Well now I’ve got five minutes in between work and tennis matches and we finally have a completed start list, I guess it’s time to pen a few words about the racing this week! Coming up is the new five day Tour de Suisse, down from eight stages that were present in the past five editions. It’ll run in conjunction with a five day women’s race starting and ending on the same day. I’ll write about the men’s race here, but I am keen to write about women’s racing from next season. Anyway, let’s get on with it!
The Route
This is a new hard and fast race based on hilly repeatable loops packed with climbs. All the stages start and finish in the same place, hopping from town to town. We start with two medium mountain stages that should interest the puncheurs and the GC men, as they’re packed with short and steep climbs. On stage three comes the one and only chance for a sprint, but even that is a tall order. A 23.7km individual time trial will then set the stage before a final mountain stage that ascends the 19.1km 7% Col de la Croix three times, although we start and finish halfway up the climb in Villars-sur-Ollon. Below are the profiles of stage one and five, and honestly, this should be a riot.
The Riders
No prizes for guessing the overwhelming favourite, who comes in the form of the 30 credit Tadej Pogačar. We all know what he’s capable of, and if he fancies it, he’ll win four stages and the overall title by an hour and a half. Two questions exist, who do you select with him, or can you get away with not selecting him at all? For me personally, I’m going to try and get away with not picking Pogačar. Mainly because I’m not in the running for the stage race championship and seeing as I’m almost certainly picking him for the Tour, this will be a fun experiment. So who else is there?
There aren’t really any great rivals to Pogačar here, but the best of the rest looks to be Primož Roglič, who’s available for 18 credits. He’s not in the best form this year, but this is a target of his to see where he’s at before taking on another crack at the Vuelta in August. The route should suit someone like him, so if he can be bothered, he’s a good option. Also at the expensive end are the Bahrain duo of Lenny Martinez and Antonio Tiberi, who are 18 and 16 credits respectively. The latter will like the time trial and the former has been on great form this year. There’s no reason why both of them can’t have a really good race. The GC guys below these are really hard to figure out, so I’m looking at those who will probably try quite hard, don’t mind a time trial, and have shown at least a little bit of good form this year. Riders like Vlasov, Van Wilder, and Widar seem to fulfil these criteria and they aren’t too expensive.
Other than the very hard to figure out GC riders, there are the punchy stage hunters, and there is absolutely no shortage of choice here. Top of this list are the 14 credit duo of Mathieu van der Poel and Romain Grégoire. Both will be using this as a tester for the Tour de France and the opening two stages really suit them. Just below these two is Mauro Schmid for 12 credits. He’s on cracking form this year, this is his home race, and the team have said he wants to try GC, so he’ll be hanging in there as long as possible. Other options for stage hunting include Finn Fisher-Black, Clément Champoussin, Paul Lapeira, Axel Laurance, Corbin Strong, and Sergio Higuita.
Some outside bets and cheaper options include Richard Carapaz, who you can never quite tell what you’ll get from him; Matthew Riccitello, who won’t like the time trial and was ill before Rhône-Alpes; and Brandon McNulty, who’ll like the time trial, but I can’t tell what else he’ll do. From the bargain bin we have Liam Slock, Martin Tjøtta, Xabier Mikel Azparren, and Marco Schrettl. This race could be absolute chaos though, so pick some fun and tough guys you like who seem like they can handle this kind of thing!
The Pelotonian 