Belgium’s Tom Boonen won the 12th leg today, and afterwards he hit the nail on the head. “The Tour’s a horrible race,” he said. “You have to be masochistic to ride in a race like this.”
With tomorrow’s individual time trial and the coming mountain stages, we are likely to see the eventual winner emerge from top contenders to take the yellow jersey and attempt to keep it through the last time trial on July 28th. If he does, he will certainly ride into Paris for the victory.
My prediction? Anything can happen at this point in the premier cycling event, but I’ll pin my hopes on Australia’s Cadel Evans or Levi Leipheimer, now riding for the Discovery Channel team.