Cycling

El Trencaxarxes

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It's definitely best suited for types like Quintana, Bardet, Pinot and Miguel Ángel López. Unfortunately, neither of those are good enough to genuinely threaten Team Sky, even with the massive reduction in time-trialling kilometres. Wouldn't be surprised if Bernal is already good enough to win the entire thing already next season. I'm yearning for a non-British winner though. Brailsford, Howden and British Cycling can go take a hike as far as I'm concerned.
 

El Trencaxarxes

New member
The season is finally kicking off again in a couple of days with the Tour Down Under. This year they're going up Corkscrew Road again, so it won't just be Willunga Hill deciding the outcome. You can expect Richie Porte to take the victory on Willunga Hill, as is tradition, but after seeing Impey triumph last year, I hope that the win is up for grabs again this year. Ulissi should be among the favourites, as he usually does very well in the TDU and on Willunga Hill specifically. Devenyns did a great time up Willunga Hill just the other day on a training ride, and he finished 5th last year, so I expect him to challenge as well. Tom-Jelte Slagter finished 3rd last year, but I think Dimension Data might have Valgren as their captain; he's put up some really good training times on both Willunga Hill and Corkscrew Road in the past couple of weeks. Other potential challengers would be Wout Poels, Robert Gesink, Pierre Latour, Rohan Dennis, George Bennett and Michael Woods, while I consider Rafael Valls, Rubén Fernández and Nathan Haas to be some good outsiders. Jarlinson Pantano has also done very well Down Under earlier in his career. Lastly, among the young guys, I am very excited to see how Tadej Pogacar does in his first race as a pro. He did an absolutely superb training ride on Corkscrew Road just the other day, so he's looking quite sharp.

Edit: I should add that while Domenico Pozzovivo has traditionally done very well, I simply think that his age is finally catching up to him. He finished outside the top ten both last year and in 2017. I feel the same way about Luis León Sánchez, which is why I didn't mention him either.
 
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