22 Jul 2008

Tour de France too close to call, rest day welcome

12:41 pm on 22 July 2008

The Tour de France is looking likely to be one of the closest in years with the three leading riders within eight seconds of each other with less than a week to go.

But New Zealand sprinter Julian Dean is picking the winner will be the fourth-placed Rabobank rider, the Russian Denis Menchov, who's 38 seconds back.

Today's a rare rest day and Dean says it's just nice to have the day off because, like all the riders, he's tired.

Dean, who's currently 10th in the race for the green sprinter's jersey, says the riders start to have good and bad days and some days you feel completely exhausted.

On rest days the riders think there's no way they could have raced that day but then if it wasn't a rest day they'd be back on the bike regardless.

Dean hopes he'll bounce back tomorrow after a day out of the saddle.