Tour de France 2013: The Teams 5 - Cannondale

Cannondale come to this year's Tour with last year's green Jersey winner as their leader looking to retain his hold on the points competition.

This season Peter Sagan has already defended his points wins at the Tour of California and Tour du Suisse so is on the same sort of form heading into this year's Tour. He is a rider who is capable of being up there in the flat stage bunch finishes but is also able to get over the hills to fight it out at the to of category 3 or 4 hill top finishes or after a tougher climb. In the Tour du Suisse earlier this month he even climbed over a category 1 climb with the GC contenders to be able to out sprint them for the line. Surprisingly this will only be Sagan's third Grand Tour but his explosion unto the scene in last year's race means that he is already considered a serious one to watch this year. If Cavendish does win stage 1 it is possible that Sagan could have wrested the Green Jersey off his shoulders before the Tour caravan even lands on mainland France. he recently won his 50th race, so his ever expanding repertoire of celebrations is likely to grow. Update He will once again be wearing the Slovkian national champions jersey on non-time trial days or if he isn't wearing another jersey during the Tour.

Moreno Moser the Italian comes from a cycling dynasty his Uncle Francisco won the 1984 Giro, Uncle Aldo also had a top five finish, Uncle Enzo was the first winner of the Giro del Trentino and his father also raced professionally. The 22 year old has big pedals to follow as he steps up for his first Grand Tour experience. Last year while the Tour was on he was busy winning the Tour of Poland.

The Polish rider Maciej Bodnar is appearing in his second Tour, the previous appearance was in 2011, and 6th Grand Tour. He's been his national time trial champion twice as well as coming second twice. He'll be along on Domestique duties as his time trialling ability is unlikely to threaten the podium on either of the days that the race of truth occurs this year. Update yet again he has won his national Time Trial Championships.

Alessandro de Marchi made quite a name for himself in this year's Giro twice featuring in breakaways and the one on stage 14 staying away although de Marchi only managed a third place finish. He was also not afraid of trying to go on the attack on the kicks towards the end of stages. He followed that up with more aggression in the Critérium du Dauphiné attacking in the snow and freezing fog on stage 8 to secure the solo win, with a big enough gap to prevent the Yellow Jersey of Chris Froome getting back to him. So he'll be coming to the Tour with his card marked, though whether he attacks early or late he will no doubt always present some sort of threat.

Alan Marangoni is a former Italian track cyclist who became a pro road racer in 2009. He has ridden in four Grand Tours before but never the Tour. He will one of the team helpers doing whatever it required to help Sagan reach his goals in the Tour.

Fabio Sabatini from Italy was enviably the last man home, the Laterne Rouge in the 2011 Tour being 166th in the field. He will be hoping for better things this time, unless he is aiming for Wim Vansevenant's record of being the laterne rouge three times. It is not that he is a bad rider he came 2nd in the first running of the Classica Sarda, it only reappeared the following year and wasn't replicated in 2012.

30 year old American cyclist Edward King known as Ted is a utility rider from New Hampshire. He'll be making his Tour debut but will be hopeful of getting around as he did in both his appearances at the Giro in 2009 and 2010.

Dane Brian Vandborg is new to Cannondale for this season. He's completed his three previous Tours from 2009-2011 and will be looking forward to being back on a WorldTour team and able to take part at this level once again. In 2005 he won the four day Tour of Georgia. The following year he won the Danish national time trial championships and came fourth in the World's. However, since those heights he had settled into the role of a team helper for the bigger teams. Update He'll be sporting the Danish national champion's jersey in the Time Trials.

To support the Slovakian team leader we have a Slovenian Kristijan Koren  completing the team. He made his Tour debut in 2010 and was part of the breakaway on stage 17 that finished on the Col de Tourmalet. It was stage that saw the battling Andy Schleck and Contador going toe  to toe over the last 15km, pulling in that breakaway. Koren has returned to complete the Tour every year since. He best results in the Tour were 15th then 14th of the ITTs in 2011, last year in the World ITTs he also was 14th so he has a decent enough trial trialling ability.

The team will be working around Sagan, but the Slovak is such an unique talent in the pro-peleton that he can do almost anything over 3 weeks of stage racing. He may be up there with the sprinters on the flat, with the puncheurs on the medium mountain stages. What we saw in the Tour du Suisse is that he may even be able to get over some pretty big climbs with GC calibre riders. If that happens here anything is possible he could well be someone in the mold of Eddy Merckx. But Sagan wants to retain the Green Jersey in only his second Tour and that bid may well begin on the island of Corsica with stages 2 and 3 more than within his reach.

Preview of Paris-Roubaix

I haven't been posting on here for a bit, but I hope to correct that in the coming months. As those of you who read my main blog know I've been busy over the last few months with starting a new job and moving. But as I am more or less settled in it is a good time to get back to watching and writing about sport.

Tomorrow is the Hell of the North otherwise known as Paris-Roubaix and if like me you have been following the Spring Classics you will know that there are two men on form who are likely to feature yet again tomorrow on the cobbles and roads of northern France. But who will take the line in the famous velodrome in Roubaix that marks the finish of what many consider the toughest one day classic.

On St. Patrick's Day while Germany's Gerald Ciolek may have taken the honours in a shortened Milan-San Remo it was the men who shared that podium that have gone on to dominate the spring classics. Second was Slovakian Peter Sagan who maybe had gone too early for full power and third a fast closing Fabian Cancellera as a sextet of riders led out in a sprint for the honours.



Five days later at the E3 Harelbeke Cancellera went on the attack 35km out and despite early efforts Peter Sagan was unable to keep up with him but sprinted it out with his group about a kilometre behind for the second place spot.



Two days later at Gent–Wevelgem Sagan finally stood on the top step of the podium. This time starting his own attack 4km out which left Bernie Eisel (SKY), Yaroslav Popvych (RSL) and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) unable to catch when it exploded.



However, last weekend the Tour of Flanders saw Cancellera and Sagan head to head one again and once again the former World Time Trial champion showed the young upstart who was the man for these races. On the final cobbled climb up the Paterberg the Swiss rider attacked and it looked initially that Sagan would keep up with him, however he applied more power further up the climb and broke the Slovak who reached the summit a distant second and sat up a bit waiting for the last survivor of the earlier break Jürgen Roelandts (LOT) to ride together to the finish.


So what about tomorrow over the 27 sections of pavé that make Paris-Roubaix so tough. Providing he can avoid a mechanical at the wrong point I would say place your money on Cancellera adding this title for a third time to his second Tour of Flanders and third Harelbeke already this season. The Swiss rider has certainly looked in form and Sagan will ride him close but Fabian will decide just when to take him down and apply the power tomorrow I suspect, having done it from 35km and 15km already he will pick his spot.