Good morning everyone (except people not reading this at the appropriate time) and welcome to MG's second biggest event of the year, only being beaten by the Coppa Placci in terms of prestige and points on offer. Welcome to France for the one and only Tour de France!
In the spoiler you can see the parcours of the coming three weeks, also explained in detail earlier by jandal, which can be read here.
Spoiler
Without further ado, let's have a look at the list of favourites. Enough mountains on offer to shake up the GC several times, and also more than 50 km of tt'ing spread out over a prologue and a longer TT.
Nat.
Name
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
PR
Kudus Merhawi
85
78
72
79
77
79
72
Lecuisinier Pierre-Henri
85
75
78
78
80
79
77
Haig Jack
83
74
77
76
75
78
77
Padun Mark
82
77
66
72
74
76
65
Pogacar Tadej
82
76
76
79
80
80
75
Carthy Hugh
81
75
67
77
76
78
65
McNulty Brandon
81
74
77
75
77
77
75
Sivakov Pavel
81
72
76
79
77
82
75
Aular Orluis
81
72
70
76
75
77
70
Shikai Chen
81
71
76
74
76
78
76
Almeida Joao
81
71
73
76
78
78
73
Warchol Bartosz
80
74
67
76
77
73
67
Inkelaar Kevin
80
70
64
75
76
79
64
Kirsch Alex
79
74
71
75
73
75
71
Faglum Karlsson Marcus
79
73
73
78
75
76
79
And that's quite a strong startlist! Two superb climbers in Kudus and Lecuisinier, with the former not doing spectaculary in Suisse recently, and the latter having the advantage looking at his time trial skills and generally the recent (last year's) results.
Definitely some strong competition here in the slightly worse climbers with Haig and Pogacar, who've also proven themself on several occasions in recent years. Pogacar has been victorious in France already this season, it would be quite something if he could be again. What's interesting is that at least three out of four teams of the above mentioned riders are still in (potential) relegation danger, so they're probably all hoping for a big scoring TdF here. Not only for themselves, but also to ensure their relegation rivals don't score too much.
A batch of 81 climbers will be hoping to finish at least in the top-10 and if possible top-5, as 82 climber Padun has been weak on several occasions. Of the batch of 81 mountaineers it's Carthy who's the punchiest, but McNulty, Sivakov and Shikai the better time trialists.
Time trialists! Ok, let's see who has a chance at winning the prologue and time trial.
Nat.
Name
TT
PR
Andersen Soren Kragh
70
83
Ganna Filippo
80
82
Chavanne Gabriel
65
82
Leung Chun Wing
78
82
Herregodts Rune
77
80
Larsen Niklas
74
80
Gonzalez Salas Mario
80
80
We start with the prologue. Just above 7 km means the time trial strength might also be interesting to keep in mind, so that's perhaps a thing that could boost the chances of Ganna over Andersen. It will be an interesting battle for the first yellow jersey. Let's have a look at the longer TT favourites as well.
Nat.
Name
TT
PR
Ganna Filippo
80
82
Gonzalez Salas Mario
80
80
Leung Chun Wing
78
82
Hayter Ethan
78
79
Thomas Benjamin
78
79
Lecuisinier Pierre-Henri
78
77
Bissegger Stefan
78
77
The Italian from Xero also among the top favourites here, as the slight undulation on the parcours also might boost his chances over main competitor Gonzalez Salas here. OR perhaps Lecuisinier shows he's the ultimate stage racer and he can win the time trial himself?
Some punchy stages on the menu, let's see what puncheurs made the journey to France.
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
HI
ST
RS
RC
SP
AC
Gebrezgabihier Amanuel
68
70
79
74
74
72
67
69
Champoussin Clement
68
78
78
76
76
77
59
76
Storer Michael
70
75
78
72
73
73
64
74
Kudus Merhawi
69
85
78
79
77
79
64
70
Mas Enric
69
78
77
74
74
77
60
77
Gladysh Roman
72
70
77
73
72
73
71
76
Padun Mark
67
82
77
72
74
76
60
75
Finkler Leonardo Henrique
69
69
77
76
71
70
68
75
Hoelgaard Daniel
72
74
77
72
72
72
68
74
Madouas Valentin
74
75
77
76
73
76
73
73
Van der Lijke Nick
72
63
75
71
69
76
81
77
Grosu Eduard
73
64
73
74
70
79
83
80
Groves Kaden
75
62
72
75
73
80
80
79
Purely looking at punch, Gebrezgabihier is the favourite here. Nevertheless, it looks slightly more realistic to see guys like Champoussin, Storer, GC rider Kudus, Mas or Gladysh score. Definitely with the sprint and acceleration of the latter, but in that case we're also looking at someone like Madouas or even top sprinters such as Van der Lijke, Grosu or Groves. Something combining these three is that they're all still currently above the relegation line with their team, but they really can't use an absolute sprinting disaster of a Tour either. Speaking about sprinters, let's have a look at the sprinters here.
Nat.
Name
FL
HI
ST
RS
RC
SP
AC
Grosu Eduard
73
73
74
70
79
83
80
Kanter Max
75
67
75
73
77
81
80
Abdul Halil Mohamad Izzat Hilmi
70
60
71
68
77
81
79
Van der Lijke Nick
72
75
71
69
76
81
77
Jakobsen Fabio
74
67
75
73
81
80
80
Groves Kaden
75
72
75
73
80
80
79
Hsu Hsuan Ping
75
67
75
70
73
80
79
Walls Matthew
74
61
73
71
73
80
78
Banaszek Alan
74
65
71
73
76
79
81
Rajovic Dusan
72
64
70
76
70
78
82
Steimle Jannik
74
70
71
69
74
78
80
Peak Barnabas
80
69
73
77
77
78
78
Marin Gabriel
74
65
73
73
76
78
78
Quite some strong names in France. Apart from the three already mentioned above, we also see other top sprinters such as Kanter, Abdul Halil and Jakobsen. And yes, I included Marin in this list because I hope this gives him some extra courage to still sprint for points.
The amazing reports will be brought to you by the legendary UlrichUlriksen, the entire startlist can be seen in the picture below!
Glad I didn't send Dombrowski here, I'm sure he would've managed to finish outside the top 5.
Hope Warchol can finish somewhere between GC places 10 and 15. He might also be in that sweet spot of climbers that are allowed to go in mountain stage breaks. Those are a coin flip, but if we're lucky it might help him overperform.
The rest of the team is not super strong, but Malecki is always a wildcard.
Dont have to say much about what my (sponsor) goal is here but this is a strong list of rivals. Particularly Kudus is someone that can be a tough challenger and Lecuisinier has shown that he is beatable this year. Hoping for the best but we will see...
Now, that's a startlist... Really glad I picked the other GTs for Stüssi, no way he'd have achieved a Top 10 here. On the other hand, poor Darbellay... Top 20 would be the best I can (and actually do) expect. Hopefully he'll be allowed in breakaways early on, even though he's obviously not the best fit for those. But I definitely want more breakaway participation than in the Vuelta; Rohendi and Berthet should be nice fits, they just didn't know it yet.
Ugly to see Ganna on the startlist, means that we're not even guaranteed to get a prologue podium here... But hopefully Gabby will take his final chance at maximum power and get a great result.
Otherwise, all our hopes are on Groves. Which isn't necessarily good news for us, as betting on a sprinter can go horribly wrong as seen by Bol's no-show in Spain. However, I'm definitely hoping for Kaden to be more competitive, and in particular to be in the mix in some of the hilly stages as well. He should also be in a rather good spot in the sprinter's hierarchy - and I almost hope we'll actually do some sprint trains, having Chavanne and Vernon here as well.
Thanks for the preview and good luck to all, should hopefully be a nice fight between PHL and Kudus for the win
And good for us that not all of our direct rivals in the relegation fight will have an outstanding race, given that startlist ^^
@Nemo, wonder how you'd tweak the ranking points tool to award more points for Placci than for Le Tour
Agree it's a great race though, was our first ever classic win back in 2020
It's our first Tour de France and we're glad to be the first French team starting here for some years. Though it's a shame that we're bound to the C2 restrictions for PCT teams here we took the opportunity to send a nearly entirely U25 eligible team (hoping nobody checks Pinots overall ). But seriously our motto has to be 'a break a day keeps the DS happy'. And maybe Pinot is able to actually crown his final Tour ...
The race of the season is here for us, the podium has to be the absolute minimum, but even though PHL has to be the favourite, I have hopes Kudus may challenge him. Will be really interesting if a team is strong enough to control the race, looking at the startlists, the race may be quite a bit chaotic once again. Will be pretty interesting to see who will get lucky from breakaways in that case.
Hyped for this one, like I am every season, it is the biggest race of the season, and this year it also shows in the startlist. That is great, and makes for a great race!
For us, we reeeeally want to win the prologue, that’s our big goal this year. Other than that, I hope we can chase stage results with Peak and AHJ. The former in sprints, the latter via breakaways. Though, I suspect he must try his luck early, seeing the quality and the startlist, I expect him to struggle for breakaways in the final week.
Hyped for this one, like I am every season, it is the biggest race of the season, and this year it also shows in the startlist. That is great, and makes for a great race!
For us, we reeeeally want to win the prologue, that’s our big goal this year. Other than that, I hope we can chase stage results with Peak and AHJ. The former in sprints, the latter via breakaways. Though, I suspect he must try his luck early, seeing the quality and the startlist, I expect him to struggle for breakaways in the final week.
Always an amazing race and excited to see such great reports from UU throughout.
Congratulations to Ganna on the first yellow jersey! Love to see a promoting team take the first yellow - and our loanee Ganjkhanlou will be extremely honored to ride in support of the maillot jeune for as long as possible.
Hoping for a flat/hilly breakaway win to spoil the sprinters somewhere in this tour.
Thank you for the report, UU! Great to have the race rolling.
Painful result, though. Definitely the wrong time and place to see the prologue reign vanish
At least it should open the door for early breakaway attempts on the flat stages, with no top sprinter not the yellow jersey to defend.
Congratulations, jandal on a big, big win! Will likely mean having yellow for several days too and thus make it a brilliant start and secure lots of points too.
Didn't believe it could happen when I (predictably) saw SKA on the startlist, but as Nemolito and Ulrich both rightly pointed out, the slightly longer prologue maybe gave him just enough of an edge. Exactly what we needed him to do to justify spending 21 of his race days here, and now it's about keeping that yellow jersey and then obviously that second week ITT and whatever Fouche can do in the mountains.
Very cool to have worn yellow in both of our first two TDF entries - not sure how long that streak can keep up but I like it so far
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [PT] Xero Racing
As always in the GTs, we hope for some attacking racing from our team. The GTs haven't been great for breaks earlier this year, but I hope for a bit other dynamics this time and that we can snatch a stage win.
Congrats to jandal on taking yellow. I guess I wasn't a complete fool for having an interest in Ganna over the winter
Awful. Definitely didn't expect TT skills to play any role at all, as it never did this year. Sad to see Gabby throw that chance out of the window.
And sucks even more having missed out on Ganna during transfers...
Vernon being only 2nd in U25 is pretty fitting for a bad day with much less points than expected. Maybe he could just join the break and get a few bonus seconds tomorrow, would be quite something new from us ^^
Tour de France (C2) - Discussion 
