My top 3 Cyclists to watch in this years Tour

The Tour de France had its opening stage last Saturday, and already, some very important riders have lost time. But I’ll get back to that later. What I have here are the top 5 riders who I think will wear the Maillot Jaune (Yellow Jersey) on the Champs-Élysées on July 29.

1- Chris Froome. This Kenyan-born Brit controversially won a doping case days and earned a right to race after Tour organizers, ASO, decided to ban him. Froome will be chasing a win that will equal the five wins of Eddy Merckx, Jaques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain and Lance Armstrong. He will also be chasing a 4th consecutive Grand Tour win after he won the Tour and the Vuelta a Espana last year and the Giro d’Italia 5 weeks ago. Among the 5, Chris is the better climber, the better time-triallist, and has the better team to support him. The knock is that he doesn’t have the form after a hard fought Giro. A Giro-Tour double hasn’t been duplicated since Marco Pantani did in 1998. But if I was a betting man, Chris would be my yellow.

2- Nairo Quintana. This dimunitive Colombian attempted the Giro-Tour double last year and he laid a big fat egg. He says that he is fresher this year, but every contender says that. He is an exceptional climber but couldn’t hold a candle to Froome in the time-trials. The knock on Nairo is that he is in a team that has three leaders. Now we all know that a team with two leaders can’t work, just go back to the 1986 Tour and you’ll know what I mean.

3- Vincenzo Nibali. The 2014 winner of this Tour is good climber on his good days. He’s also just an average time-triallist but the “Shark of Messina” can descend like an eagle. When he won, Froome dropped out of the race due to crashes and he beat no names like Jean Christopher Peraud and Thibaut Pinot, not marquee cycling names exactly. This year, he won the Milan San Remo but looked pedestrian in races that was used to check your preparation if its going better or not.

Here are a few honorable mentions:

Richie Porte. This 33-yo Aussie used to be Froome’s Lieutenant before he went to another team to challenge for the belt. So far, bad luck has hounded Porte. Last year, it was a crash that left him hospitalize or months. With his team BMC folding next year, he needs to strut his stuff

Tom Dumoulin. Dumoulin is a very powerful rider and if he has recovered from the Giro earlier this May, he has a good chance. He already won the Giro last year so he knows how to handle the pressure.

Mikel Landa. Landa is a very strong climber but a bad time triallist. His past two teams didn’t really trust him and installed a different leader and this lead him to look for a team where he’s the only leader. Instead, he chose Movistar which have Quintana and Alejandro Valverderde. Landa will end this Tour an unhappy person and will most likely ride for a other team next year.

Finally, I’d like you to look out for Jacob Fulgsang, Ilnur Zakarin and Egan Bernal- They’re my darkhorses.

RACE NOTES: Froome (51 seconds), Quintana and Porte (90 seconds) lost time to the main pack after a crash and and a mechanical problem. It may just be a handful of seconds but you’ll have to remember that in 1989, Greg Lemond won the Tour by 8 seconds over the late Laurent Fignon.