Cycling - World Championship 2006 Salzburg (24/09/06)

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Odds on the favourites:

	Win	Paced 1-3
Bettini	5.00	2.00
Boonen	6.50	2.30
Valverde	7.00	2.20
Vinokourov	8.50	2.75
O'Grady	14.00	4.25
Gilbert	17.00	5.25
Schumacher	17.00	5.25
Di Luca	17.00	5.25
Hushovd	22.00	7.00
Zabel	25.00	8.00

Odds from Unibet Profile of the race: 265,2 km (12 tours)

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Re: Cycling - World Championship 2006 Salzburg (24/09/06)

Sport	Cycling
Event	World Championship 2006 - Road Race : Winner
Selection	Boonen Tom
Strength	4/10
Date	24/09/2006
Bookmaker/Price	Unibet @ 6.50 (Back)
Reasoning	Boonen was last years WC in Madrid. He then won in a sprint with a small pack. The course of this year isn't as hard as expected, which is an advantage for Boonen, because he is the best sprinter(after such a long race). Since his dissapointing Tour de France, Boonen prepared himself for the last objective of this season, this WC. If I may believe the newspapers Boonen thinks he will have no problems to get over the hills. He says the hills are comparable with the hills in the Flemish races(in which Boonen is simply the best). The others cyclists have to try to get alone to the finish without Boonen or they'll probably lose the race. In contrast with a few years ago Belgium has now a real team that wants to race for each other. This could be an advantage to help Boonen if any of the other candidates manages to dash off. The other big candidates in my point of view are Bettini, Valverde and Di Luca.