He looks like the real deal, and might beat Lance. Other threads have noted that he might not finish in top 10.
If he beats Lance in the mountains, does Lance need to win the TT by a mile to win the Tour? Can he beat Lance in the mts? He looks so effortless our there compared to others. Or am I naive??
you are naive 
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no sir … the chicken will be fried before Paris
naive, unless LA crashes or has multiple flats on the climb losing at least 4+ min to chicken man
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He looks like the real deal, and might beat Lance. Other threads have noted that he might not finish in top 10.
If he beats Lance in the mountains, does Lance need to win the TT by a mile to win the Tour? Can he beat Lance in the mts? He looks so effortless our there compared to others. Or am I naive??
It is unlikely he will beat Lance by any significant amount in the mountains unless Lance has one of those bad days anyone can have (like Basso in the Giro). I am sure he is #1 on Lance’s and Discovery’s radar right now. Even if he did beat him on a stage he would have to beat him by quite a bit to keep the Yellow from Lance in the TT even if he is a lot better than he showed in the prologue.
I am interested in how Levi does the next two days. If he holds his own he will move up to second or third in the overall after the TT I think. What is his contract with Gerolsteiner like? Could he be in line to come to Discovery as the leader as a top American on an American team? Or could George turn into their GC guy? Can’t see any of the foreigners keeping the ratings up on American TV for Discovery.
Monkey’s might fly out of my ass too!
I hope Lance destroys the field. He’s an animal in the mountains, but Rasmussen seems cold and unaffraid - just what is necessary to beat him.
Popular opinion thinks it’s a no-brainer and that LA will win; I’m no expert, just a watch-the-tour-all-day Lance flunky who sees a real tough challenger. It’s going to be hot in the mts and LA is not a heat freak.
There’s a ~55km TT coming up. That will secure LA’s TDF win.
You just may be crazy.
Rasmussan lost 3.14 in 12 miles in the prologue. He’ll lose an equal amount, if not more in the next TT. The last ITT is 55k (33 miles) on the second to last day. Rasmussan better hope to have about 6-10 minutes on Armstrong by then.
Does that seem likely?
Well said, Gary. Damn funny, too.
I’m crazy. You guys win!!
Frank, good points. You can imagine that Disco will want an American leader and Hincapie is not that guy even though we all love the dude’s riding style.
As for Rasmussen winning, he’ll have to put 5 min on Lance during a “jour sans” in the mtns if Lance bonks and then he will need to finish the long ITT within 5 min. If not, no chance. Realistically, guys like Basso and Jan (yes, the doughboy from Rostock that everyone has written off) have a better hope going into week 3. Jan has always been tough in week 3 when the legs fall off the flyweights and he looses a few lbs of of the black forest cake sitting on his frame from mid winter. Let’s not forget that Jan had two crashes the first going back to the week before the tour. Hopefully for him, he will be over them and can move into a podium spot.
Oh yee of little faith…
/sigh/
Victim list: Ullrich, Voight, Valverde, etc., etc…Rasmussen next
Frank, good points. You can imagine that Disco will want an American leader and Hincapie is not that guy even though we all love the dude’s riding style.
As for Rasmussen winning, he’ll have to put 5 min on Lance during a “jour sans” in the mtns if Lance bonks and then he will need to finish the long ITT within 5 min. If not, no chance. Realistically, guys like Basso and Jan (yes, the doughboy from Rostock that everyone has written off) have a better hope going into week 3. Jan has always been tough in week 3 when the legs fall off the flyweights and he looses a few lbs of of the black forest cake sitting on his frame from mid winter. Let’s not forget that Jan had two crashes the first going back to the week before the tour. Hopefully for him, he will be over them and can move into a podium spot.
I might add that Levi has done pretty well so far despite what is generally considered a weak team. Wonder what he could do with the support of a team like Discovery.
Ras will be dropped on the last climb both Sat and Sun. If he tries to attack, there’ll be a counter that’ll he’ll never forget. Just go back and watch the dvd’s of the last 6 tours to see what happens when a “climber” attacks.
Perhaps Basso can hang, but I doubt it. He’s done okay, better than I expected given his Giro, but I don’t expect him to last further than the first or second acceleration on the final climb each day. Ullrich will do his usual and lose one or two minutes.
My guess, though, is that Ullrich and Basso will finish ahead of Ras on both days. Then, of course, there’s the ITT, but there’s really no reason to go further into that.
School’s in session tomorrow, and Ras is a freshman trying to play varsity.
I for one hope he kicks ass…I would like to see a fight till the end. Fignon style…but then again…that wont happen.
Lance is firing up the deep fat fryer tonight … we are going to have some finger lickin’ good fun tomorrow.
I had kind of thought the same thing, until I went back and looked at this from stage 1:
2 001 ARMSTRONG, Lance USA DSC 00:20:53.000 00:00:02.000
…
174 057 RASMUSSEN, Mickael DEN RAB 00:24:05.000 00:03:14.000
Over what, 12 miles? As long as Lance keeps him in sight in the mountains, which he has shown he can do, and I’m sure at this point he will, I don’t think there’s any question.
Remember as well that Rasmussen wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the GC without the breakaway that he got away with a few days ago. He wasn’t a marked man then, but he sure is now.
Robbie McEwan was interviewed on the BBC website. He said that LA had suggested to Robbie that he (LA) wasn’t even pushing hard yet “But I’m going to have to tell the cameras that I’m suffering”
Who knows maybe Rasmussen’s an even greater tactition than Lance and his slow openning TT was just to keep him under the radar so he was allowed to attack in the mountains - then again maybe the suns got to my head.