Samuel D wrote:ukdodger wrote:The numbers taking part are considerable yet it's always the same dozen or so that win.
Keep watching. The breaks don’t usually stay away, but they stay away often enough to make it worth a gamble.
I suspect there's fewer different stage winners in a Tour de France than a Giro or Vuelta, as more of the sprinters' teams bring their top squads (because the mountains aren't usually as harsh at eliminating sprinters and lead-out men as in the other races), which usually reduces a stage to probably one of the top 3 sprinters of a given year, and there's also pressure for a Yellow Jersey winner to win a stage else they get criticised. Despite that, the last two Tours had 14 and 17 different stage winners if I'm counting correctly.