Marcel Kittel to miss Tour de France

Lotto Soudal seem to have been talking up Greipel's chances this year, I wouldn't be surprised if they do a bit more of the chasing, especially with Kittel out of the frame I think Greipel would likely fancy his chances a bit more.
It's a shame not to see Cav vs Kittel this year though as Cav seems to have some good form.

Oh noes, a virus? The sort of virus that you inject into your thighs to make them bigger, but sometimes it goes septic and you have to buy Riccò's black pudding as an antidote?

That could happen to anyone!

My girlfriend will be devastated, how am I going to get her to watch it with me now?

The impact it will have on Cav chances will be that it will only be OPQS that ride to bring breakaways back on the pure sprint stages rather than them and alpecin, maybe confidis and Katusha will help last 1/3 or 1/4 if they are gonna put their eggs in the Bouhanni an Kristoff baskets and go for stage wins - Lotto might look to be more oppurtunistic with Gallopin, Wellens and De Gendt in the team putting Greipel up their at the end if other teams have bought it back together and Saxo aren't gonna fire all their lads up the front to chase down the break with contador going for the double - just try and let Sagan rely on hiis race craft, sky will be sky - OGE who knows, but they will surely be looking at someone in the breakaway everyday and Farrar and EBH don't have the raw pure speed for MTN to sit on front but surely they will have someone up the road everyday, same with Demare and FDJ who don't have the engines to sit there and pull a break back.

Basically OPQS are gonna have to pull their tripe out to get Cav the stage wins...

Yeah. I'm not exactly buying the 'without Kittel Cav has a harder time'. For one, if he keeps maximising his points on stages (which he might otherwise drop points on with Kittel he'll have the most points he can get. Sagan may pick up a minor place or two, but it's not going dent his strategy too much. Dengenkolb can play if he wants to, albeit he is not as fast as the big(ger) German.

Basically Cav's weaknesses in the points race will still be his weaknesses.

Yeah they did something similar a few years back 'because the best sprinter isn't winning the green jersey'. Then they start putting Sprint stages in instead of prologues to get him into the yellow jersey. And they turn a blind eye to numerous infractions. Cav is Prudhomme's golden boy.

Cav on the Champs Elysée? Wouldn't bet against it, if Renshaw and him navigate their way through the three weeks.

Realistically Cav is not likely to get the Green unless Sagan has a dip in form. Cav could/should bag a hat-full of stage wins though.

Are you sure his absence is going to hit Mark Cavendish's green jersey chances (as stated in the article header)? Seems like it's a comparatively good thing.