Tour de l’Ain preview
The Tour de l’Ain is a professional, 2.1 UCI-rated, mountainous four-stage race in France. Founded in 1989 as an amateur stage race, the growing ranking of the event since it became open to professionals in 1993 has turned it into a place where smaller, Pro Continental teams can contend with the world-class professional teams. The 22nd edition of the Tour de l’Ain, being held from 10 to 14 August will feature a relatively varied course with a wide mix of big and small teams.
The pre-race favourite John Gadret made a name for himself in this year’s Tour de France by sprinting ahead of his fallen team leader Nicolas Roche, who was very vocal in his fury to the Tour press. Gadret will be riding for AG2R La Mondiale. The champion of the 2009 Tour de l’Ain, Rein Taaramäe is a reserve for Team Cofidis, opting to sit out of this race in favour of training for the Vuelta a Espana, the final Grand Tour of the season, held at the beginning of September.
Team BMC-Racing will be led by Karsten Kroon, who has spent most of the season recovering from a serious crash in the Flèche Wallonne, won by his teammate Cadel Evans. Kroon missed his bid at the Tour of California, but returned to race leisurely in the Tours de Suisse and France. Now he feels his form has returned and he will be aiming for the podium in the Tour de l’Ain.
"It is not a race where you have to have a big strategy around controlling the field because every team only has six riders," said John Lelange, his team director. "It's a good experience for him and for him to see where he is and what we can expect in the future. The most important thing is for him to get experience on this level."
BMC-Racing will also be fielding the first Native American to compete in a UCI-2.1 event. Team RadioShack will be led by Spaniard Haimar Zubeldia, arguably Gadret’s closest competitor. Christophe Le Mevel, Giro d’Italia stage winner and Tour de France top-10 finisher, leading team FDJ, may also prove to be an overall contender.
The Tour de l’Ain begins with a 3km prologue on 10 August. The 140km first stage features the 675m climb of the col de Fay, placed 24km from the finish line to open the last stretch of the race for a sprint. Any sprinters who fell behind on the climb will have a second chance in the dead-flat stage two of the event, which will offer no opportunities for a breakaway. The favourites for the sprinter’s jersey are HTC-Columbia’s Leigh Howard, Omega Pharma-Lotto’s Greg Van Avermaet, and Vacansoleil’s Roman Feillu.
The Tour de l’Ain has always been characterized by the Jura mountains, in a progressive build-up until the always-decisive col du Grand Colombier. The 164.5km stage three will warm up the contenders for the Grand Colombier with five categorized climbs. At this point in the event, Gadret and Zubeldia will likely be in control of the race, vying for the general classification leadership with le Mebel, Marco Pinotti and Thierry Hupont.
The Tour de l’Ain culminates in the final stage and the 1500m, 18.3km climb of the Grand Colombier, where anybody who has any designs on the podium will be in aggressive competition. The summit is followed by a 35km downhill run to Belley, near the Swiss border, featuring a splintered peloton fighting for placement.
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