LIMOGES, FRANCE -- Defending Tour de France champion Chris Froome remains wary of the threat that Spaniard Alejandro Valverde still poses, even though the seasoned grand tour rider has declared that he is racing here to help Movistar teammate Nairo Quintana, from Colombia, win the event overall.Last year, Quintana was second overall and Valverde was third after their team led a planned two-pronged approach to the race. But this year Quintana is the top seed at Movistar, especially with Valverde having already raced the Giro dItalia in which he finished third behind Italian winner Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), who is also at the Tour to help Italian Fabio Aru (Astana), and Colombian runner-up Esteban Chaves (Orica-BikeExchange), who is not at the Tour but preparing for the Vuelta a Espa?a later this year.Speaking after Tuesdays fourth stage of the Tour -- 237.5km from Saumur to Limoges that was won in a bunch sprint by German Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) from Frenchman Bryan Coquard (Direct-Energie) and Slovakian race leader Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) -- Froome said of Valverde: He seems to be in good [form]. I wouldnt be surprised if he is just [preparing] himself to ride GC [general classification] and have a two-pronged approach with Nairo. They definitely have the team to do it. Until he loses time, Ive got to treat him as a rival.There is much expectation that some clue of who could challenge for this Tour might be revealed in Wednesdays fifth stage, which is the first hill stage of this years 103rd edition. In the the 216km stage from Limoges to Le Lioran, the last five of six categorised climbs are in the last 80 kilometres. But in the last 40 kilometres, there are with two second category climbs -- the 5.4km Pas de Peyrol and the 4.4km Col de Perthus -- and the third category 3.3km Col de Font de Cère, after which there is a tricky descent to the finish with 2.5km to go.On Tuesday Sagan deflected questions about his chances in the stage. The world champion will start the stage with an overall lead of 12 seconds on second place Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe (FDJ), 14 seconds on third place Valverde and 18 seconds on a group of 22 riders, which includes all but four of the pre-Tour favourites, including Froome, who is fifth.I think its a bit too early to see a real GC battle, but its definitely somewhere where there will be time gaps, Froome said. Its not going to be a big bunch sprint. Its going to be a more select group coming to the line. Maybe a stage for someone like Alaphilippe or Valverde, [Irishman] Dan Martin [of Etixx-QuickStep who is 13th overall] maybe.Alberto Contador: The hardest Tour start of my career.Asked about his chances of defending the yellow jersey that he claimed by winning stage two on Sunday, Sagan said: I cant tell you now. I tell you tomorrow after the stage. But without a doubt he will do as he said he will, which is to try to hold on to the lead.The Slovakian was more candid about his Spanish teammate Alberto Contador, who began this Tour as one of the major overall contenders, but crashed in both stages one and two. Those crashes put Contador on the back foot. He is 54th overall at 1 minute, 6 seconds behind.How the race unfolds might reveal how much Contador has recovered from his crashes. But Sagan said: He is a very tough guy and has recovered well. I am sure he will be there.Contador, who has hurt his left and right sides in his fall and a calf muscle, said: Its hard for me to pedal sitting out of the saddle, but thats a question of time. I got through today without crashing, and thats the most important thing. Tomorrow is a hard day. I have to get ready mentally to take it on. This has been the hardest Tour start of my career.However, a yellow jersey change is likely, according to Jim Ochowicz, president of the American BMC Racing team, which has overall contenders in American Tejay van Garderen (15th overall at 18 seconds) and Australian Richie Porte (71st at 2 minutes, 3 seconds). Portes early time loss was due to a rear tyre puncture inside the last five kilometres of stage two.Asked if he foresees a leadership switch, Ochowicz told ESPN: Yes. I am not going to predict who, but there are some close contenders in terms of time. Alaphilippe has got the advantage right now being in second. He has probably got the upper hand.Ochowicz believes the stage could see two races: one for the stage win between a break of non-Tour contenders of riders who can climb; and a second between the overall favourites.You are going to see a lot more action than you have seen probably in any stage up till this moment -- probably a break right from the gun that could be more of a break that could make it to the finish, Ochowicz said.Ochowicz expects the Tour contenders to mark each other to see whats left in their legs, he said. Its the first time they are going to go up some real categorized climbs, and in doing so, they are going to push each other to a certain point where someone might have some potential weakness and others will take advantage of that.Ochowicz said there is still no change of leadership at BMC with Portes early demise. We stay focused on two leaders, and they will sort things out [on stage five] a little bit in the race. But I think they will both be probably coming in the group together, he said.Van Garderen said in a team statement that he is looking forward to racing in terrain better suited to him: Im really excited to head to the hills and get the GC sorted out a bit more. Well get a sense of whos going well and whos not. Richie and I did the recon [of the stage] together and its a tricky stage. Its not going to be as hard as the Pyrenees, but it will shake things up. Youre not going to see Sagan and [Mark] Cavendish up there.Cheap Air Max 720 . "Theyve both been real good," said Babcock. "Havent changed our minds." A decision has seemingly been made - Sundays Group B-deciding tilt against Finland ahead - but it could not have been an easy one. Price opened the tournament with a sturdy 19-save performance against the Norwegians, yielding just one goal. Air Max 720 Canada Cheap . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. 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The promotion boasts 14-straight years of business and is operated by MFC president Mark Pavelich, who is often overlooked in this country for the foundation hes established for MMA in Canada.McLarens full Australian GP-specification car will now be tested for the first time on the season-opening weekend after they ran out of time at Barcelona.The Woking team did introduce new chassis parts onto the MP4-31 at the final test but delays in the manufacturing process at their Woking base meant the full package wasnt ready to run in time for Fridays final day.We are not running the 2016 spec here, said racing director Eric Boullier. We are a bit behind the programme. So that means we are going to turn up in Australia with more bits on the car, which have unfortunately not been signed off here. But it is what it is.Boullier downplayed the reasons for the full specification not arriving in time, saying they were perhaps only guilty of being too ambitious in the production timetable.Although the team will now face a particularly busy Friday practice in Melbourne on March 18, Boullier said they could be pleased with the mileage they were able to complete with the new Honda-powered car during the winter. We have been able to run most of the days, which is very good news, said Boullier, after McLaren finished fifth on the mileage charts at the final test with 453 laps completed.In terms of chassis, its important that we could go through all the systems, which we couldnt do last year. So for us its a good achievement. Now we have a reliable car, more or less, to start the season - so we are definitely more confident. Whats the 2016 pecking order? Crunching the numbers and analysing the lap times from F1s winter testing Honda ran two versions of their 2016 power unit across the two tests and their new F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa confirmed the final speciffication had now been homologated for the first race, describing it as a good start point.ddddddddddddAnd with the results of the MP4-31 on track matching their simulation data, Boullier believes the team can look to make continuation improvement once the season commences.There will be more to come now, he predicted. The base looks okay and there will be much more performance in the coming weeks. While reliability may have improved, McLarens position in the initial 2016 pecking order remains uncertain with the team themselves not making predictions about how competitive they will be at the first race.The team, who endured their worst season in 30 years in 2015, finished the second test with a 13th-fastest time which was two seconds adrift of Ferraris leading pace.Asked if they could be fighting with Force India and Toro Rosso, Boullier replied: We will see when we turn up in Melbourne with our full spec.Its true that Force India and Toro Rosso were competitive last year. Their cars were just an evolution of last year, so there is no reason why they will not be competitive.The first race of the 2016 F1 season, the Australian GP, is exclusively live on Sky Sports F1. The race in Melbourne starts at 5am on Sunday March 20. Every race live in 2016 Sky Sports F1 brings you every race live in 2016. Fast and easy online upgrade - click hereAlso See:Vettel ends testing on topWhats the F1 pecking order? ' ' '