From Velonews:
Voeckler’s nearest overall challengers are O’Grady, second at 3:13, and third-placed Frenchman Sandy Casar (Fdjeux.com) at 4:06. But when the race hits the mountains, Armstrong may find himself with a bit more of a fight than he might have expected. Voekler can climb, as he showed in last month’s Route de Sud, winning the mountain stage to Loudenvielle; and will surely have a passionate French public’s support.
Does he have a strong team to back him?
He can climb. So can Francios Simon. Simon had 16 or so minutes on Lance a couple tours ago. He held on to the yellow jersey for a few days, but eventually conceded like 20 minutes.
Voekler might make it through the UHTT at L’dH but he’ll lose 5-6 minutes there, and the rest of the time will come back in teh first mountain stage.
IF he finishes, I’d expect it to be about 20 minutes down as well.
-SD
I don’t really follow cycling too much, but wasn’t brioches supposed to bring beloki to the tour - so wouldn’t it be possible that the team is actually in decent shape to help support/push along Voeckler? Heck I prefer rooting for the underdog anyway…
I agree. Kivilev and Simon had something like 30 minutes I think, and they weren’t able to pull it together in the mountains (not that I am criticizing, either could drop me like a bad habit). Voeckler will be very lucky just to make it to Saturday in yellow.
Maybe its “Chuckie V” (that tri-guy who used to have the mo-hawk)
;).