Although I didn't do a preview this year, I was still very much into the 2015 edition of the Tour de France, the 3-week cycling event. This year's race was very exciting and the competition was even greater. There weren't alot of chances for the sprinters to win, but it was more a mountain-filled tour in this year's event, which started July 4th in Utrecht, Netherlands. The tour traveled through the Dutch country into Belgium and finally spending the last 2 and a half weeks in France, spending time in the Pyrenees and later the Alps before reaching the finish in Paris.
The 1st week featured multiple crashes involving tour leaders Fabian Cancellara (DNS Stage 4) and Tony Martin (Did Not Start Stage 7), but then all eyes turned to Team Sky and their leader Chris Froome, who won the Tour de France in 2013. This year's tour had multiple favorites, dubbed the "Big Five" which included Froome, former Tour winners Alberto Contador & Vincenzo Nibali, USA Pro Cycling winner Tejay van Garderen and former Giro d'Italia winner Nairo Quintana. With the exemption of Van Garderen, who withdrew from illness in Stage 17, the other competitors were there all the way to the finish. Nibali did win Stage 19 at the finish in La Toussuire and Contador did not have alot of breakaway opportunities at all, so it was all Movistar's Quintana and teammate Alejandro Valverde giving all they had to finish on the final podium in Paris.
However, a younger group of riders did play their part, most notably Frenchmen Romain Bardet, who won Stage 18 at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, and was the eventual winner of the King of the Mountains Competition (Froome did win but is overall winner, but Bardet gets the Jersey). The other guy to look out for in the future is Thibaut Pinot, who won on Alpe d'Huez and finished 3rd in last year's tour. Rafal Majka, Joaquim Rodriguez, Simon Gresche and Steve Cummings all won stages on this year's tour as well and could be factors in future races. Richie Porte served as Froome's partner throughout the event, will leave Team Sky at the end of the year, to a yet determined team, so he could have a chance at a title.
Although the sprinters didn't have many opportunities at sprint finishes in this year's tour, they had a few and this year it was Andre Greipel, who won 4 stages including the finish on the Champs-Elysses in Paris. Greipel has been around for years now and this was his big tour. Mark Cavendish, who was injured last year and withdrew from the TDF did claim a stage win. The points jersey competition was won once again by Peter Sagan, who is a sprinter, but also very good in the mountains, was in many breakaways in the 2nd week and although didn't win a stage, he came in 2nd 5 times this year. This was Sagan's 4th straight year winning the competition.
Well, the 2015 edition is in the books. The Vuelta a Espana takes place in September, but it will be another 11 months before we'll see the Tour de France again.
NASCAR SPRINT CUP
There has not been any fast driver in the last month besides Kyle Busch, who has won 4 of the last 5 NASCAR Sprint Cup races: Sonoma, Kentucky, New Hampshire and now Indianapolis. Kevin Harvick & Brad Keselowski dominated the Brickyard 400, but late restarts put Busch in contention and in the lead, holding off Joey Logano in a green-white-checker finish to claim victory, giving himself better chances to make the Chase. However, he still needs 23 points to get into 30th before he can clinch a spot, so he has 7 more races to do that and the way he's going, he will.
The series next races at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, PA this Sunday.
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