Tour de France

The Tour de France is one of the worlds most iconic cycling events.

Run over 3 weeks in July each year it is the main event of the year for professional cyclists. This is for Hard Men only if you can't ride through the pain barrier then you ahve no right to be on the tour. First run in 1903 it has been run every year apart from the war years.

This years tour starts in London on July the 7th and I'll try to cover every stage here.

So who will win in 2007 ?

It's going to be difficult to choose a winner this year as most of the favorites from previous years won't be riding. If I had to bet on anyone It would probably be Alexandre Vinokourov but look out for Levi Leipheimer riding for Discovery the team know what it takes to win a tour so they may be back on form this year following last years poor showing.

My tip for the winner of the Prologue..Look for Bradley Wiggins of Cofidis to try to win the Prologue on home ground.

As for the rest of the results here are my predictions 24 hours before the start..

Overall : Vinokourov

2nd Kloden

3rd Cadel Evans

Prologue :Wiggins

Stage 1 : McEwan

Green Jersey: McEwan

Polka Dot: Christophe Moreau

Top team: Astana

So if you have palced any bets on any of thsoe results...Sorry!!

It's here at last!!

On saturday the prologue which takes the form of a time trial will start in London at 3pm. Millions of spectators are expected to turn out and cheer on the riders as they race around the streets of central london.

There will be extra cheers for The british riders Bradley Wiggins and David Miller who will no doubt be out to win the Prologue on Home soil.

I still stand by my prediction of seeing Bradly wiggins in the yellow Jersey come Sunday Morning first Official Stage.

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RESULTS

Oh well my prediction was wrong.. Bradley finished 4th a fraction of a second behind George Hincapie 10 seconds ahead of them was Andreas Kloden but a Stunning ride by Fabian Cancellara saw him win the prologue by the unprecidented margin of 13 seconds.

That result means that barring disaster tomorrow on stage one he will still wear the yellow jersey when the tour hits mainland europe on monday.

The first stage proper gets under way with a race between London and Canturbury. The race starts at 11am from Grenwhich with the riders parading through London beforehand.

This will be a stage for the Sprinters but no one should be able to take the Yellow Jersey from Cancellara due to his (relatively) massive lead after the prologue.

Watch out for all the old favories like Robbie McEwan and Tom Boonen to battle it out at the finish but my money has to be on McEwan as he was obviously conserving his energy in the Prologue.

Look out for 22 year old T-Mobile rider Mark Cavendish to be at the finish but I think his lack of tour experience and a lead out man will prevent him from mounting a serious challenge.

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RESULTS

Wow what a stage! An early break by David Miller managed to get him some sprint points and some King of the Mountain points. He was later joined by 4 other riders and at one point they stretched their lead to just over 6 minutes.

The pack managed to get all but one of them by the final climb of the day where great work by the Saunier Duval team allowed Miller to cross the top of the climb in 2nd place making sure that he got the Polka Dot Jersey. If that wasn't excitement enough a crash saw Stage favorite Robbie McEwan fall behind the peleton. He looked to have lost all chance of winning the stage at this point and even when he finally rejoined the peleton with 5 KM's to go no one gave him much chance of getting through the other 180 riders and make a challange after all the hard work him and his fellow Lotto riders had put into the chase back to the pack.

But with 80mtrs to go McEwan burst through from the Pack and took the stage win, in what has to have been one of the most memorable stages in recent years.

Result:

McEwan

Hushovd

Boonen

Yellow: Cancellara

Green: McEwan

PolkaDot: Miller

Now onto France for the Dunkerque - Gent stage

The Tour arrives back in France today and then heads straight off to Belgium.

I don' think much will change in the overall standings today but do watch for Tom Boonen try to make up for yesterday tactical mistake (thinking McEwan wasn't a threat after his crash) and trying to grab a stage win on home soil

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Result

My prediction was almost right Boonen was beaten by a very small margin by his lead out man Gert Steegmans I suspect that this was another mistake by the quickstep team (boonen in particular) but the local fans won't mind too much as the winner steegmans is another local.

The race was marred by a large crash about 2.5 km from the end of the stage which blocked the road forcing over 3/4 of the field to stop. There looked to be a few casulaties so I suspect there will be a few riders abandoning before the start of Stage 3 which will be the longest stage of the tour.

Dunkirk-Ghent, 168.5km

1 Gert Steegmans (Bel) Quick-Step 3hr 48min 22sec

2 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick-Step @ 0 sec

3 Filippo Pozzato (Ita) Liquigas @ 0

The only change in the jerseys was Boonen moving into the green journey on the back of a second and 3rd place

It's the longest stage of the tour today. The stage has 1 cat 4 climb towards the end so watch for the saunier Duval team to get to the front of the pack and keep any challengers for Millers (surprise) polkadot jersy in check.

Watch for Mark Cavendish today after 2 crashes in 2 days the tour debutante is having a nightmare. He will probbaly pull out of the tour at the first rest day so time is running out for him to show his sprinting ability

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Result

Well it was a pretty nondescript stage which isn't surprising considering the crash the previous day. Very early on the Peloeton decided to take it easy partly due to the headwind and the stage distance. They rolled along at an average of about 33kmh for most of the stage. The only excitement came in the last 500 meters when the breakaway was caught and Fabien Cancelllara surged for the line taking the sprinters by surprise. Once again most of the teams seemed unable to get their sprinters and lead out men together.

The only main change was Stephan Auge taking the polka dot jersey from David Miller after he broke away from the peleton to catch the breakaway group and take the points for King of the mountain over the only cat 4 climb of the day

Stage three result:

Waregem - Compiegne, 236km

1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team CSC 6 hrs 36 mins 15 secs

2 Erik Zabel (Ger) Milram @ 0 secs

3 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Lampre @ 0 secs