TDF Countdown - 1 day left
1 Day Until The 2005 Tour De France
Well tomorrow is the big day, so today I will talk about the team that is likely (no guarentees in cycling) to dominate the 21 stages of the upcoming tour. That is Team Discovery (formerly the US Postal Service team)
The nine riders from Discovery that will be in the tour as follows -
Americans - Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie
Spaniards - José Luis Rubiera, Manuel Beltran and Benjamin Noval
Czech Republic rider - Pavel Padrnos
Portugal’s - José Azevedo
Italy’s - Paolo Savoldelli
and Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych
Gone this year, due to injury, is the ageless and legendry Ekiomov and there is no real replacement for him, but the team is still the strong team in the tour by far. Savoldelli is fresh off a Tour of Italy win, Rubiera & Beltran are old hats at leading Lance uphill now, Hincapie was stronger then expected last year in the mountains and had a good spring, Popovych is the designated replacement for Armstrong on the team - i.e. future Grand Tour champion, Azevedo, Noval, and Padrnos are all strong and capable riders with great skill. This team is as strong top to bottom as any that has ever come to the starting line and they only have one leader and one goal. Team Discovery has a huge desire to send Lance out on top of the world with seven straight wins in the Tour. Hincapie - the only rider to be on all seven campaigns with Armstrong - is likely to look at retiring in another season and even with a great spring and some one day wins he will never get the same press as Armstrong. America may or may not get behind Popovych for the future, at the core this may be a US team but if it is lead by a foreign rider there will likely be some drop in American interest and Team Discovery. So, long and short you have a motivated leader, a motivated team of strong rider, and a sponsor motivated to get some great press while the iron is hot. This will be a VERY VERY VERY hard team to beat, and short of Armstrong getting injured, sick, or completely collapsing (the later being the least likely of the three) then Discovery will get their first TDF win (and possibly their only one as Popovych is unproven thus far) and Armstrong will get his seventh and enjoy his retirement.
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