Michal Kwiatkowski was world champion in Ponferrada in 2014 and is considered one of the great talents of cycling in recent years. But David Brailsford, the head of the Sky, has decided to leave him out of the 2016 Tour of France. And there is neither injury or conflict in between.
Surprising as it may seem, the only reason is that the Polish has not given the level in the graceful boucle approach calendar, and that today the Sky is like a kind of world selection of runners, chosen not to leave even A loose end in Froome's ride towards his third yellow jersey in Paris: Geraint Thomas, Mikel Landa, Wouter Poels, Sergio Henao, Vasil Kiryienka, Mikel Snow, Ian Stannard and Luke Rowe.
Let's say that the first four know how to dispute a general classification, that Kironka has been world gold in counterreloj, that Mikel Snow has won up to three stages of mountain queen between turn and back and that Stannard and Rowe have touched the top 5 in Flanders and Roubaix.
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While the specialized press wonders in case it is the best team ever seen in the Tour de France, Alberto Accountant, who, as Froome seeks his third win in the Elyséeos fields, speaks that there will be no choice but to “give them the witness to control the career. They have a team. ”
In the last great reference prior to the Tour, the Dauphiné Libéré, the Sky sowed the panic in the mountain: Mikel Landa, Wouter Poels and Sergio Henao were the links of the control chain, capable of marking such a strenuous rhythm that no one could attack to your boss. And if they were in a fifth march, only suitable for the biggest ones, Froome even had a sixth to finish off and win the race. Whenever he has defeated in the Dauphiné, the British has ended up imposing at Tour (2013 and 2015).
"The specialized press wonders in case it is the best team ever seen in the Tour de France"
Therefore, very few dare to say that the corridor born in Kenya 31 years ago is not the big favorite. It arrives with 27 days of competition and with a training plan aimed at not faltering in the third and decisive week, which almost costs the tour last year, when Nairo Quintana fruired in Alpe D’Ez.
In a way, that day, when the Colombian of Tunja put the Sky in check with an impressive chain of attacks on which Richie Porte could finally answer -the Australian later saved Froome by taking him to a wheel with a rhythm that allowed the two to defend the two Minutes of mattress-, it is the one who keep in the retina the fans who believe they can first assault the Sky train and then beat Froome in hand in hand.
And waiting to see if the best accountant returns, almost everyone points to Quintana as the best for the task. The Colombian, runner -up in the two tour of his maximum rival, arrives at the departure of Mont Saint Michel after exhibiting on the southern route and overcoming the British champion in the Volta to Catalunya and the Romandía Tour.
Nairo says he has taken note that concessions such as last year can be made at Pierre de Saint Martin, when he could not respond to Froome's attack on the first day of the mountain and was towed to the rest of the tour. This time, slides that “I have completed some training to support strong attacks. We have seen that when Froome starts, sometimes anyone follows. And I want to endure your
start -up this time ”.
Then there are the counterreloj. Not without reason, several experts pointed out in 2015 that Quintana lost his great opportunity to dress yellow because it would be difficult to find another edition without chronos. Said and fact: The Tour recovers this year the specialty with two days of individual struggle, although it is convenient to note that the first time trial of the 13th stage, with the end of Caverne du Pont-d'ARC, are 37 pink kilometers, not suitable for rollers Pure, and that the second is a chrono -scallop of 17 kilometers between Salanches and Megève (18th stage).
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Nairo is not scared. It comes from winning the counterreloj of the South Route against Sylvain Chavanel and ensures that “I have focused more on discipline because it is increasingly important for this type of great competitions. We have changed bicycle and all the work has helped us to try to waste less time. ”
The unknown here will be to see if that improvement is at the expense of the explosiveness in the mountain, when to break the Sky chain it is necessary to sustain a very high pace after the attacks. For this, Quintana will have the best possible Movistar, with Alejandro Valverde -podio in the Tour of Italy-, at the head of a squad designed to be in all land, with two splendid rollers, such as the Spanish Imanol Erviti and the Portuguese Nelson Oliveira; Four great climbers, Dani Moreno, Winner Anacona, Jesús Herrada and Gorka Izaguirre, and a man who is setting a fabulous campaign, Ion Izaguirre, champion of the Tour of Poland and very close to the Top 10 in the Tour of Italy.
Accountant, fresh without the turn
Alberto Contador will seek to leak in the fight appealing to a preparation that has eluded the Giro of Italy, the race that undermined its possibilities in 2015. It arrives with 33 days of competition, in which it managed to defeat Quintana in the Tour of the Basque Country and overcome To Froome in the chrono -scalled of Dauphiné, before claudicating before the Sky in the mountain. "I'm missing speed," he said.
Mentally, accountant seems restored from the doubts that led him to announce his withdrawal at the end of this season and ensures in the proper way to assault the tour, a race that has not won since 2009. The Pinteño wants to close his stage in the Tinkof to The big thing and will make it surrounded by a team in which another of the great stars of the world squad, the Slovak Peter Sagan stands out.
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Far from seeing a problem in sharing prominence with the current world champion, accountant sees an advantage: “It is the most class corridor I have seen in my career. At one point you can unbalance the tour, having it will mean an advantage, not an inconvenience. ” After Sagan's special support, accountant will have two other luxury gregarious in the Polish Rafal Majka and Czech Roman Kreuziger.
Beyond the three big names, the 2016 Tour of France presents a second favorite guard with the ability to enter a closed fight for the podium. It highlights the Astana of Fabio Aru and Vincenzo Nibali, which after spectacular winning the Tour of Italy arrives in France as the theoretical assistant of the sardus, winner in turn of the last return to Spain.
Of all the favorites, Fabio Aru is the one who has appeared this year. He won a very quality stage in Dauphiné, but nothing more. Not even a top 10 in World Tour races. The fact that Aleksandr Vinokúrov has opted to underpin the team with Nibali seems a preventive measure to guarantee an answer in case Aru fails, more taking into account that two of the best teams in the team, Jacob Fuglsang and Tanel Kangert, come from An important zurra in the Tour of Italy.
But if you also have Paolo Tiralongo, Luis León Sánchez and the promising Italian Diego Rosa, the option of the blue team does not seem to have a collective limp problem.
The second line of favorites includes the French Navy with the names of Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet in the foreground, and Warren Barguil in second, although to end the endemic evil of the lack of regularity, an important step to the forehead.
Pinot, with 26 years near the ideal age, has won the international criterium, the French National Counter Real Championship and has been awarded with brilliance stages in the Dauphiné and in Romandía; And Bardet, two Top 10 in the Tour general, plus the stage victory last year, has convinced Vincent Lavenu to lead the Ag2R ahead of the Italian Domenico Pozzovivo.
However, and as almost as long as we talk about the Tour de France, it may be better to guide yourself due to aspects related to career reliability. In that sense, we will have to follow closely to the BMC of Richie Porte and Tejay van Garderren, and the Katusha of Purito Rodríguez, who at 37 years old, and endorsed by his podium in 2013, has made a preparation aimed at being up again In the general.
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Tour for climbers
The Tour de France 2016 returns to a commitment to the mountainous paths, with nine stages about the total of 21, which include four final finals: Andorra Arcalís, the mythical Mont Ventoux, the unpublished Finhaut-VOSONSON and Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc . However, Alberto Accountant points to the 20th stage, on Saturday prior to Paris, because "he can decide the tour."
That day the tremendous col of the Joux Plaine will be uploaded, before the classic arrival in Morzine. And there have almost always happened there. The two counterreloj and several trap arrivals, with short but very hard levels, complete a 3,519 kilometers route in which the Pyrenees will first face, from the second week, and then the Alps.
In a way, a return to the classic design with a land that will give a lot of play to the candidates to unseat Froome and break the fearsome train of the Sky.
Fight against ‘mechanical doping’
The race, broadcast by more than 100 television channels to 190 countries, will break up monitoring records and, this year, security, with a deployment of 23,000 gendarmes.
In addition, the Femke Van Den Driessche cyclist scandal, in whose bicycle they found an engine during the Cyclocross World Championship, has led to the organization of the ASO and the ICU itself to implement between 3,000 and 4,000 controls to combat the so -called doping mechanic.
If the ICU had been using magnetometers to measure the density of the magnetic flux of the bikes, using specific tablets and software, now, with the collaboration of the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Center for Scientific Research, portable thermal cameras will be used To measure the thermal properties of bicycles, which will not only be used before and after each stage, but will also be installed on the motorcycles of the organization and on the edges of the road located at secret points.
In case of any end, there is talk of the fact that the bikes will be controlled in the next editions with devices installed in the helicopters that follow the large Boucle.
