Le Crunch Time

Today is the second and final rest day in the Tour de France. There haven't been the huge changes I thought there would be since my last post 9 days ago. Floyd Landis is still in the best position to win, and he still needs to stay with the other GC contenders in the Alps to have a chance to win. He's probably got the best chance, since he will be expected to take a minute or two out of everyone on the Stage 19 time-trial, like he did in Stage 7. Right now he's got about a minute on Denis Menchov, who is probably the biggest surprise still in the Tour. Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, and Andréas Klöden look like the only remaining GC who have a shot at the win, barring some unlikely Popovych and Leipheimer will probably top 10 finish. Marcus Fothen looks like he could get a top 10 finish too, which doesn't bode well for Levi Leipheimer's continued leadership of Gerolsteiner.



Observations
1) The sprinters are done until stage 18, then they only have three more stages to duke it out. Most likely, Robbie McEwen will be wearing green in Paris. Oscar Freire looked like he had a shot but the team is supporting Denis Menchov, not him.
2) A team can either have a sprinter or a GC contender, not both, unless they are both named Eddie Merckx
3) Leipheimer is out of contention for the win, but could still finish respectable if he doesn't have another crappy time trial
4) There is no leader of the Discovery team, but Popovych gets it by default
5) The leader of the T-Mobile team is still unclear, but it will be either Andreas Klöden or Michael Rogers, and the Pyrenees Alps will decide
6) Tom Boonen cannot beat Robbie McEwen this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets shut out of stage wins for the 2006 Tour
7) There will probably only be one American (if any) on the podium in Paris and his name is likely to be Floyd. It's his race to lose, albeit only by sixty-one seconds.
8) Americans have won 10 of the last 20 Tours, and it would be awesome to put another American in yellow and rub the Frenchies noses in it
9) If Tyler Hamilton is implicated in Operation Puerto, which many people are now saying, he'll get a lifetime ban from cycling. He and his wife did an interview on the OLN coverage, but they didn't say anything about that.
10) Discovery is going to have to make some big changes to be a player again.

Read more in my series on the 2006 Tour de France:

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