Tour de France 2016 teams preview (Part 4)

Part four of our preview series features a run-down of the Tour de France defending champion and the blokes on bikes trying to see him wearing yellow on the Champs-Elysees again this year.

Team Sky
After faltering at the Giro early on in the race, Mikel Landa is back riding with a whole host of other important domestiques riding in support of team leader and reigning Tour Champion, Chris Froome.

In a show of dominance, Froome dominated the opening mountain stages in last year’s Tour, giving himself enough of a gap to win the race overall, even though he dropped dramatically In performance on the race’s final test of Alpe D’Huez which l mentioned earlier.

Froome has been a little under par this year, only taking eighth at the Volta a Catalunya, and outside the top 30 at the Tour of Romandie, however, he rode into the yellow jersey at the Criterium du Dauphine and held it to the end against tour rivals including Alberto Contador and Richie Porte.

Once again, Froome will target taking the majority of his time on his rivals in the time trials, and on the opening mountain stages in the Pyrenees, as he did in 2013 and 2015.

The Brit will be supported by six fellow climbers including Mikel Landa, Mikel Nieve, Sergio Henao, Geriant Thomas, Liege Bastiogne Liege champion Wout Poels and the diesel powered train of Belarusian world time trial champion Vasil Kiriyenka.

As I mentioned earlier, Landa was team leader at the Giro, however could not finish the race. He rode well at the Dauphine, where he finished just outside the top ten.

Speaking of the Giro, Mikel Nieve got the opportunity in the absence of Landa to impress, by taking a stage win and the King of the Mountains jersey.

Classics specialists Luke Rowe and Ian Stannard will protect Froome on the flat stages, keeping him out of the wind and up the front of the peloton.

Full squad: Chris Froome, Geriant Thomas, Mikel Nieve, Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard, Sergio Henao, Vasil Kiriyenka, Mikel Landa and Wout Poels.

Objectives
Stage wins from the domestiques if they get the chance from breaks, however, the main aim is a fourth Tour title for the team, and a third for Chris Froome.

Tinkoff
A team with a rider who can win the overall, and one who can win stages and the points classification. Expect a big tour for both Alberto Contador and Peter Sagan.

Contador has not finished on the podium (legitimately) at the Tour since 2009, where he won the race. A rider of his quality will be wanting to remove this statistic and challenge for overall honors.

It has been another consistent season for Contador. As he so always does, he is able to perform well in the early stage races in March, where he took second at Paris Nice, second at the Volta a Catalunya and first at the Tour of the Basque Country.

After taking the opening steep prologue at the Criterium du Dauphine, he seemed to struggle compared to Froome on the longer climbs at the back end of the race, ending up in fifth place on general classification at the end of the race.

The Spaniard has a solid set of domestiques here to support him, with the likes of Czech national road race champion Roman Kreuzinger, fifth place on GC at the Giro and Polish national road race champion Rafal Majka and Robert Kiserlovski. It is definetly not as strong a set of domestiques as Sky or Movistar, but Contador is not bothered about riding solo on the latter parts of mountain stages.

Rafal Majka was the King of the Mountains jersey winner back in 2014, so watch for him to potentially get into breakaways in support of Contador, plus also giving himself an opportunity to take glory.

The second arm to the Tinkoff attack is world road race Champion, and four time consecutive Green jersey winner Peter Sagan.

The curse of the rainbow jersey has certainly not struck the Slovakian, having had his best season to date in my opinion, taking wins at Gent Wevelgem, the Tour De Suisse and Amgen Tour of California. However, his win at Flanders Is most certainly the highlight of his season.

Two stage wins at the Tour De Suisse make for the ideal preparation for his assault for the points classification once again. He will score points on almost every stage, which makes him so hard to beat in that competition. I have a lot of coin in this man to take his fifth green jersey this time around.

Full squad: Roman Kreuzinger, Peter Sagan, Alberto Contador, Rafal Majka, Robert Kiserlovski, Marcej Bodnar, Osca Gatto, Matteo Tosatto and Michael Valgren.

Objectives
Sagan to take one or two stages and the points classification, while Contador being in contention for the podium, possibly even higher.

Trek-Segafredo
Fabian Cancellera has seven Tour stage wins, and in his last participation in the race before his retirement at the end of the season, he could well extend that to eight or more.

The 35-year-old is in the last few months of his career, however he has had a solid season in the time trials, recently claiming the Swiss national time trial championship, along with taking the opening prologue at the Tour De Suisse, and the final day time trial at Tirreno-Adriatico.

However, his final classic season saw him finish second at Flanders, but at Roubaix a week later, he crashed twice to finish in a lowly 40th. Things got worse at the Giro, when he got ill on the eve of the grand depart, and struggled through the first ten days before pulling out.

At his best, he can win the time trial on Stage 13. However, can he still perform at his best, which in the past has seen him dominate the world of time trialing.

Dutchmen Bauke Mollema is Trek’s general classification hope and should be able to finish inside the top ten if he is on form. He was able to finish in seventh at last year’s race, and will be helped by the experienced Haimar Zubeldia, Frank Schleck and American Peter Stetina.

Watch out for both Edward Theuns and Jasper Stuyven in the sprints however, don’t expect too much from them.

Full squad: Bauke Mollema, Peter Stetina, Frank Schleck, Jasper Stuyven, Gregory Rast, Markel Irizar, Edward Theuns, Haimar Zubeldia and Fabian Cancellera.

Objectives
Top ten place on GC for Mollema and a stage win from any of the teams riders.

Dimension Data
Dimension Data’s big signing this year, other than their title sponsor, was the acquisition of 26 time Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish. A disappointing season in my opinion, however my thought is that his sights are set on doing well on the track at the Olympics. He will need to perform well for his team, as they have invested a lot in him.

Not all will be lost for the team if they can’t rely on Cavendish, as they have also brought an in-form Edvald Boasson Hagen, who has had a solid season thus far, including a top five finish at Paris Roubaix, and eight wins across all types of racing, including a time trial win at the Tour of Qatar.

In recent times he took both the time trial and the road race at the Norweigan national championships, while also claiming a stage victory at the Criterium du Dauphine.

Both Cavendish and Boasson Hagen will be supported by one of the best leadout men in the business Mark Renshaw, with Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg and the experienced Bernhard Eisel doing the leadup work.

The team will also have chances on the difficult lumpy stages, with 13th place finisher last year Serge Pauwels, young Eritreans Natnael Berhane and Daniel Teklehaimanot, and breakaway specialist Stephen Cummings

35-year-old Brit, Stephen Cummings has had a brilliant last two years, with wins at the Tour last year, and this year at Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour of the Basque Country, and on the final mountain stage of Criterium du Dauphine.

He has a great ability in understanding which days the break will stay away and especially targets those stages. I expect him to be in a break which stays away the whole day at some stage in the Tour; it will be up to him to then go on and win it.

Daniel Teklehaimanot has won the King of the Mountains jersey on the last two occasions at the Criterium du Dauphine, while also historically taking it on Stage 6 of last year’s Tour. This time around, he will be looking for the same outcome, however, l feel he has the goods to challenge for it this season.

Full squad: Natnael Berhane, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Mark Renshaw, Mark Cavendish, Daniel Teklehaminot, Serge Pauwels, Stephen Cummings, Bernhard Eisel, and Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg.

Objectives
Stage wins from any of the riders and Teklehaimanot to have a shot at the King of the Mountains jersey at some point in the race.