Tour De France / Tobias Gourlay / 10 July 2009 / Leave a comment

Today's mountain stage should tell us a lot about Armstrong and Contador, says Tobias Gourlay

The first major mountain stage of this year's Tour is also the longest of the race at 224km. In the spirit of heroic tragedy, long breakaway attempts will be made, but it is difficult to see any of them surviving all the way to the summit finish at 2,240m on Arcalis. Andy Schleck, the [7.8] second favourite for the stage, is capable of making such a strategy successful, but will be well-marked by his rivals for the yellow jersey.

That final Hors Category climb, coupled with an earlier Category One ascent of the Col de Serra-Seca, is likely to be too much for Fabian Cancellara, who is a [17.0] shot to retain the maillot jaune for another day. Astana's Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador are both trading at very close to evens to replace the Swiss as leader of the General Classification. The Spaniard, who has shown himself as the best climber in the world in the last couple of years, is rightly the [3.9] favourite to win today's stage, while the Texan is [16.0].

The latter price is intriguing. Armstrong believes he should be supported by the team as an equal of Contador's. Although he has a 19-second advantage over El Pistolero, he would strengthen his case considerably if he were to ride away from him to victory today. No easy task, it must be admitted. Contador, meanwhile, might be happy to cede the yellow jersey to his team-mate for the time being. Although it would establish him as undisputed team leader, it would be an extra burden to bear for the next two weeks.

Finally, there are three GC contenders who lost more time to the Astana boys than they would have liked in the individual and team time-trials: Cadel Evans ([12.5] to win today), Denis Menchov ([30.0]) and Carlos Sastre ([13.5]). All three might feel they have to push to recoup some of that time today. Sastre is a naturally attacking climber who drilled Evans on Alpe d'Huez last year to set up overall victory. He appears the most capable of making such a balls-out strategy successful.