The Prologue - Wiggins Declares Himself the Favorite

The Prologue for the 2012 Tour de France is in the books, and Bradley Wiggins (Sky) has emphatically declared himself the man to beat. Riding toward the end of the day, he was six seconds slower than Sylvain Chavanel’s time at the mid-point. But he turned on the after-burners over the rest of the course, and nipped Chavanel’s final time by a half-second to take the lead. Ten minutes later, Fabian Cancellara (RNT) beat Wiggins’ time by seven seconds to win the stage and the yellow jersey for tomorrow. But Cancellara is not a threat to keep the GC prize all the way to Paris. The bigger threat on that front should have come from Cadel Evans (BMC), the defending GC champion and the last rider of the day. Alas, Cadel finished ten seconds slower than Wiggins.

The GC battle is not decided already, of course, but Wiggins is in the driver’s seat. His lead over his most likely challengers ranges from the 10" over Cadel Evans to 31" over Frank Schleck (RNT), with 10 or 15 possible contenders somewhere in between. It’s a long three weeks before Paris. We’ll have to see if anyone can shake up the standings in the mountains or in two more much longer time trials. Team Sky will be protecting Wiggins all the way, as they did in the Dauphiné, and any challengers will need an even stronger team effort to defeat him.

This short stage of the race had no real bearing on the battle for the sprint points and the green jersey. However, one hopeful sprinter, Peter Sagan (Liq), was disappointed in his result. He has made a name for himself this year winning several of these prologue time trials. But today, he nearly crashed on the course, had to un-clip his shoe from the pedal, and ended up way back in the pack at minus 24" compared to the winner. Similarly, GC hopeful Tony Martin (OPQ) had a flat tire, had to exchange bikes in the middle of the race, and finished at minus 23".

In my post on the Giro d’Italia, I identified Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katsuha) as possible GC contenders. Hesjedal is only 11" behind Wiggins, so he could still be a factor, but I missed the boat on Rodriguez. He didn’t even make his Katusha team’s nine-man roster for the Tour de France. Ooops! My bad.


I predict that stages one and two will involve breakaway attempts that will be reeled in by Liquigas-Cannondale (for Peter Sagan) and Sky (for Mark Cavendish), and possibly by other teams with sprinter hopefuls. These two stages should end with fierce sprint battles, and we’ll see if Cavendish will continue his dominance.

Stage three, has some steep climbs near the end that will not be conducive to a sprint finish. Look for a breakaway to succeed (either an all-day break, or a late break, or both), and possibly some shake-up among the GC contenders. Wiggins and Evans should be able to protect their positions, unless they go after each other. If that happens, there could be fireworks!

Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) is still in the hunt for the GC yellow jersey, with just a 21-second deficit to Wiggins after the Prologue.  This photo shows Levi (yellow jersey) in the Park City Criterium, Tour of Utah 2010.