ParisTours'08: A Sprint Or A Break?

A straight line of almost three kilometres with not an obstacle in sight: the Avenue de Grammont in Tours can lay claim to one of the most prestigious finishing straights in all of cycling, rivalled perhaps only by the Via Roma in San Remo and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The big question (as always, the song remains the same) - can a break disturb the great swirling mass of sprinters? Paris-Tours (Sunday, October 12) is the final big race of the year for the sprinters, and the final race for one of the best sprinters around: Erik Zabel. Zabel has a lovely tally of three wins in the so called sprinters' classic, and yet, the sprinters aren't anywhere near assured of glory on the Avenue de Grammont. 8 of the last 11 Paris-Tours' have been decided outside of a bunch sprint. Let's take a pictorial run down the last four years of... [read full story]