You can't compare...
Mosovich said:
Basso and Ulrich are the favorites for sure, BUT, you never know, look at MSR, a dark horse could steal the show. I think it's going to be one of the most exciting tours for a very long time. Wide open with alot of canidates.
Definitely cannot compare a "dark horse" win in a one day race compared to a grand tour, there is no comparison. It's not like someone is going to bolt from the pack and win a grand tour, it just doesn't happen for the most part. In a one day race, you can of course have a wild card win, but the MSR win isn't that shocking actually.
That being said, Landis is not going to win the Tour this year. He doesn't have a unified team behind him, which is what you need. Phonak has already stated that they are going with co-Captains for le Tour this year. Landis and Botero. While I love Botero, the man is so unpredictable, they need to put all of their eggs into the Landis basket, but they're not going to do that. Landis therefore will not win le Tour for that simple reason methinks. This year though, 2 things are going to be interesting. Jan, for the first time since the Bianchi days, will have a team formed around him and united around him. They did try this last year, but as we know, Vino had to be the spoiled kid, and couldn't abide by the rules. Years before that, they had Zabel around for the ride, which normally meant a couple less climbers for Jan so that maybe Zabel could win the green jersey. Only when Jan rode for Bianchi did he have a united front, and as many people like to speculate, what would have happened had Jan gone over to Riis his former mentor and teammate at CSC? I can only suspect that Lance's winning streak probably would have stopped at 4, and Jan would have wiped up the tour with him under Bjarne's guide, but that's neither her nor there, it didn't happen. So now we have this year. Goodefroot is no longer at the helm of T-Mobile, and Pevenege is back in the fold with T-Mobile, and he can have better access to Jan during the season and during the Tour. We'll see a different Jan this year I think, and only Basso is going to be able to really keep up with him, but Jan will crush him in the TTs, you can seriously bet on that. Basso has come a long way in his TT skills, but he's still nowhere near where Jan is with his time trialing, and with a tour that is good for the TTers, Jan will reign supreme where Armstrong once did.
I think that it is more or less Jan's tour to lose this year. Landis will figure probably in the top 10, and he might squeak into the top 5, but he won't be seeing the top step this year. And you still have some of the other "contenders" who have been pretty quiet so far this year. Valverde, Mayo, Leipheimer, and a few others mixed in there. One thing is for sure, it's going to be interesting to watch in July.