Originally Posted by alanbikehouston
Sitting here on Friday, my guess would be that if Landis is wearing yellow on Sunday morning, his lead over the second place rider is likely to be only around 30 seconds or 45 seconds.
There have been a number of Tours over the past fifteen years where the gap between first and second on the last day was not much more than a minute. Yet, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that the second place rider would not challenge the first place rider, and they both rode into Paris sipping champagne.
It would seem very odd to me if Sastre is about 30 seconds behind Landis when they are about ten miles from Paris, and Sastre says "What the heck...I'm just gonna relax and settle for second place".
If just Landis, Sastre and Pereiro were on the road this might be the case. But there are over 100 other riders. There are at least 10 loops at the end where riders are very visible and all gaps are obvious (e.g. ideal for running down a break). Winning the final stage is a jewel in the crown for a sprinter that is just (barely) below a green jersey. The tour organizers put in a stage that is dead flat.
In short the teams of the sprinters will pull back anything. Even if they wouldn't a single rider would have to outride an entire team. So unless it is very close there is no point. It just will not work.