Originally Posted by
TommyL
The big question to me is, where does Andy attack?
FWIW my best guess is that similar to 15, Saxo will set a strong tempo in a (somewhat) vain attempt to dampen Astana's firepower, and Andy will attack shortly after the last Saxo domestique peels off. It's possible, unfortunately, that this could happen too early on the climb.
It's also possible Astana will move to the front (as they have the MJ), in which case I presume Schleck can choose a more advantageous time but will probably be alone (again).
I doubt Schleck will be able to play the same games as earlier, he needs to nab minutes if he's going to have a fighting chance in the TT. But after 2 Tours I don't think I've ever seen either one take much time out of the other -- they're evenly matched. Of course, if Andy digs too deep or lets his desire for Revenge get the better of him, it could make his TT even worse.
We'll see what happens, but my feeling is the end result will be Contador 1, Menchov 2, Schleck 3 -- especially if AC & AS play games on Thursday.