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Tour de France 2016 teams preview (Part 1)

29th June, 2016
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Richie Porte leads the pack coming into the final stage of the Criterium du Dauphine (Team Sky)
Roar Guru
29th June, 2016
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It’s that time of the year when cycling fans get ready for the long days or for many Australians, nights in front of the television watching the Tour de France. With race start a matter of days away, let’s look at the teams are set to fare over the three weeks.

AG2R La Mondiale
The past few years for AG2R have been extremely fruitful at their home Grand Tour, mainly through their French general classification hopes, Jean Christophe Peraud and Romain Bardet.

In 2014, Peraud finished second, behind winner Vincenzo Nibali, with the young Bardet finishing sixth.

In 2015, Bardet once again finished inside the top ten on GC, while also taking a well-earned stage win on Stage 18, after another Frenchmen, Alexis Vuillermoz, stunned the field to take the honors on Stage 8.

This year the team has replaced Peraud with experienced Italian Domenico Pozzovivo as part of a two-pronged GC assault with Bardet.

Pozzovivo did ride the recently completed Giro d’Italia to finish 20th, so it will be interesting to see whether he used the Giro as a warm-up race for the Tour, or if he is genuinely in decline.

Bardet, on the other hand, has had an impressive season to date, finishing second at the Criterium du Dauphine, just 12 seconds down on race winner and Tour favourite Chris Froome. That performance goes alongside top ten results at the Volta a Catalunya and Paris-Nice in March, and second behind Vincenzo Nibali at the Tour of Oman in February.

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For the punchy finishes, the squad have kept with Alexis Vuillermoz after his performances in the race last year. Vuillermoz has no wins so far this season, but did have a fifth place overall at the difficult Criterium International, while also finishing third at the French national championships on the weekend.

Another rider for the hills is Jan Bakelants, a former yellow jersey wearer after taking a stage win from a late stage break in 2013. Fifth in the recently completed Belgium national championships over a hilly parcours, his only other success this year was at the Tour of the Mediterranean in early February, where he won the final stage, while also taking the points classification, and was third on GC.

Mickael Cherel, Cyril Gautier and Alexis Gougeard will look for the breakaways in the mountains or hilly stages, with Gougeard the most likely to get a good result, after taking a stage win on lumpy terrain at last year’s Vuelta a Espana on Stage 19. This will be the 23-year-old’s first Tour.

Samuel Dumoulin is the team’s designated sprinter, although top tens are all he can expect.

Full squad: Romain Bardet, Domenico Pozzovivo, Jan Bakelants, Mickael Cherel, Cyril Gautier, Alexis Gougeard, Alexis Vuillermoz, Ben Gastauer and Samuel Dumoulin.

Objectives
Top five on GC, with a stage win from any of their riders along the way.

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Astana
The controversial team from Kazakhstan have two genuine contenders for the podium in Paris. Once again it is another strong, climbing oriented line-up for the team to support Italians Vincenzo Nibali and Fabio Aru.

Nibali is coming off his GC win at the Giro, whereas Aru has had a sluggish season so far, with his only real accolade being an exciting, late-stage break in which he took the win on Stage 3 of the Criterium du Dauphine, where he ended a lowly 45th overall.

It remains to be seen how the 2015 Vuelta champion will fare. Has his early-season form been below par so he can dramatically peak for the Tour, or is Aru a long way from his best? Hard to say, however the Dauphine is always a good measure on how riders will go at the Tour.

I expect Aru to go in underdone, in the hope he will come good in the last week of racing.

Don’t expect Nibali to be on the podium, due to him already having the Giro in his legs. However, it would be silly to right him off completely as many people did at points in his Giro win.

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Both GC hopes are supported by an array of climbing talent, with both Jakub Fuglsang and Tanel Kangert backing up from the Giro to fill the support role yet again. Fuglsang was below par at the Giro, and will need to put in a far better performance here to help one of his teammates onto the podium in Paris.

Alongside both Fuglsang and Kangert is Diego Rosa, Paolo Tiralongo, Alexey Lutsenko and Luis Leon Sanchez. Rosa is the most important domestique of the four just mentioned, as he finished inside the top ten at the Dauphine.

The team is rounded out by strong man Andrei Grivko, who will be good support in the opening first week.

Full squad: Fabio Aru, Vincenzo Nibali, Jakub Fuglsang, Tanel Kangert, Alexey Lutsenko, Luis Leon Sanchez, Diego Rosa, Andrei Grivko and Paolo Tiralongo.

Objectives
To win their third Grand Tour in a row, with either Fabio Aru or Vincenzo Nibali, and also pick up a stage win along the way.

BMC
Three teams down, and so far all three have one thing in common: two riders that could challenge for GC honors at the end of the three weeks.

Australian Richie Porte, new to BMC this season, and American Tejay Van Gardaren lead a strong team with podium ambitions.

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After four seasons at Team Sky riding in support of both Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, Porte broke away this year to give himself better hopes of Grand Tour glory. The question is, can he overcome his biggest weakness: his unfortunate pattern of having one very bad day over the three weeks.

At the 2014 Tour, Chris Froome had crashed out on the cobbles early in the race, and by the start of Stage 13 to Chamrousse, Porte was second on GC, two minutes behind leader Nibali. By the end of the stage, won by Nibali, Porte was nine minutes back on the Italian.

Porte went to the Giro of 2015 as Sky’s team leader, however having been third overall and little more than 20 seconds off the lead on the first rest day, he tumbled down the overall standings in the intervening week.

A late stage puncture on Stage 10, and a subsequent penalty after accepting a wheel from fellow Australian Simon Clarke, was compounded with another crash on Stage 13 and a poor showing in the following day time trial. He abandoned the race on the second rest day.

Porte has only ever finished inside the top ten at a Grand Tour once, at his first, the 2010 Giro d’Italia. That race Porte rode in the Maglia Rosa for three days, ended up taking the white jersey, and finished seventh overall.

If he can stay fit, healthy and out of trouble, Porte has the ability to finish inside the top five. However, that is a very big ‘if’.

His counterpart, Van Gardaren, is in need of a career revival, and this Tour is the perfect place to start it. In his fifth season with BMC, you would expect the 27-year-old to now be on the podium at the Tour, after finishing fifth on only his second attempt, back in 2012 as a 22-year-old.

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In that race, he completely upstaged his teammate, reigning Tour champion Cadel Evans, but since then his career has stalled.

So far in 2016 he has been solid without being exciting, with a stage win and a top-five performance at the Tour de Suisse. However, he will come up against much stiffer competition at the Tour.

Damiano Caruso, Brent Bookwalter and Amael Moinard will be the men protecting both Porte and Van Gardaren in the mountains. I would throw Rohan Dennis into that mix as well, however he will be targeting the lumpy time trial on Stage 13, and saving his energy until then.

There are a few opportunities for Greg Van Avermaet over the race. Having taken Stage 13 on the uphill finish to Rodez in last year’s race, he will fancy Stage 2 (which features a climb to the end at similar gradients to the Cauberg), and also on Stage 4 and Stage 16, with a difficult uphill sprint on both occasions.

Full squad: Richie Porte, Greg Van Avermaet, Tejay Van Gardaren, Rohan Dennis, Damiano Caruso, Amael Moinard, Michael Schar, Brent Bookwalter, Marcus Burghardt.

Objectives
A stage win from one of their riders, most likely Van Avermaet or Dennis, and a GC podium for either Porte or Van Gardaren.

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