Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda

There are several riders that can win a World Championship in Denmark this September, but only one will, and that rider will be for the second year running, Thor Hushovd.

Sure British Tour phenom Mark Cavendish is the fastest man alive, American Tyler Farrar seems well suited to a run for the Rainbow Jersey on this course, and there is always the chance for an opportunist like this years Tour hero and fourth place finisher Thomas Voeckler to steal a victory from the sprinters.

But, this is Thor's race to lose.

Hushovd had a frustrating spring riding in what he felt was a support roll at Garmin-Cervelo, and he never quite found the form that won him a World Championship last fall. But his Tour de France erased any questions as to who is the best sprinter on a challenging course.

Two stage victories on tough courses that saw the likes of Cavendish and Farrar struggling to make time cuts could prove to be a preview of the deceptively hard race in and around Copenhagen, Denmark.

Odds are this race comes down to a bunch sprint albeit a reduced field with little in the way of a lead-out train for the big guns, and this alone lends itself to a power sprinter like Hushovd more than a guy who needs the structure of a controlled sprint like Cavendish.

Why Cav won't win

The course is too undulating for a sprinter who depends on a team to carry him to the finish. While he has won on different courses over his 20 stage wins at the Tour, he prefers a flat, fast finish that gives his smaller frame the advantage.

No one can match his acceleration on a flat strait finish, and he is rarely beaten when given a lead-out by Mark Renshaw, but this is the Worlds and Renshaw is not riding for his man, he is riding for his country, and that will be enough alone to keep the Manx Missile form winning his first Rainbow Jersey.

Add in the 500 meter finish climb and this is not his race.

Why Thor will win

Hushovd is coming off a fantastic Tour de France and a week in the Yellow Jersey that showed he is not your run-of-the mill classics rider or even sprinter.

Thor won on the first mountain stage, and while there is no way the field lets him get away in Copenhagen, he is the perfect type of sprinter to win a drag race up the final climb.

Is there an escape Ala Lance in Oslo?

Possibly, but the rider best suited is going to be a marked man.

The incredible run in France has marked Thomas Voeckler as one to watch for the World Championships. Not that this was his first run in Yellow, but this year may have changed the little Frenchman into a rider capable of winning the big ones.

No, his legs didn't change, but his head may now finally be able to bring the first rainbow jersey home to France since Laurent Brouchard did in 1997.

Others who could be in the mix

Tyler Farrah - A strong American squad could deliver the first US Rainbow Jersey since Lance Armstrong stole one in Norway nearly 20 years ago.

Tom Boonen - Former World Champion could challenge Thor if it comes to a sprint finish.

Fabien Cancellara - The Swiss Time Trial Ace could double in Denmark, but don't expect him to be given an inch of room to ride off solo.

Philippe Gilbert - The Belgian classics ace is best on hillier courses, and this one may not be quite challenging enough to give him the room h needs for a solo victory, but of the challengers, Gilbert is the one to watch.

The Podium

Gold          Thor Hushovd - Norway

Silver         Philippe Gilbert - Belgium

Bronze      Tyler Farrar - USA

Wildcard   Fabien Cancellara

Team Garmin-Slipstream’s riders have made surprising impressions through the first seven stages of the 2009 Tour de France, darting and hovering like persistent, blue and peach hummingbirds around Team Astana, the big birds of prey, and others.

The drama in the 2009 Tour thus far, despite Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara in yellow for much of week one, has been about Team Astana and the internal dynamic between seven-time return winner Lance Armstrong, and last year’s Tour winner, Alberto Contador.

As of yesterday, Garmin’s Bradley Wiggins sat fifth in the overall standings, and Christian Vande Velde in 10th. Wiggins transitioned from being a championship track rider to a road racer, dropping seven kilos recently toward that end.

And Vande Velde had been expected to do well at this year’s TDF prior to a bad crash in the Tour of Italy in May, in which he fractured three vertebrae, two ribs, and his pelvis. Naturally serious doubts arose about his recuperation and overall condition for the start of the Tour de France, but he has proved his toughness.

The buzz around Garmin yesterday centered around David Millar’s highly aggressive solo breakaway in stage six, which he sustained until a couple of kilometers to the line. His consolation prize was wearing the red and white “aggressive rider” number the following day.

Another big story line in the race so far is the dominance of Columbia HTC’s Mark Cavendish in finish line sprints. The fascinating subtext is that Garmin’s Tyler Farrar has presented a serious threat to Cavendish’s monopoly, particularly after beating him in a sprint at this year’s Tirreno-Adriatico.

Farrar showed that when the planets align, and strong work from leadout men including Julian Dean, he has the legs. He has finished close behind Cavendish in the sprint stages in this year’s Tour.

There were high expectations for Garmin in the stage four team time trial, in part because Dave Zabriskie is a time trial champ. The team lost four riders sooner than predicted, but managed to finish with the required five men, in fourth place.

Garmin’s been consistently near the front of the peloton—sharing the workload, ready to jump—should the occasion arise.

With Wiggins and Vande Velde as legitimate GC contenders, Millar stealing some breakaway thunder, and Farrar as a sprint threat, Jonathan Vaughters’ Garmin-Slipstream team has to be gratified with the Tour so far.

Tyler Farrar, 24 and pro-cyclist since 2003, seems to have serious plans this year. If Tirreno-Adriatico is any indication—winning stage three and second in the last stage—then we will be hearing a lot more from him this season.

For his third-stage win, Tyler beat back a full complement of top sprinters including Tom Boonen, Robbie McEwen, Thor Hushovd and last year's sprint revelation Mark Cavendish. 

This made it already four wins for Tyler in this as yet young season. 

Will we see Tyler Farrar replicate Mark Cavendish's astounding 2008 season with multiple sprint wins in races like the Tour de France, the Giro and  the Vuelta? And maybe even some of the classics? 

His win in Tirreno-Adriatico at least indicates that he has the required top speed. But beyond that there are perhaps a few too many differences both between Farrar and Cavendish  as well as Garmin-Slipstream and Team Columbia High Road. 

Mark Cavendish is a sprinter pur sang; his racing is aimed towards getting in the peloton to the finishing straight and then sprint it out for the win. Currently not many can match his top speed.

Of course, that is now.

Also, Mark Cavendish is still very young at 23 and in the early years of his professional career. He may well follow in the footsteps of great sprinters like Jan Raas and Sean Kelly who became excellent spring classics riders as they got older. 

With fast riders in the team such as George Hincapie, Bernhard Eisel and Andre Greipel Team Columbia High Road is better situated for mass sprint lead-outs for Mark Cavendish than Garmin-Slipstream for Tyler Farrar. 

Now that shouldn't necessarily hinder Tyler in continuing pursuing sprint wins. In the current peloton neither Robbie McEwen nor Oscar Freire have teams that are suited for lead-outs or give their sprinter that kind of support during Tour de France stages and the likes.

This didn't prevent Oscar Freire from winning two stages in the 2006 race and three in the 2007 Vuelta a España. 

Tyler Farrar is not only quick in covering the last 200 meters to the finish line, he has good time trial abilities and that combination could give him opportunities in races like Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. 

In the same week Christian Vande Velde also won a stage in Paris-Nice giving Garmin-Slipstream a good start into the spring season. A big overall win like general classification is still absent, I suspect the team had hoped for more from the Tour of California and also Paris-Nice.

But for now, at least the stage wins come in at regular intervals and it will be interesting to see what Vande Velde and David Zabriskie can do in Dauphiné Libéré, the Tour of Switzerland and of course the Tour de France.

Christian Vande Velde was fourth last year. “A year older, a year wiser” the saying goes.

The cycling world is a-buzz, or perhaps more accurately in this age, a-“Twitter” with the promise foretold by Tyler Farrar’s surprising win in the third stage of Tirreno-Adriatico last week.

Judging from the photos, no-one was more surprised than a certain mister Cavendish.  I’m sure he would rather see the pictures of him looking astonished to his left as Tyler edged past him in the final meters disappear from the web.  Cavendish was as disappointed as much as Farrar was elated at having let this one slip.

But let’s break it down.  There are many complex variables in a sprint, a critical one being “luck”—or the ability to make one’s own luck.  Farrar made his own luck in textbook fashion to notch “the biggest win” of his career to date. 

To be sure, Farrar is a sprinter.  He’s won sprints before and will again.  But it has never been against such a potent gathering of the world’s best.  That he outfoxed, outkicked, and outlasted the likes of Boonen, McEwen, Hunter, Hushovd, Petacchi,—and, oh yeah, Cavendish—should not be discounted. 

But nor does it necessarily announce the arrival of the next great sprinting hope and the demise of the greats.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  This was one sprint in one multi-stage race.  The stars aligned for Tyler this time and he pulled a coup of great magnitude, but he must prove consistency against this caliber of greats before we necessarily become as excited as he is. 

Even Farrar noted that Cavendish slowed towards the end allowing him to slip past.  Was Cavendish legitimately spent having mis-timed and gone for it too early, or did he think he had yet another sprint in the bag and just let down his guard a fraction—and a fraction too early? 

The photos suggest that Cavendish was full on the gas and Farrar was simply the fastest man on the day.

But to make this a regular occurrence vs. isolated incident, the Garmin Chipotle team needs to gel a bit more as a lead-out unit for Farrar.  The edge goes to Team Columbia in this regard as they’ve had more practice, and a more singular focus in launching Cavendish from their train as the Big Engine That Could. 

Plus, they’ve arguably got more battle-hardened booster stages for Cav in the likes of Eisel, Hagen, and Griepel.

And even aging Hincapie has been known to mix it up in the sprint (he was the second highest-placed Team Columbia rider on this stage).  They let one get away this time, and trust me, they’ll be reviewing the game tapes, but they’re not panicking.  Yet.

Garmin Chipotle has the building blocks of talent, and Vaughters has the intellect and ingenuity (read “moxie”) to put it together and make it happen.  They are perhaps a season or so away from truly establishing their formula in this aspect of racing. 

Or at least taking their current sprinting construct to the top ranks of the world’s stage and dishing out another royal, nose-thumbing smack down. 

Vaughters’ renegade, scrappy approach needs a bit of smoothing out to make Farrar’s win truly replicable, and Garmin Chipotle’s sprint successes more the norm rather than the exception at this level, against the sport’s top sprinters.

Is this the one and only time we’ll hear from Farrar?  No.  Should the current top-rank sprinters take note?  Indeed.  Should we be more excited than ever for these types of sprint finishes?  Youbetcha.