Tour Down Under 2010 Preview
South Australia’s festival of cycling began, all be it a day early, with a record turn out for a famous Lance Armstrong ‘twitter ride’, attracting over 8000 punters to roll around the seaside suburbs of Adelaide. The scenes were chaotic at Wigley Park in Glenelg before the ride began, with every man and his bike trying to get up close to the 7-time Tour de France Champion. Armstrong’s last twitter ride was in Dublin, during the Tour of Ireland and on that occasion over 1000 cyclists joined the Texan.
The ‘twitter ride’ as it’s now known first began in Scotland last year when Lance was joined by a few hundred cyclists outside his hotel, one can only imagine if Lance rides Worlds this year, and holds a twitter ride on beach road, you could at least triple the figure Adelaide got and still be left with a couple thousand in change.
Did I mention there was a ProTour race this week?
With the all the Lance-mania you could excuse some people for forgetting that the professional cycling season kicks off today with the traditional pre-race criterium around Adelaide’s Rymill Park.
It’s expected to be a sprinters slugfest with the usual suspects such as Davis, McEwen, Renshaw and Brown all in the mix to take their first big win of the season.
The Santos Tour Down Under kicks off on Tuesday with the 141km Stage from Clare to Tanunda. From there the Tour goes from Gawler to Handorf, Unley to Stirling, Norwood to Goolwa, Snapper Point to Willunga, then finally winding up with the traditional Adelaide City street circuit.
Race Predictions
At the risk of looking like a fool and predicting the opposite of what might eventuate, because as is always the case in Triathlon and Cycling, anything can and will happen.
My prediction is that this race will be dominated by the sprinters (What a surprise!), I know it sounds very cliché, but race director Mike Turter has again created a race that allows the sprinters to survive the pracours of most stages and get to the finish for a bunch kick.
Some have criticized Turter for not creating a more challenging circuit, but unfortunately it’s a time issue, if he makes the race too hard, no one will turn up because its January and no one wants to be going full throttle so early in the year. On the other hand if he makes it too easy, no one will turn up because it does not give the riders the right preparation for when the ProTour returns to Europe. It’s a double-sword, however, Turter believes he has the right balance and to extent he does (it would have been nice to see a mountain top finish on Stage 5 up Old Willunga Hill).
Stage 4, however, from Norwood to Goolwa, creates an opportunity for a breakaway to stay off the front. With a big climb at the start of the stage, a brave group of escape artists might just be able to open up a gap big enough to keep the peloton at bay.
Stage 5 see’s the peloton charge up Old Willunga Hill twice, which sounds daunting and if it’s hot enough, could see a break up of the peloton, but as last year’s race showed it may not be tough enough to drop the sprinters.
Lance
This is going to be a big race for the former Triathlete. He has the owners of Radio Shack coming to watch the new team’s first race, and he may feel like opening up a can of action on this race and try for a stage win. Radio Shack has brought a very good squad to this race, and Lance certainly won’t be riding around like a tourist. Radio Shack has come here with a goal to win a Stage and I would not be surprised if Armstrong wants to win one himself.
Armstrong most likely won’t be in contention for the overall ‘Ochre’ jersey, but I sense he will want a top ten finish to show his new sponsors that Radio Shack will be the team to watch out for in 2010.
Ochre Jersey Prediction
• Jose Rojas (Caisse d’Epargne)
Sprinters Jersey
• Christopher Sutton (Team Sky)
KOM Jersey
• Daryl Impey (Radio Shack)
