2007 Tour De France prediction

Who	Top 3	Top Team	Comments
Brent Ayrey	1. Kloden 2. Valverde 3. Vino	Astana	I think Vino will go well but his inevitable bad day will be the end of him… Valverde’s bad luck has to end sooner or later. Kloden is the most consistent of the contenders.
Eliott Jones	1. Vino 2. Kloden 3. Cunego	Astana
Jimmy Dworkin	1. Levi 2. Kloden 3. Hincapie
Twain Mein	1. Kloden 2. Sastre 3. Vino	Caisse d'Epargne	The pressure to lead and hammer the big ring constantly is going to exhaust Vino. Kloden isn't the team favorite but he will stay back, save his reserves and ultimately Vino will pull for him. CSC will have a strong showing and Sastre will battle to second.
Steve LeFevre	1. Levi 2. Vino 3. Valverde	CSC
Anthony Powell	1. Kloden 2. Vino 3. Sastre	Astana	I think Levi will do well, but he's never been a top climber, he won¢t start now. I think Valverde won¢t be in the tour; but if he starts, there are good odds that he doesn¢t make it to Paris . Menchov and Evans will place highly but will have bad days too.
Keijiro Ikebe	1. Levi 2. Kloden 3. Vino	CSC
Brian Fitzgerald	1. Valverde 2. Vino 3. Kloden	CSC
Michael McHenry	1. Valverde 2. Vino 3. Evans	Astana
Derrill Stepp	1. Vino 2. Levi 3. Kloden Vino will win Leipheimer will take second....in one of the closet final TT's ever Kloden will take third...passed by Leipheimer on the final TT Valverde will narrowly escape with fourth Sastre will be fifth, dropping from 3rd to 5th on the final TT Evans will shine at 6th but will falter on the final TT Karpets will improve 2 spots on the final TT to take 7th Menchov will hold steady at 8th. He'll be solid, yet unspectacular in the Mountains and rock steady in the TT's Pereiro will drop to 9th...he won't be getting 30 mins on the field this year. Schleck will shine at 10th, having sacrificed his 5th place, serving as Sastre's lieutenant Contador will will amaze at 11th, providing a preview of a very bright future Pozzatto will make Liquigas proud at 12th but will be very dissapointed by his placement	Astana	Astana will dominate. And with Vino and Kloden at the helm, who could pick against them? Leipheimer is coming in hot, and ready for action. Unfortunately, even with the best manager in the business, his Disco team is only second best and Stage 16 to Col d'Aubisque will be one mountain too much for them. Levi will lose any chance for yellow as his team, aside from Contador, fails to answer the call. At the same time, CSC will shine in the high mountains and we can expect great things from Frank Schleck. Valverde, along with Karpets, Arroyo, Portal, and Pereiro will be very tough. No question. But can they handle the tactics of the tour? That's a big question mark for me. And can Valverde stay upright? After that, really, are there any other true contenders? Liquigas has been strong all year, but surely they burned their reserves in the Giro. Still, Pozzatto, Di Luca, and Beltran make a solid trio in the mountains. But Pozzatto's young and hasn't the strength necessary to TT with the big boys. Lastly, we have the wildcard Predictor/Lotto Team. The Evans, Horner, Cioni trio is going to do damage. But where? They don't have the strength to win yellow and Evan's still needs some seasoning in the TT but his results speak for themselves. So we can expect him hang around. We probably should talk about Rabobank and Menchov. But with Rasmussen solidly focused on the polkadot jersey, any serious discussion about Menchov contending for yellow is moot.
Gary Chan	1. Levi 2. Valverde 3. Vino
Derek Mau	1. Vino 2. Valverde 3. Evans Polka Dot: Michael Rasmussen Green: Robbie McEwen	Astana	Finally found some time to do a little research. Below are my predictions. Team Astana, IMO, is the strongest team and will dominate the team category. Kloden joined Astana to support Vino and I expect Kloden will sacrifice himself in order to get Vino on the podium. Another team to watch for is Predictor-Lotto with Mario Aerts, Robbie McEwen and Chris Horner doing a lot of damage to upset the GC. Historically, team CSC is always the team to watch out for, but will falter without the sage guidance and experience of Bjarne Riis. Michael Rasmussen will go for another and win his third Polka Dot jersey. Even though Robbie McEwen is 35 years old, he still has a lot of kick left in his legs and he has a team that can lead out like the A Team with a "plan". Watch for McEwen to put it all together for the Tour and take home his 4th Green jersey. Thor Hushovd, Erik Zabel, and Oscar Pereiro will fight hard for the sprinter's jersey and win a stage or two along the way to Paris. As much as I would like to root for the underdogs, Tom Boonen and Denis Menchov don't have the strong enough teams to get them to the podium. Levi is a top ten contender, (possibly even a top 5 finisher) but isn't strong enough and doesn't have the team to make it to the podium.
Emanuel Dounias	1. Levi 2. Vino 3. Sastre	CSC	George WILL win a stage. He will be hungry to salvage his season. Rasmussen could also make the top 3 if he can ride the best time trials of his life.
Lance Armstrong	1. Vino 2. Kloden	Astana
Unibet	1.Vino 2.Valverde 3. Kloden 4. Sastre 5. Evans 6. Leipheimer 7. Menchov 8. Schleck 9. Contador 10. Moreau 11. Kash 12. Karpets 13. Pereiro 14. Rogers

Predictions
Start List

Start List for the Tour.
Notable absences: Bjarne Riis will not coach CSC. Magnus Backstedt, Bobby Julich, and Pettachi not racing.

Ag2r
Christophe Moreau (F)
Cyril Dessel (F)
John Gadret (F)
José Luis Arrieta (Sp)
Stéphane Goubert (F)
Martin Elmiger (Swi)
Ludovic Turpin (F)
Sylvain Calzati (F)
Simon Gerrans (Aus)

Agritubel
Freddy Bichot (F)
Moise Dueñas (Sp)
Romain Feillu (F)
Eduardo Gonzálo (Sp)
Cedric Hervé (F)
Nicolas Jalabert (F)
Juan Miguel Mercado (Sp)
Benoit Salmon (F)
Nicolas Vogondy (F)

Astana
Antonio Colom (Sp)
Maxim Iglinskiy (Kz)
Serguei Ivanov (Rus)
Andrey Kashechkin (Kz)
Andreas Klöden (G)
Daniel Navarro (Sp)
Gregory Rast (Swi)
Paolo Savoldelli (I)
Alexandre Vinokourov (Kz)
Reserves
Gennady Mikhailov (Rus)
Jose Antonio Redondo (Sp)

Barloworld
Félix Cardénas (Col)
Gianpaolo Cheula (I)
Enrico Degano (I)
Alexander Efimkin (Rus)
Robert Hunter (RSA)
Paolo Longo Borghini (I)
Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr)
Mauricio Soler (Col)
Geraint Thomas (GB)

Bouygues Telecom
Pierrick Fedrigo (F)
Anthony Geslin (F)
Laurent Lefevre (F)
Jérôme Pineau (F)
Matthieu Sprick (F)
Thomas Voeckler (F)
Stef Clement (Nl)
Xavier Florencio (Sp)
Johann Tschopp (Swi)

Caisse d'Epargne
David Arroyo (Sp)
Vicente Garcia Acosta (Sp)
Ivan Gutierrez (Sp)
Vladimir Karpets (Rus)
Oscar Pereiro (Sp)
Fran Perez (Sp)
Nicolas Portal (F)
Alejandro Valverde (Sp)
Xabier Zandio(Sp)

Cofidis
Stephane Auge (F)
Sylvain Chavanel (F)
Geoffroy Lequatre (F)
Cristian Moreni (I)
Ivan Parra (Col)
Nick Nuyens (B)
Staf Scheirlinckx (B)
Rik Verbrugghe (B)
Bradley Wiggins (GB)

Credit Agricole
William Bonnet (F)
Alexandre Botcharov (Rus)
Anthony Charteau (F)
Julian Dean (NZ)
Dmitriy Fofonov (Kz)
Patrice Halgand (F)
Sebastien Hinault (F)
Thor Hushovd (N)
Christophe Le Mevel (F)
Reserves
Laszlo Bodrogi (Hun)

CSC - no Bobby Julich
Carlos Sastre (Sp)
Fränk Schleck (Lux)
Jens Voigt (G)
Stuart O'Grady (Aus)
Fabian Cancellara (Swi)
Inigo Cuesta (Sp)
Kurt-Asle Arvesen (N)
Christian Vande Velde (USA)
David Zabriskie (USA)

Discovery Channel
Levi Leipheimer (USA)
George Hincapie (USA)
Alberto Contador (Sp)
Benjamin Noval (Sp)
Egoi Martinez (Sp)
Sergio Paulinho (P)
Tomas Vaitkus (Lit)
Vladimir Gusev (Rus)
Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)

Euskaltel-Euskadi
Igor Anton (Sp)
Mikel Astarloza (Sp)
Jorge Azanza (Sp)
Inaki Isasi (Sp)
Inigo Landaluze (Sp)
Ruben Perez (Sp)
Amets Txurruka (Sp)
Gorka Verdugo (Sp)
Haimar Zubeldia (ESP)

Française des Jeux
Sandy Casar (F)
Sebastien Chavanel (F)
Mickael Delage (F)
Remy Di Gregorio (F)
Philippe Gilbert (B)
Lilian Jegou (F)
Matthieu Ladagnous (F)
Thomas Lovkvist (S)
Benoit Vaugrenard (F)

Gerolsteiner
Markus Fothen (G)
Robert Forster (G)
Heinrich Haussler (G)
Bernhard Kohl (A)
Sven Krauss (G)
Ronny Scholz (G)
Stefan Schumacher (G)
Fabian Wegmann (G)
Peter Wrolich (A)
Reserves:
David Kopp (G)
Volker Ordowski (G)

Lampre-Fondital
Alessandro Ballan (I)
Daniele Bennati (I)
Paolo Bossoni (I)
Marzio Bruseghin (I)
Claudio Corioni (I)
Danilo Napolitano (I)
Daniele Righi (I)
Tadej Valjavec (SLO)
Patxi Vila (Sp)

Liquigas - no Magnus Backstedt
Filippo Pozzato (I)
Manuel Quinziato (I)
Manuel Beltrán (Sp)
Michael Albasini (Swi)
Kjell Calström (Fin)
Murilo Fischer (Brz)
Aliaksandr Kuchynski (Blr)
Charles Wegelius (GB)
Frederik Willems (B)

Milram - no Pettachi
Erik Zabel (G)
Ralf Grabsch (G)
Marcel Sieberg (G)
Christian Knees (G)
Enrico Poitschke (G)
Andriy Grivko (Ukr)
Alberto Ongarato (I)
Alessandro Cortinovis (I)
Brett Lancaster (Aus)

Predictor-Lotto
Mario Aerts (B)
Dario Cioni (I)
Cadel Evans (Aus)
Chris Horner (USA)
Leif Hoste (B)
Robbie McEwen (Aus)
Fred Rodriguez (USA)
Wim Vansevenant (B)
Johan Vansummeren (B)

Quick Step-Innergetic
Carlos Barredo (Sp)
Tom Boonen (B)
Steven De Jongh (Nl)
Juan Manuel Garate (Sp)
Bram Tankink (Nl)
Matteo Tosatto (I)
Sebastien Rosseler (B)
Gert Steegmans (B)
Cédric Vasseur (F)

Rabobank
Michael Boogerd (Nl)
Bram de Groot (Nl)
Thomas Dekker (Nl)
Juan Antonio Flecha (Sp)
Oscar Freire (Sp)
Denis Menchov (Russia)
Grischa Niermann (Nl)
Michael Rasmussen (Dk)
Peter Weening (Nl)

Saunier Duval-Prodir-no Simoni
David Canada (Sp)
Fran Ventoso (Sp)
Iban Mayo (Sp)
David de la Fuente (Sp)
Juan Jose Cobo (Sp)
Iker Camano (Sp)
Ruben Lobato (Sp)
Christophe Rinero (F)
David Millar (GB)
Reserves
Angel Litu Gomez (Sp)
Jesus del Nero (Sp)

T-Mobile
Michael Rogers (Aus)
Mark Cavendish (GB)
Marcus Burghardt (G)
Linus Gerdemann (G)
Kim Kirchen (Lux)
Bernhard Eisel (A)
Axel Merckx (B)
Bert Grabsch (G)
Patrick Sinkewitz (G)

Summary															Total
Vino	1	3	1	2	2	1	2	2	3	3	3	1	3	2	29
Kloden	3	2	2	3	3	2	1	1	2	1					20
Levi	3	3	3	2	3	3									17
Valverde	2	1	3	3	2	2	2								15
Sastre	2	1	1												4
Evans	1	1													2
Cunego	0	1													1
Hincapie	1														1