While their respective team leaders focus on honing their training and preparations for the Tour de France, Team Sky and Tinkoff-Saxo are going through vastly differing Giro d’Italia experiences at the moment.
Perhaps no single performance typifies the relative fortunes of the teams of the two pre-Tour de France favourites more than Michael Rogers’ comeback victory on the eleventh stage of the Giro d’Italia.
Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) start as two of the favourite for the 101st Tour de France, set to roll out in Leeds on Saturday July 5.
But if the season’s first Grand Tour is anything to go on form-wise, it is Contador’s men who hold the edge.
Ex-Sky man Rogers’ success – courtesy of a perfectly timed acceleration on the Naso di Gatto – marked his return to competitive racing in style and also earned him a first career Grand Tour stage win.
Sky, by contrast, suffered another day where their efforts throughout the stage yielded nothing in the way of a positive result.
Let’s take a closer look at the form of the two teams.
