Tour Preview

The 2016 Tour de France will feature the dominant stage racer of today, Chris Froome, facing the dominant stage racer of yesterday, Alberto Contador, for the last time, possibly. Froome has won two of the past three yellow jerseys, while Contador has two titles from the 2000s on his list of palmares. The Spanish multiple Grand Tour winner was set to retire at the end of the 2016 season. A successful spring, however, had Contador reconsidering. The 103rd Tour, which travels counterclockwise around France while visiting Spain, Andorra and Switzerland, is a July spectacle that favours the climbers more than May’s Giro d’italia but less than late-summer’s Vuelta a España. There are nine mountain stages, six of them set in the high mountains, but only four summit finishes. In total, the riders will assail 28 mountain passes. Froome has said that the route suits him fine. He’ll take encouragement from just enough time trialling (54 km) to give him the edge.

France’s cycling showcase is likely to be affected by the Paris terror attacks in November and those in neighbouring, cycling-mad Belgium in March. The race’s openness is an essential part of its character, but also makes for a challenging security situation. If Peter Sagan wins the green jersey again and is back on the podium in Paris, the cheeky rider should probably refrain from using his trophy as a mock machine gun, spraying the crowd with imaginary bullets as he did in 2015. Another cloud hanging over the race is event organizer aso’s plan to pull the Tour and the company’s other races from the Worldtour calendar in 2017.