Having previewed the GC riders and Aussies in the peloton for the 2014 Tour de France, today let’s have a look at the sprinters and puncheurs.
Plenty of opportunities for them, and don’t forget that amazing cobble section stage.
This year, as last, the first stage of the Tour is a sprint. Hopefully, however, they’ll have raised the finish banner so the Orica-GreenEDGE bus doesn’t get stuck again.
It did make for entertaining viewing for a flat stage, as the race organisers tried to work out how to get the bus out of the way before the peloton ran up the back of it. Thankfully order was restored and Marcel Kittel sprinted into the Maillot Jaune instead of a bus.
So who are the key favourites for sprint stages and the green jersey at this year’s version of the Tour de France, keeping in mind some stages on this year’s route have a very small elimination time and there is a real worry that some pure sprinters won’t make it to Paris.
The first name that comes to mind when you think green jersey is Peter Sagan (Canondale). A decent sprinter, Sagan is not as fast on pure pace as Kittel (Giant Shimano) or Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma Quickstep), but the Slovak will be able to pick up points for the green jersey on the flat stages. What is more important is his ability to hang on over the climbs and pick up green jersey points on days where the pure sprinters have no chance of making it over. Sagan is my favourite to take the green jersey.
The favourites for stage wins and the first yellow jersey in England are Kittel and Cavendish. The only other sprinter on the start list for the Tour de France who could match these two is Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol), making for a small sprinters’ field.
Greipel has been in solid form, having a good build up to the Tour winning stages wherever he has gone and winning his national championship just last week.
Cavendish was most recently involved in the Tour of California and the Tour De Suisse. He had a handful of stage wins in America and a stage win in Switzerland, although he did exit the Tour de Suisse early after a crash. It is worth noting Cavendish has his old lead-out man Mark Renshaw back.
As for Kittel, he raced the first three days of the Giro and looked like he would have won seven or eight stages if illness hadn’t brought him down. Since then he hasn’t done a lot of racing, so it is hard to judge form.
Behind the really fast men, there are not many others who will be able to challenge on flat stages, although Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE), Heinrich Haussler (IAM) and Arnaud Demare (FDJ) will give it a crack.
Clearly there aren’t that many guys who can challenge on the flat stages, so expect lead-out men to be filling the rest of the top 10, with one of the smallest sprinting fields at the Tour in recent years.
Apart from the sprinters and big climbers there are guys who will be able to get away on rolling, hilly stages targeting stage wins. Sagan has won these stages at the Tour before, while Matthews got a good win at the Giro, holding on and then beating Cadel Evans in an uphill finish.
Other puncheur riders who will be looking to go hard over the hills will include Simon Gerrans (OGE), Rui Costa (Lampre) and Sylvain Chavanel (IAM). Expect these three fighting with the general classification guys for the hill stages, although these guy will be aiming for stage wins while the GC contenders will be fighting for precious seconds.
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