2016 Tour de France preview: the contenders

With the 2016 Tour de France only three days away, Canadian Cycling Magazine continues its preview of the race by looking at the contenders to wear the yellow jersey in Paris on July 24 and the challengers for the podium.

Chris Froome (Great Britain/Sky): The clear favourite to repeat as Tour champion, all signs bode well for the Brit with the distinctive elbows-out, eyes-on-stem style. He recently won the Critérium du Dauphiné for the third time, and the other two times he has done that, he’s gone on to win to Tour.

Froome didn’t exactly blow everyone away at the Dauphiné—six riders were within a minute of him, but as with Lance Armstrong, all results are relatively unimportant until La Grande Boucle.

Froome will have the usual murderers’ row of Sky heavies to boss the race: Mikel Landa, Mikel Nieve, Wout Poels, Geraint Thomas and Sergio Henao.

Nairo Quintana (Colombia/Movistar): Quintana pressed Froome pretty close last year, the second time the Colombian climber has come runner-up to the Brit. This year Quintana has looked particularly strong, with a Tour de Romandie title and an easy recent win in the Route de Sud, his choice of Tour warm-up.

Where Quintana might have the advantage in 2016 is that the route is very tough, with more climbing than the four summit finishes suggest.

He also brings a strong team, including recent Tour de Suisse runner-up Jon Izagirre (who hasn’t placed lower than 5th in his five 2016 stage races) and perennial Grand Tour podium threat Alejandro Valverde.

Alberto Contador (Spain/Tinkoff): Suffering from a cold a week from Le Grand Départ is rough luck for a rider who performed so well at the beginning of the season that he held off retirement for another year.

Double winner and Grand Tour multi-champion didn’t show sterling form at the Dauphiné in coming fifth. Like Thibaut Pinot, his June attacks seemed to only elicit even more decisive ones from his rivals.

Contador’s main helpers are Rafal Majka (Poland), fifth in May’s Giro d’Italia, and new Czech national champ Roman Kreuziger.

The Astana Duo of Fabio Aru and Vincenzo Nibali: The Vuelta a España title-holder, Aru is supposed to be the Astana’s protected rider and Giro winner Nibali the domestique. But this lack of pressure on the Shark of Messina may prompt a strong enough performance to make him the leader.

Aru, even though he took a thrilling Dauphiné stage triumph, wasn’t terribly sharp at 45th on GC. He’s bringing a deep crew besides Nibali, with Diego Rosa, Tanel Kangert and Jakob Fuglsang ready to put up some resistance to the mighty Sky.

The BMC Duo Richie Porte (Australia) and Tejay Van Garderen (USA): These two Anglophones are another interesting teammate opportunity/dilemma in the making. Porte missed out on the Dauphiné podium by getting accidently squeezed out by Froome’s Sky in the last 100-metres of the eight-stage race.

Van Garderen had a fine end to the Tour de Suisse and grabbed a stage win, but was disappointed to place sixth. He seems to come up short in big races, but he has been 5th twice at the Tour.

Porte has had some good results this year, starting with his runner-up spot at the Tour Down Under and podium in Paris-Nice, but he doesn’t do well in Grand Tours, his 7th spot in the 2010 Giro a high mark. Since then 19th in the 2013 Tour is his best out of six other Grand Tour finishes.

The French Hopefuls Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Romain Bardet (AG2R), Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin), Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) and Pierre Rolland (Cannondale): These five riders are under a lot of pressure to deliver the goods (s’il vous plait, n’importe qui!) for the long-suffering French fans, without a Gallic winner since 1985. Pinot and Bardet are their best bets.

Pinot, the new French time trial champion, had a marvelous early season, was second to Quintana in the Tour de Romandie and then tottered in the Dauphiné, where a stage win couldn’t plaster over his finish in 16th.

Bardet coming runner-up to Froome in the Dauphiné was all the more impressive because AG2R’s main man crashed on one of the early stages and lost some time. He looked very spritely in June’s French tune-up race. Bardet has come in the top-10 in four other stage races this season.

Barguil survived the terrible Giant-Alpecin car collision to make some stiff attacks in the Tour de Suisse where he stood on the podium.

Alaphilippe won the Tour of California before impressing in the Dauphiné as part of Etixx-QuickStep’s two-headed attack, placing 6th while taking the young rider’s jersey.

Rolland is Cannondale’s GC man, what with Michael Woods and Andrew Talansky out, and the punchy rider should scrap his way into the top-10. He was 10th in the Dauphiné. He could do with another stage win on his palmares.

Others: Dan Martin (Ireland/Etixx-QuickStep) is enjoying his new home at Etixx, where he’s mounted the podium at the Dauphiné and Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. Bauke Mollema (The Netherlands/Trek-Segafredo) is always consistent in Grand Tours and won’t have to share protected rider duties with Ryder Hesjedal. Tom Dumoulin (The Netherlands/Giant-Alpecin) had a great 2015 Vuelta, but had to drop out of the Giro with saddle sores after wearing pink. The 103rd edition might be a little too deep in climbing for him.

Adam Yates (Great Britain/Orica-GreenEdge) is the Australian outfit’s GC hope. He’s on a roll after top-10’s in the Tour of Yorkshire and the Dauphiné, but 50th is his best Grand Tour result in two tries. Ilnur Zakarin and Joaquim Rodriguez represent the new guard and the old guard at Katusha. Zakarin was fifth when he crashed out of the Giro, but riding aggressively. Veteran campaigner Rodriguez’s last Grand Tour result was runner-up in the Vuelta to Aru. He doesn’t have stellar results this year but just might win the stage to Andorra.