg Bird are built to play Origin and didn’t disappoint.

However the standout was clearly Luke Lewis, who had one of the great individual Origin performances. No he didn’t score a try or have that many highlight plays, but his hit ups, tackles and passes were extraordinary and he never stopped. He rightfully won the Man of the Match award and it was well deserved for a player who often doesn’t get the plaudits of some of his more flashy or exciting colleagues.

On the other hand, I thought Mitchell Pearce had a very mediocre game for a victorious NSW side. Before I get accused of Rooster hating, I thought James Maloney was superb on debut and Michael Jennings was brilliant too. Pearce however, was non-existent. The guy is playing halfback, which if you don’t know, is supposed to be a pretty important position in a football team and yet he seemed to barely touch the ball. When he did he mostly just dropped it off for a forward to take a hit up and my only memory of him throwing a longer ball was when he underthrew a pass to Lewis, which Lewis unfortunately couldn’t reel in.

Pearce is a solid defender and he wasn’t poor there, but he certainly was no halfback either. In such a great team performance his individual effort won’t cop much criticism and I know he won’t be dropped, but it still should be pointed out that we won in spite of him and not because of him. Oh, I also thought Ryan Hoffman had a surprisingly poor game with some bad drops and not much impact.

The standouts for NSW in my eyes were the aforementioned Lewis, the always awesome at Origin level despite his club form Jarryd Hayne, Maloney on debut, the ever reliable Robbie Farah and the “Bash Brothers” Bird and Gallen.

This brings me to the Paul Gallen punching Nate Myles incident. Yes, I understand that Origin has a different atmosphere and level of leniency, but in my eyes Gallen was very lucky to stay on the field. It doesn’t matter if Nate Myles is a dirty player or if he plays for Queensland, Gallen put a deliberate high shot on him and then when Myles got up unhappy about it, Gallen rocked him with two punches.

Would Myles have punched Gal if Gal didn’t do it first? Maybe. But that incident was all Gallen and regardless of what game it happened in, in my eyes it is not on. Had a Queenslander done it to a Blue, all of NSW would be crying foul and especially if it happened to a player from the individual club you support. So the idea of “that’s Origin” is bullshit in my eyes. Rugby league is a contact sport but it is not a combat sport, even at Origin. That wasn’t a fight; it was one player deciding to punch another.

So those fans who genuinely think it was awesome, or if you think it’s great because it happened to Nate Myles, I think you watch football for the wrong reasons and need to reconsider your values. I like a bit of Origin biffo as much as the next guy, but last night was not that. Anyway, NSW got a lucky break, but Queensland have had numerous breaks over the last few years so it was bound to even out and I don’t feel too bad.

Meanwhile, what about on the Maroon side of things? They finally looked old after a near decade of dominating the Origin arena. Their forwards were dominated, Thurston was completely out of sorts and even the Storm ‘Big Three’ struggled to impact the game.

Greg Inglis barely touched the ball and the one time he finally got decent possession he created Queensland’s only try. I doubt they will do it, but I think they need to switch Inglis and Slater in Game 2, at least at various points during the game to get Inglis involved. He is simply too important and valuable to them to not utilise more. Plus he is one of the few Queensland playmakers that can create without the forwards getting momentum first.

As a biased Souths and NSW fan however, I hope he stays at centre, barely touches the ball and simply gets through the game unscathed.

Another takeaway from the game last night is that we have all still played as much State of Origin as Josh Reynolds. I like Josh Reynolds and think he will play plenty of Origin in his career. It is not his fault he didn’t play, nor is it his fault he was selected at all. But this idea of selection a utility player for purely backup reasons and not even using him is insane to me. Origin is the hardest, fastest, most tiring form of footy and NSW are giving up one of their bench spots as a ‘break glass in case of injury’ backup plan.

It is no coincidence that as NSW forwards got tired in the second half; Queensland scored their try and came close to scoring more. Yes we won anyway, but it damn sure would have been a lot more comfortable if we had another player with fresh legs out there. I don’t care if it’s a prop like Tim Grant or a bigger utility that can cover halves like John Sutton, but all 17 positions should be utilised.

A win should never cloud over things that weren’t good just because the overall result was.

Finally, it is being reported that Robbie Farah may have a broken eye socket and is in doubt for Origin 2. That is a nightmare for NSW as Farah is probably the hardest player to replace in the entire team. Go on, name his direct replacement if he can’t play, I’ll wait….

…

Exactly.

Who are our options at 9 without Farah?

Michael Ennis? He’s a mediocre footballer and failed at Origin level already

Josh Reynolds? A good player and would have replaced Farah if Farah came off in Game 1, but he isn’t a hooker.

Mitch Rein and Nathan Peats? Like them both as youngsters but nowhere near Origin level right now and I don’t think either would argue that.

Ryan Hinchcliffe? To be honest I feel like I’d pick Hinchy out of these names even though he is mostly playing lock, but I wouldn’t be happy about it. At least I trust him as a player and feel like he’d handle the Origin cauldron, but the gap from Farah down to the other options is troubling to say the least.

If I’m forgetting anyone please let me know.

Anyway, NSW got a fantastic result in Game 1 and look like a great chance to finally reclaim the Origin crown. I’ll just spend the next three weeks praying to the great cockroach in the sky that Robbie Farah is back in time for the next instalment.