Tour de France 2006 Prologue

The big news of this years tour is the “sending away” of nine riders on the day before the tour was scheduled to start. While this would be big news for any sport, the fact that 4 or 5 of these riders were expected to be main competitors for a podium finish in Paris.

I have always liked watching Jan Ulrich ride so I was a little upset to see him gone. I have never warmed up to Ivan Basso. Lance Armstrong seemed to like and respect him but I never really cared one way or the other. So Basso being gone doesn’t really matter to me. Well, actually it does. With Ulrich and Basso gone the riders that I have decided to cheer for this year have a better chance of winning.

I’m afraid that I am going to be pretty nationalistic this year. I’m cheering for the Americans - Hincapie, Julich, Landis, Leipheimer, Zabriskie, Horner, Rodriguez and Vandevelde. I’m going to put Hincapie first because he is riding for the American Team of Discovery Channel. Realistically Landis and Leipheimer are the only other two that have a shot at the podium in Paris. But I’ll pull for them all anyway.

The top results for the day are:

Pos.    No.  Name                Nat. Team Time 
1       118  HUSHOVD, Thor       NOR  C.A  00:08:17.000
2       003  HINCAPIE, George    USA  DSC  00:08:17.000
3       018  ZABRISKIE, David    USA  CSC  00:08:21.000
4       044  LANG, Sebastian     GER  GST  00:08:21.000
5       091  VALVERDE, Alejandro ESP  CEI  00:08:21.000
6       013  O'GRADY, Stuart     AUS  CSC  00:08:21.000
7       026  ROGERS, Michael     AUS  TMO  00:08:23.000
8       009  SAVOLDELLI, Paolo   ITA  DSC  00:08:25.000
9       071  LANDIS, Floyd       USA  PHO  00:08:26.000
10      096  KARPETS, Vladimir   RUS  CEI  00:08:27.000