Tour de France 2013 – review

The 2013 Tour de France is over, and this year I really enjoyed it. I thought it was the best tour I can remember watching. Nearly as exciting as the breaking news that a British woman has just had a baby.

Though Froome was clearly the strongest rider in the tour, there was sufficient drama to keep the race interesting. The implosion of Sky on the second Pyrenean stage was unexpected as it was dramatic. I can’t remember a yellow jersey being isolated so early in stage before. If there had been an intelligent Spanish collective, they could even have dislodged Froome.

Though some may prefer to remain suspicious, I believe in the credibility of Team Sky and Chris Froome, so I enjoyed the rare sight of a tour favourite attacking in the mountains. I thought his performance at Aix 3 Domaines and on the Col du Tourmalet to be very exciting.

Just when you could sit back and expect a boring sprint stage, a few crosswinds blew the peleton apart. Hats off to Omega Pharma and Saxo Tinkoff, that was a real bike race. It was probably one of my favourite Cavendish stage victories. He had to work really hard in a different way to usual. It’s funny how reputations can be amended, but Contador played his role in creating an exciting race. He just doesn’t have the same zip as before his drugs ban, and his time trial performances are significantly slower. But, you can never accuse Contador of only following wheels. I was almost wishing he had a little better legs.

In the Alps, Froome showed his first vulnerability and the young Colombian Quintana really rose to prominence. If Quintana can keep making progress, Froome will have a very worthy climbing adversary over the next five years. I hope so. People don’t really like a winner who dominates the tour. If you want popularity, try win it by 8 seconds on the last stage. Quintana could be the man to keep it close in the next few year. 2014 will also have Vicenzo Nibali, and Rigoberto Uran. Two men who were missed at this years tour.

Thank God, the French won a stage. Christopher Riblon really deserved the Queen stage on Alpe d’Huez. You have to feel for Tejay Van Garderen – passed in the last 2km, desperately trying to salvage a disappointing tour. But, it was an heroic failure, and the French victory put a lot of smiles on the French faces.

For quite a few years, Cavendish has appeared unbeatable in the Tour sprints, but, this year he showed that no one is invincible forever. There are still many tour stages in Cavendish – especially if he gets a stronger lead out train. But, will he beat Merckx record of 35 stages now? Perhaps Cavendish will give the Giro a miss next year. He’s already had 90 days of racing this year. He can no longer take it for granted he’s the fastest sprinter. I’m sure he will give the tour 100% next year. It will make for more epic sprint battles like on the Champs Elysees between Kittel, Cavendish and Griepel.

Away from the racing, the elephant in the room, was the continued digestion of the Armstrong scandal. I never knew what to make of Froome. But, I was deeply impressed by the way he handled a hostile media. I kept putting myself in his shoes. How would I have coped with such relentless questioning of your personal integrity? I’m not quite sure how Bradley Wiggins would have fared in the first post USADA report Tour, but I imagine it might have involved a touch more expletives. I think Bradley will be happy he won in 2012.

To be fair to the media, I do remember the bad old days when Armstrong and the like would steamroller press conferences. I was so disgusted with the sport in 2004, when Armstrong chased down Simeoni and received so little reprobation. It’s a good job I didn’t watch the 1999 tour when he bullied Bassons out of the tour. So alas, scrutiny is needed in the sport. But, it would have been hard to do with better grace than Froome and Brailsford. It is politically incorrect to say, but I think Dave Brailsford and Team Sky have done a good job for professional cycling over the past few years, though I don’t advise mentioning that on any cycling forum. m.cyclingnews.com is still my friend for avoiding comments.

One final point, if you’re going to have so much scrutiny – why on just one rider? What about scrutinising the UCI and that investigation into the UCI’s role which nicely got cancelled?

Downsides of the tour?

• Spectators dragging flags into riders.
• Why does French TV insist on switching the cameras away from the lead group 3km from the finish, just when you known they are going to start attacking? Do we really need to see Andy Schleck and Tommy Voekler slipping off the back of the peleton when the action is hotting up at the front? I was enthralled by the 3 podium guys of Froome, Rodriguez and Quintana battling it out on the last climb of the Alps. But, French TV managed to miss every decisive move.

What’s next for 2014?

Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire!

The Tour will want to keep interest for as long as possible. They will probably be scratching their heads trying to think how to reduce the dominance of Froome.

Will the Tour go for a super long flat time trial to encourage Bradley Wiggins to have another go at trying to win the Tour? Or do they find some super steep mountain top finishes to favour Quintana and the Colombians? It would be funny if there was 100km of flat time trials (though not funny for Sky). But, I think the Tour will go for the mountains! As much as I love time trials. 100km of flat time trials would be a heavy price to make Wiggins a contender again.