ProTour Punditry Predictions

[VamP]

Tour of Oman instead of Qatar? Looks a lot more interesting to me, but I'm happy to be beaten into silence by rolled up Telegraphs...

 

[The Couch]

Tour of Oman instead of Qatar? Looks a lot more interesting to me, but I'm happy to be beaten into silence by rolled up Telegraphs...

I'll second that
(Oman has probably a bit more potential of attackers/surprises winning stages and more of a fight for the GC)

...but it's all good for me, so don't feel like I am pushing

 

[montage]

I don't mind which one I end up winning, Oman or Qatar

 

[smutchin]

OK, I'll take that as a consensus - Car Park out, Oman in. Oman does have the more interesting parcours, granted. 18-23 Feb, six stages plus GC and Points classifications. And Lanterne Rouge, of course.

 

[The Couch]

I am going with Sagan :troll:

And the streak goes on....

Still... somewhere along the season my underdog guesses are bound to be right once

 

[smutchin]

I enjoyed the line in the report about Alex Dowsett: "did not trouble the leaderboard"

 

[SWSteve]

@User I believe we've ditched Qatar for Oman as it has several hills

 

[rich p]

Tour of Oman starts on the 18th
Start list provisionally here
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tour-of-oman-start-list-3

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Tour of Oman starts on the 18th
Start list provisionally here
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tour-of-oman-start-list-3

Looks like the Classics boys are gonna be out in force

 

[smutchin]

Thanks for the reminder, Rich. Had my mind on things other than cycling this week so had forgotten about it.

 

[montage]

GC: Froome
Mountains: Tschopp
Points: Greipel
Stage 1: Greipel
Stage 2: Bouhanni
Stage 3: Sagan
Stage 4: Rodriguez
Stage 5: Froome
Stage 6: Greipel

Would have liked to have given Kristoff and Konig a shot, but decided only to play two "wildcards"

 

[The Couch]

GC: Uran
Points: Sagan
Most aggressive (do we go for this, since there is no climber jersey??): Kadri
Lantern rouge: I might as well be looking for a needle in a hay stack, but here we go: Ilesic (who?? do you think... indeed that's what my hope is based on )

Stage 1: Greipel
Stage 2: Greipel
Stage 3: Kristoff
Stage 4: Stybar
Stage 5: Froome
Stage 6: Bouhanni

See, the thing with going for too many obvious ones if you don't have any points - like me - is that you won't make that much ground up, so I'm going fairly wild with guesses

Uran for overall (without winning a stage), Sagan for green (without winning a stage), Kristoff actually winning a sprint against Sagan, Stybar sneaking away in the last kilometers of a stage, Greipel being a bit tired in the end and getting whipped by Bouhanni.

 

[rich p]

Stage 1 Greipel
Stage 2 Sagan
Stage 3 Van Avermaet
Stage 4 J Rodriguez
Stage 5 Santaromita
Stage 6 Greipel
Overall J Rodriguez
Sprint Greipel
KOM Moreno
LR Robert Forster

 

[Crackle]

Throws hat in ring with a fine selection of good outsiders and a scattering of knowns.

Stage 1 Greipel
Stage 2 Bouhanni
Stage 3 Sagan
Stage 4 Nibali
Stage 5 Uran
Stage 6 Ben Swift
Sprint Sagan
KOM Mathias Frank
Overall Uran
Lanterne Rouge Aldo Ino Ilesic

 

[SWSteve]

GC Froome
KOM Sagan
Sprint Sagan
Stage 1 Greipel (lotto)
Stage 2 Greipel(Lotto)
Stage 3 Sagan(can)
Stage 4 Uran (OPQS)
Stage 5 Froome (sky)
Stage 6 Sagan (can)

LR Pieter Vanspeybrouck (TVB)