The green jersey race at halftime

Since we'll all be preoccupied with Alps through Tuesday, I'll focus on the green jersey now. It is halftime--5 of the first 7 days were for sprinters, and they have 5 more stages in which they can score big points remaining. Actually, 2 of those 5 are tricky because they finish on the downhill, so they may get shut out of a bunch finish or two.

Here are the current standings:
Tom Boonen 141 pts.
Erik Zabel 130
Oscar Freire 114
Robbie Hunter 103
THOR! 101
Robbie McEwen 97
Sebastien Chavanel 94

How'd we get here? Boonen, THOR, and McEwen all won stages. Zabel, Freire, and Hunter have all been close and fairly consistent. Chavanel has been consistent too, just not as close. McEwen and THOR have both suffered lousy days with few or no points.

Don't assume they'll all make it out of the mountains, and don't assume those who do make it out will have strong sprinting legs. Clearly, Boonen has the best chance to win. He's got a commanding lead on everyone except Zabel, over whom his lead is simply fair. It also helps that Boonen has proven to be faster than Zabel head to head. For Zabel (or anyone else) to catch him, Boonen is going to have to make a mistake or have something goofy happen--like, say, getting hurt in a crash. Speaking of which, McEwen is now on the outside looking in. For him to have any chance, he needs to win stages. Picking up intermediate sprint points would help too, but I can't remember him ever giving a hoot about the intermediate sprints. Boonen, apparently has started caring, as he took 4 points in one during stage 6. While Boonen's lead is daunting, he can't afford a goose egg, and those sorts of results have been very common among the elite sprinters this year.


Finally!