Tour de France Sprints Set to Please Tour Spectators
The Tour de France, considered the main event of any cycling season, is about more than the general classification title and wearing its yellow jersey. Among the other titles up for grabs is the green jersey of the points classification category, which is usually claimed by a sprinter.
Several sprinting specialists are gearing up for this year's Tour, which includes 6 certain sprints among its 20 stages. Stage 1 will be settled outside of France, with riders racing from Rotterdam to the Roi Baudouin stadium in Brussels. Side winds are a likely hazard, but the route was certainly planned for a sprint finish.
Stage 4 will take the riders from Cambrai to Reims over 154km, and sprint specialists will likely seek to break away from the peleton to earn some precious points. The same goes for Stage 5 the next day, which is a 187km long downhill race.
Ending a streak of three consecutive "plain" stages will be Stage 6 from Wanze to Arenberg. These 213km offer a pivotal opportunity for green jersey contenders to collect valuable points before the mountain stages ensue.
Then, of course, there is room for sprinters to pounce towards the end of the Tour, which apart from the glorious finish on Champs Elyssees in Stage 20, includes a sprint-friendly finish in Bourdeaux during Stage 18.
Several sprinters will be exploiting these stages, all laid out to make for thrilling finishes for TV spectators across the globe. But there will also be opportunities to gain valuable points in other terrain, especially for sprinters who are comfortable in the climbing stages.
It was during Stage 9, a high-mountain climbing stage, that 2009’s points classifications winner in the Tour, Cervelo TestTeam’s Thor Hushovd, made a crucial leap towards the title.
Norwegian Hushovd, who also claimed the Tour’s green jersey in 2005, will be rivaled for the points classification by British sprinter Mark Cavendish. Their competition may be especially tense as Cavendish was judged to have obstructed Hushovd during last year’s Stage 14, another contributing factor to Hushovd’s points classification victory.
The outspoken Cavendish, riding for Team HTC-Columbia (formerly T-Mobile Team), has clearly defined his aim in this year’s Tour.
"The top goal in 2010 is the green at the Tour," Cavendish told Sportwereld in January. "The jersey was stolen from me in Pontarlier [Stage 14 in 2009’s Tour]. The jury said that I cut off the way for Hushovd. The first rule in a sprint such as this one is that you never go on the inside. But Hushovd proved later, with his raids in the mountains, that he deserved the green," said the 25 year-old Briton ahead of the current season.
Having crashed in this year’s Tour de Suisse, earning him a 30-second penalty in the competition, Cavendish will be eager to outperform all competitors, not just Hushovd, in the Tour that begins on Saturday.
Cavendish crashed into Heinrich Haussler, himself an accomplished sprinter, who will not compete against Cavendish in the Tour as a result of injuries sustained in the crash.
There are, however, other notable sprinters ready to compete.
Spanish rider Oscar Freire won the green jersey in 2008 and will pose a serious threat to the others during the crucial stages. The three-time world champion will be looking to add to his tally of 4 stage wins in the Tour to date.
Team Garmin-Transitions’ young prospect Tyler Farrar, who won two stages in this year’s Giro d’Italia, will also be looking to contend. The 26 year-old American is hailed by many as a sprinter with great potential.
Among the veterans of the Tour is Australia’s Robbie McEwen, riding for Russian Team Katusha since 2009. A leg injury prevented McEwen’s start in 2009, meaning the 38 year-old will be eager to add to his previous three points classification wins in 2002, 2004 and 2006.
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