Tour de France- Prologue

Today's prologue was won by the current World Champion in the Time Trial, Fabian Cancellara- no big surprise there (and I picked him to win, so I'm already beating BK). The surprise was Andreas Kloden taking second. Less of a surprise was Hincapie taking third, which he wasn't happy about... but considering the TT strength of the two riders ahead of him, he did well. Dave Zabriskie finished in 11th, which is a bit surprising, but overall the prologue went roughly as expected.

I admit I was a little surprised to see Wiggins in 4th, Millar in 13th and Rogers in 20th... but that's a prologue for you. The times are so close, if you simply hold your head a little too high for 1Km, you lose enough time to drop several places. That said, as I think about it, I am surprised to see that McEwen rode the prologue like a weekend training ride, finishing 148th and 1:09 down. That'll make it damned hard for him to steal the yellow jersey- even for a day. We'll just have to see what his plans are over the next couple days.

Tom Boonen sprinted to finish his prologue today, to keep from losing more time and keep himself in the hunt for the yellow jersey. Since the Tour enters Belgium in two days, Tommy-boy would like to have the yellow jersey on his back when he hits his native roads. I expect him to be riding very aggressively tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow (and kicking BK's butt)... I am putting my money on Boonen to win and McEwen to take second. BK's got the same picks, but in the wrong order. It's ok though, she's got 3 weeks to figure out how all this stuff works. You see, BK made the mistake of starting a little contest with me about predicting stage winners. So far, I'm beating her. We'll see what happens by the time the race arrives in Paris... won't we BK? You can also expect to see a little cross-posting going on between the two of us this year. Last year, BK didn't have her own blog up and running full steam, so she was contributing on mine. This year we're gonna post back and forth on the blogs and try to offer up the same love as last year.

Anyway... on to tomorrow; the stage is a good roller, with small hills and easy climbs. It should prove to be a good stage, but the first road stage of the Tour is always a nervous affair and people end up eating lots of pavement in all the goofy riding that happens. Hopefully none of the contenders will be injured this year. With the finish being nearly board flat, it should easily come back together and end in a field sprint. Many people will try to get away, but it ain't gonna work. The sprinters' teams will want the stage far too badly to let a break succeed... sorry... but they'll still try. Look for my boy Boonen to just edge out McEwen and maybe even take the yellow jersey, since he is only 48 seconds back.

Ok, until tomorrow...

Tim