The 103rd Tour ended with André Greipel's winning sprint on the Champs Elysées. For the third time Paris crowns Chris Froome, who joins champions from a more or less distant past like Philippe in the roll of honor of the biggest stage race Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg Lemond. A XNUMX-in-a-row that looks like it could stretch given the superiority of the British over his rivals. Merckx even said that at this rate Froome could even win a dozen Tours.
It was a Tour which, presenting the best of world cycling, gave hope for exciting duels, which never came true in 21 stages. It is a fact that since Froome has been around the others have never won anything: Contador, when he hasn't retired, hasn't even entered the podium area. Nibali won the 2014 Tour in a big way but there were no longer either Froome or Contador forced to retire due to crashes in the first stages.
Quintana won a Giro in 2014 in which the only opponent was Rigoberto Uran, nice, good but certainly not a regular winner. Every time he met Froome at the Tour, the Colombian had to settle for staying behind him. The transitive property applied to today's cycling leads to a single and irrefutable truth: Froome is the strongest of all, at least in the Tour since so far he hasn't ventured into the Giro again after those as an unknown follower in 2009 and 2010.
He won the Tour as a Martian in 2013, he regained it last year with the furious blending in the first Pyrenean climb to La Pierre -Saint-Martin that annihilated his opponents, this year even less was enough for him: an attack in the descent of the Peyresourde, a coup d'état on the plain in the Montpellier wind, an uphill time trial on its par. He also indulged in a marathon show in the chaos of the Ventoux stage which will enter the most viewed images in the history of the Tour. Here are the report cards of the promoted and rejected in brief.
Chris Froome: vote 10. For the above reasons.
Peter Sagan: 10. Never in the history of the French race have we seen such a combative, histrionic, spectacular green jersey. The Slovak world champion showed off at the Tour the best he can offer from the repertoire of a champion on the pedals. Three victories with a yellow jersey, many placings, continuous attacks, incredible sprints. With his fifth victory in the points standings he is one step away from the record of the German Zabel.
Mark Cavendish: 9,5. It would be another 10 if he had made it all the way to Paris, but the Tour has brought back to cycling one of the greatest sprinters of all time, an authentic superstar with Froome and Sagan in this edition of the Grande Boucle. He looked like the deadly "long-bow" of Edward III's English archers in the Hundred Years War for the ease with which he defeated his rivals. With poker made this year, Cavendish has reached 30 wins, just four lengths off Eddy Merckx's 34 hits.
Romain Bardet: 8. With the splendid solo action in Saint-Gervais he gave France their only victory in this Tour guaranteeing the podium for the second time, this time even behind Froome and before Quintana. Waiting to see how the talented but inconclusive Alaphilippe (score 5) will evolve, given the fragility and inconstancy of Thibaut Pinot (score 4), he is the man in whom the French can hope to win the Tour again, a success which they have been missing since 1985, since Bernard Hinault's last and fifth triumph.
Nairo Quintana: 5. He was the big favorite together with Froome but the Colombian never seemed able to punch, not even on the hardest climbs, he is a pure grimpeur. A plucked condor that still gets on the podium only thanks to the bad luck that befell Bauke Mollema (score 6,5) in the last two alpine days. But it is a third place podium, almost undeservedly achieved and therefore much more bitter than the two previous ones obtained behind Froome in 2013 and 2015.
Alejandro Valverde: 6,5. It is the old safe used like Joaquin Rodriguez (score: 6) . He has only won one Vuelta of grand tours but the Movistar from Murciano at 36 is the only one who has the courage to do the Giro and Tour in the same year and run them in the front line, obtaining third place in Italy and sixth in France where he was in the service of Quintana. As for Purito, a seventh place in the standings recovered in extremis thanks to the final awakening in the Alps after having disappointed especially in the home stage in Andorra-Arcalis.
Vincenzo Nibali: 5. He is one of the few champions in circulation capable of winning the Tour, Vuelta and Giro: it is not clear why, after the triumph in the Giro, he came to the Tour knowing that he was making more fools than feats (the only small acute is the third place in Morzine ). That said, the Shark is also to be admired for his personality because it is really rare to see a runner who declares coram populo to use the "sacred" Tour as if it were a training camp on Teide or on the Riviera in view of the Rio Olympic Games .
Aru: 5,5. It is true that at 26 and on his first Tour it can happen that he goes into crisis as happened to the Sardinian in the penultimate stage of Morzine but the disappointment for his fall to 13th place almost 20 minutes from Froome is burning. Now, after the Olympics, the Vuelta awaits him where he will cross paths again with Froome, Quintana and a Contador healed from his Tour wounds. Repeating last year's success, when he beat Dumoulin, won't be really easy.
Rafael Majka: 7. The strong man Contador could count on had to be with Kreuziger. The withdrawal of the Pistolero freed the two Tinkoff riders from the duties assigned at the start. Kreuziger (score: 6) became the man for the classification managing to enter the top ten by a whisker while Majka dedicated himself to the climbers' polka dot jersey which he brilliantly conquered for the second time after that of 2014. He has several times tried to win a stage, but also due to a bit of bad luck he never managed to hit the target.
Adam Yates: 8. White jersey as the best young rider in the Tour is the great revelation of this edition. Only a small failure in the Saint-Gervais stage made him lose third place, robbing him of the satisfaction of getting on the podium in Paris with Froome and Bardet. At only 23 years of age, for the British of Orica GreenEdge, born as a pistard, a performance to be framed in a Tour that has also seen him protagonist of an accident with a happy ending when, before the arrival of the seventh stage in Lac de Payolle, the an inflatable arch that signaled the last km fell on him.
Tom Dumoulin: 7. The double success uphill in the Andorra-Arcalis storm and in the time trial relaunch this Dutchman at a high level, who – after realizing that he is not yet ready to fight for victory in a three-week grand tour – is finally expressing his best of its potential which is remarkable.
