Tour Down Under
At first glance, it's hard to look past last year's winner, Rohan Dennis. Many of the riders are Aussies, but Dennis is from Adelaide itself, where the entire race is based, and winning on the roads he grew up on seemed to ignite a great 2015 season. Now with the knowledge that he's done it before, he might just take some stopping from becoming the first man to successfully defend the TDU title.
Can Simon Gerrans do it again? The TDU's only three-time winner, few can doubt his credentials, but his 2015 season was more or less a write off after injuries, and you just wonder if, at the age of 35, he's still got it in him to bounce back from that.
Want more talented Australian riders? How about the new national road race champion Jack Bobridge? While perhaps not a GC contender, he's got to be on a high from winning the nationals, and is likely to repeat his King of the Mountains success from the 2015 edition.
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Caleb Ewan already has yesterday's People's Choice Classic victory under his belt, and the 21 year old is a hot tip to pick up his first stage wins in the Tour Down Under proper, with the help of a well-drilled Orica-GreenEDGE leadout.
Richie Porte's first stage race since leaving Team Sky for BMC could be a frustrating one. Ostensibly he left Sky to get more chance at race wins with the American outfit, but he may have to swallow his pride for the time being and play second fiddle to his teammate Rohan Dennis. It will be fascinating to see how that intra-team rivalry develops over the week, as with just 7 riders per team, a two-pronged approach seems unlikely, if not impossible.
Outside Australia, typically Team Sky are coming to win, although as I said with BMC, their potential double leaders of Geraint Thomas and Sergio Henao may have to be swiftly streamlined, although both will be eager to prove themselves as viable team leaders.
So, brave prediction time. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I don't see Richie Porte settling for second place even at this early stage, and his two straight wins in the potentially decisive stage 5 makes me think this is his year. Betfair's got him at 11/2 overall if betting's your thing (like it is mine...)
My gut tells me Domenico Pozzovivo will take his horrendous AG2R jersey to success, so expect to see him up at the sharp end of the key stages if you trust my judgement. Mark Renshaw's a good shout to win a stage if the Dimension Data train can perform against Orica-GreenEDGE too.
Feel free to never mention those last few paragraphs again if they've all been proven wrong in a week's time. Enjoy the race, and keep your eyes open for our results coverage!
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