The faces on the spectators throughout the photo say it all. Total and utter disbelief. I think there has been quite a few of those moments this year: four stage wins at the moment for Mark Cavendish; Alberto Contador's abandonment; Chris Froome running up the slopes of Mount Ventoux; and even Adam Yates crash on stage seven which resulted in four stitches to his face. The Tour de France is just one of those events that you expect to be unbelievable, right? But at what point does it become the most interesting tour in recent history?
But let's start of slowly. Mark Cavendish seems to have returned to his form of old with his dominance over the bunch sprint in this year's Tour. One could even say that he is now the best pure sprinter in the race. The utter dominance as he waits until the last moment to swing out and sweep past his rivals, unleashing his monster sprint just 100 meters from the finish is artistic at best.
Alberto Contador, the Tinkoff hopeful for the Tour this year, just couldn't seem to live up to expectations. After training for an entire season, carefully building and watching his fitness, he proceeded to crash not once but twice, and all of his mojo seemed to be left on the road. After both crashes, it was not uncommon to see him drifting off the back of the favorites as the pressure ramped up. Also, surrounded by a team that didn't truly support him, Alberto in my opinion, never had a chance.
Chris Froome: The superstar of the 2016 Tour de France. The leader of the British SKY squad has become a cycling giant and returned with his eyes on defending a third win in the historic race. We've seen the calculating, almost robotic race strategy of Froome and Team Sky develop in the past two years get completely thrown out of the window this year. Stage eight will live on as one of Froome's greatest attacks. After gaining the KOM points at the top of the Col de Peyressourde, he went on the offensive and soloed to a victory driving a 13-second gap into his rivals, and more importantly into Nairo Quintana. Then, we watched as Geraint Thomas and Froome raced towards the finish with Maciej Bodnar and Peter Sagan, the current world champion. But Froome was not only content with finishing an easy second place, he attacked in the final meters making Sagan work for it. Finally, the moment that will go down in history as one of the most unpredictable finishes in the Tour de France history: the mountain top finish at Mount Ventoux. I remember looking away to answer a question from someone and looking back to see Froome sprinting up the mountain on foot. Surely, even for someone who is by no means a Chris Froome fan, that was a move to be respected. Defending the yellow jersey is an honor and to a professional such as Froome, it is evident that he was willing to do anything it took.
The Yates twins from the newly crowned Orica Bike-Exchange team are the two rising superstars in the cycling world. Tragically, Simon was not allowed to compete due to UCI stupidity (feel free to debate in the comments). But Adam is clearly adapting well to his role on the Orica squad. Currently sitting in third place overall, within three minutes of Froome, Adam is also leading the Young Riders classification. With a confidence seen in only the most experienced riders, Adam can be seen at the front of the favorites more often than not, matching the moves of the big men such as Froome and Quintana. Involved in one of the strangest crashes this year, Adam had four stitches to his face after colliding with the 1-km-to-go banner on stage seven. But that just goes to show his resilience and dedication to the sport itself.
The motto of the Tour de France can be summed up quite well in the quote by Eddy Merckx: "The race is won by the rider who can suffer the most."
