Tour de France round-up
I haven't done any Tour recaps this week, mainly because I've been trying so hard to stay away from LiveJournal just in case any Harry spoilers creep into my vision. But today, after the last stage, I have to.
The Pyrenees at the weekend and on Tuesday produced some phenomenal riding. George Hincapie's victory last Sunday had me grinning like a loon - it's always good to see a leuitenant given the freedom to hunt a victory - and every day has been great to watch. The top guys kept racing for the overall even on the flatter (but still hilly and low-mountainy) days when I would usually expect them to leave the racing to the breakaways and sprinters. Even on Thursday, a day when I hadn't expected anything to change the yellow jersey competition, we had Lance, Basso and Ullrich battling it out behind the breakaway. When the route was announced last year, I expected this last week to be rather dull with only breakaways and sprints to watch. I had expected the yellow jersey to be decided last weekend. Obviously the riders thought differently because they were still attacking and trying to best Armstrong right to the end. Would I prefer next year's Tour to have the mountains spread out a little more and appearing later in the race? Definitely. But the route produced much better racing than I had expected and the Tour organisers proved that you simply can't design a route that will beat Lance Armstrong.
The culmination of this week's racing came yesterday in the final time trial. When places are at stake, people can produce time trials that you just never thought they could do. I can still remember Pantani's amazing ride in the final time trial of the '98 Tour - who would have thought that he could ride a time trial well enough to keep the yellow jersey against Ullrich?
Yesterday Basso showed that he has made huge improvements in his time trial abilities and is a definite hope for next year's overall win. He didn't beat Ullrich, but he didn't lose massive chunks of time to Ullrich and putting this together with his performances in the mountains could see him beat Ullrich next year. Ullrich himself put in a great time trial, which is no surprise in a time trial specialist. Lance Armstrong showed why he's a seven-times Tour winner by outperforming Ullrich in the time trial after outperforming Ullrich in the mountains throughout the Tour.
The biggest loser yesterday was Michael Rasmussen. He did an amazing job of retaining third place throughout the mountain stages and winning the King of the Mountains jersey. I've loved watching someone win the KoM who can climb well in the high mountains and keep hopes alive of standing on the podium. Seeing his performance reminded me a great deal of Claudio Chiapucci in the early '90s and I would love to see him get a podium position in a future Tour (with the KoM jersey on his back as well). Unfortunately, yesterday was the most disasterous time trial I have ever seen. Laurent Jalabert had a bad time trial a few years ago, getting several punctures and eventually throwing his bike in a field from sheer frustration. Rasmussen had an even worse time - two crashes and four bike changes due to problems with his rear wheel. A large part of the problem might have been the time trial bike. Rasmussen was a mountain biker so he's a great bike handler and a very good descender. A time trial bike, though, is unweildy, difficult to steer and bloody terrifying. I think Rasmussen's first crash, taking a corner too quickly around a roundabout, unsettled him and from there nothing seemed to go right. He lost over seven minutes and dropped several places to finish seventh overall.
The final stage into Paris is always the showcase stage for the winners - a chance for them to relax a little and enjoy their success. Normally this involves riding along with glasses of champagne in beautiful sunshine, at least until they reach Paris and begin actually racing the stage. Overcast weather and rain in Paris put a stop to a lot of that and added a terror factor for the observers. Vinokourov's surprisingly good time trial yesterday had put him up to sixth, close enough to fifth placed Leipheimer that a few seconds in intermediate sprint bonuses could get him that extra placing. He took the first intermediate sprint and pulled himself level with Leipheimer. Things got trickier after that and I discovered a rule that applies only to the final stage.
The stage into Paris involves eight circuits of Paris, passing the finish line on the Champs Elysee each time. This is where the racing usually hots up. Over the years the final stage has seen a number of crashes due to over-enthusiasm or poor judgement and bad weather compounds the problem. Light rain after three weeks of very dry weather makes the road slippery and greasy, which can be dangerous at the best of times and lethal on cobblestones. There is a rule that, if the weather starts making the final stage dangerous, the commissairs can take the final times on the next pass of the finish line - which could be the sixth or seventh pass or, in the case of today's stage, the first. Although the riders still have to complete the eight circuits, with the overall times decided they should take the route much more slowly and safely.
The weather did start drying out after around four circuits, but while it was dangerous the riders were remarkably sane, particularly in the sharp corner at the far end of the Champs Elysee where they turn back on themselves. This could have been the most dangerous part of the route, but nobody came off. Due to the weather there were a lot of punctures and a few minor tumbles, but nobody was seriously hurt and anyone dropped knew that their times were safe so they just tootled carefully around.
There were a number of attempted breakaways as the weather got better, but they were all caught and I fully expected the race to come down to a bunch sprint. Da and I both had Robbie McEwan picked out as the stage winner.
Obviously Vinokourov hadn't read the script because he jumped out with two kilometers to go and managed to hold of the peloton for the entire distance to get one of the best Champs Elysee victories I have seen. Da and I were both cheering him on during the final few meters and had a good old yell when he won :-)
The commissairs also decided that the time bonuses would be available on that final sprint so the win put Vino up to fifth overall. Brilliant.
Lance Armstrong
What can I say? Eddy Merckx is still the greatest cyclist in history, nobody can beat that, but Lance is a very worthy (and close) second and he is absolutely the greatest Tour rider in history. Feel free to correct me in a decade, but right now I sincerely doubt that we'll see another rider like him. His record of seven Tour wins will stay unbeaten for a long time - perhaps forever. He didn't win any road stages this year, but he still looked unbeatable and he did win the time trial. Part of what makes him so good is his intelligence and tactical ability - he knew who he could afford to ignore (all those breakaways in the mountains) and he knew who was dangerous and had to be watched. Even when his team weren't there to support him, he still couldn't be beaten. Basso was the only man who could stay with him when he attacked and I think that Armstrong is right to call him the next hope.
This year's Tour was, in many ways, a retirement do for Lance. Although I'm going to miss him a lot, I'm glad that he's going out at the top of his sport. It was painful to watch Indurain's last Tour because he suddenly looked mortal. Everyone will remember Armstrong as the unbeatable man.
The great thing about watching Lance over the past seven years is that every Tour has been interesting and thrilling. Indurain was a great champion, but his victories were never as enjoyable to watch. You always started each Armstrong Tour wondering whether this would be the year he was finally beaten and ended it with a huge grin because the win had been so good. Each year was unique to watch. Indurain won Tours by keeping up in the mountains and taking lots of time in the time trials. He never really attacked on the road and his rivals were always much more interesting to watch. Armstrong is a great time triallist but his Tour victories were created on the road, in the mountains. He climbed like a climber, putting in the most amazing accelerations on the hardest climbs and keeping the speed up. Watching him do that was one of the most beautiful sights in cycling and it's what made his Tour wins so good to watch.
Ivan Basso
I'm going to stick my neck out and put him as next year's Tour winner. He won't win seven times, probably only two or three, but with Lance Armstrong's retirement he is the best rider out there.
His performance this year was great and it's hard to believe that he also rode the Giro for a high placing, too. If this is what Basso can do with one tiring Grand Tour in him, what will he do if he doesn't ride the Giro next year? He rides the Tour in a very similar manner to Armstrong, taking all of his time in the mountains. Although his time trialing has improved and he doesn't lost much, he probably will never beat Ullrich against the clock. His strength is in the mountains, having Armstrong's ability to put in a big acceleration that Ullrich can't match and then keeping up the tempo so that Ullrich can't get back. He climbs like a climber and he can suffer like Armstrong. His team was much stronger this year and if his manager, Bjarne Riis, keeps building a team modelled on Discovery then Basso will have all the support he needs to win the Tour de France.
Jan Ullrich
Again he showed that he's a great rider, but probably past his best. His biggest problem is that he only gets his form late in the race and by then he's lost too much time to make it up. His fragmented team doesn't help, but at the end of the day the problem lies with Ullrich himself. His riding style is very much like Indurain's, but I have a feeling that if Indurain had been riding a few years later even he couldn't have beaten Armstrong or Basso. Ullrich pushes a massive gear in the mountains, which means than he doesn't have the ability to put in the sudden accelerations that Basso and Armstrong can. He also doesn't quite have the tactical abilities, quick reflexes or the bike handling skills, which probably explain why he ended up head-first through his team car's rear window a few days before the start of the Tour. His opening time trial was disasterous and had to have demoralised him. He didn't seem to regain his confidence until much too late. The Ullrich of '97, or even of '03, seems to have gone and I don't know whether he'll ever regain that edge. If Basso doesn't ride next year then Ullrich will probably win, but that's the only way that I can see him in Parish with the yellow again.
Alexendre Vinokourov
One of my favourite riders this year, although he'll need to make some changes to be a Tour winner. I like his aggression and passion. His victory on the Champs Elysee was beautifully timed and his win in Briancon showed that he can attack and climb on the big mountains to great effect. He even pulled off a better time trial than I expected and thoroughly deserves his high placing. However, he often attacked when he had nothing in the legs to follow it up with and expended too much energy on moves that were never going to work. Experience will iron out some of that, but he needs to learn how to ride tactically and intelligently like Armstrong if he's going to win one day. In many ways, his physical style is very much like Armstrong and Basso - he'll need to make his big time gains in the mountains and try not to loose to much time in the time trials.
I think that the biggest thing that Vino could do is change teams. His contract with T-Mobile is up at the end of the year and it would be career suicide to stay there. The team showed this year that they have no intention of supporting him and the uncertainty about who was team leader did none of them any good. When Ullrich lead the chase back to him on one stage, it just showed how fragmented and problematic that team is. The rumour is that Vino could be signing with Discovery next year and that's a move could be just right for him. Popovych, the young guy on the team who shows most promise of taking on Armstrong's mantel, is probably still too young to be a final winner. Vino needs a team like Discovery who will support him, help him and has older riders who can get him thinking more carefully about how he rides. My other choice for a team would be CSC, under Riis, but I doubt Basso will be moving out any time soon. Wherever Vino ends up, it needs to be a team that will be 100% behind him and has the strength in depth to help him win.
Floyd Landis
In some ways, he had the most disappointing performance of the Tour. I think that he's a Tour winner of the future and he's the best rider to come out of the USPostal/Discovery stable, but his time trial yesterday should have been better and he got dropped in the mountains when he shouldn't have done. He was still the best rider in his team and deserves to be promoted to official team leader next year with the full team's support behind him, but there is work to be done there. On the other hand, he's still a young guy and next year is going to see some major changes in the peloton. One to keep an eye on, definitely.
Michael Rasmussen
This guy was the revelation of the Tour. He's older than he looks, but I think he has a few good years in him and it will be great to see what he can do next year. With Ullrich chasing, I didn't think that he'd keep his third place yesterday, but nobody can say he didn't try. He was a worthy winner of the King of the Mountains and it was great to see a polka dot jersey wearer making such inroads on the GC as well. Winning the yellow may be beyond him, but it wouldn't be impossible, either. As with the others, he'll need to take a lot of time in the mountains to do it and have less bad luck in the time trial, but he's definitely going to be livening up the race.
Cadel Evans
Eighth overall while riding for a team that isn't geared up for high Tour placings is quite an acheivement. He won't win the Tour riding for Lotto, but a team change might see him becoming Australia's first Tour winner. He rode very well in the mountains and put in a decent time trial. He's got lots of years in him and wouldn't mind seeing him victorious.
Yaroslav Popovych
The strongest man on Team Discovery after Lance and I would have to agree with the observers that he is a definite candidate for Tour victory in the future. I'm not sure that he can win next year and it will be interesting to see whether he's given the team leader job or whether Discovery bring someone else in for a year or two instead.
There are lots of riders who did fantastic rides this year and it's been a great Tour. Every year, I try to decide whether this is the best Tour ever and I can never say that simply because each Tour is different. This year's Tour has been special because of Lance's retirement and everyone has acknowledged that. I've never seen anyone make a speech on the podium and I think the Tour organisers realised that this podium was a unique experience. We'll never see another champion like Armstrong. At the moment I'm both sad, because I've enjoyed watching him so much, and excited about next year's race because anything could happen.
The Pyrenees at the weekend and on Tuesday produced some phenomenal riding. George Hincapie's victory last Sunday had me grinning like a loon - it's always good to see a leuitenant given the freedom to hunt a victory - and every day has been great to watch. The top guys kept racing for the overall even on the flatter (but still hilly and low-mountainy) days when I would usually expect them to leave the racing to the breakaways and sprinters. Even on Thursday, a day when I hadn't expected anything to change the yellow jersey competition, we had Lance, Basso and Ullrich battling it out behind the breakaway. When the route was announced last year, I expected this last week to be rather dull with only breakaways and sprints to watch. I had expected the yellow jersey to be decided last weekend. Obviously the riders thought differently because they were still attacking and trying to best Armstrong right to the end. Would I prefer next year's Tour to have the mountains spread out a little more and appearing later in the race? Definitely. But the route produced much better racing than I had expected and the Tour organisers proved that you simply can't design a route that will beat Lance Armstrong.
The culmination of this week's racing came yesterday in the final time trial. When places are at stake, people can produce time trials that you just never thought they could do. I can still remember Pantani's amazing ride in the final time trial of the '98 Tour - who would have thought that he could ride a time trial well enough to keep the yellow jersey against Ullrich?
Yesterday Basso showed that he has made huge improvements in his time trial abilities and is a definite hope for next year's overall win. He didn't beat Ullrich, but he didn't lose massive chunks of time to Ullrich and putting this together with his performances in the mountains could see him beat Ullrich next year. Ullrich himself put in a great time trial, which is no surprise in a time trial specialist. Lance Armstrong showed why he's a seven-times Tour winner by outperforming Ullrich in the time trial after outperforming Ullrich in the mountains throughout the Tour.
The biggest loser yesterday was Michael Rasmussen. He did an amazing job of retaining third place throughout the mountain stages and winning the King of the Mountains jersey. I've loved watching someone win the KoM who can climb well in the high mountains and keep hopes alive of standing on the podium. Seeing his performance reminded me a great deal of Claudio Chiapucci in the early '90s and I would love to see him get a podium position in a future Tour (with the KoM jersey on his back as well). Unfortunately, yesterday was the most disasterous time trial I have ever seen. Laurent Jalabert had a bad time trial a few years ago, getting several punctures and eventually throwing his bike in a field from sheer frustration. Rasmussen had an even worse time - two crashes and four bike changes due to problems with his rear wheel. A large part of the problem might have been the time trial bike. Rasmussen was a mountain biker so he's a great bike handler and a very good descender. A time trial bike, though, is unweildy, difficult to steer and bloody terrifying. I think Rasmussen's first crash, taking a corner too quickly around a roundabout, unsettled him and from there nothing seemed to go right. He lost over seven minutes and dropped several places to finish seventh overall.
The final stage into Paris is always the showcase stage for the winners - a chance for them to relax a little and enjoy their success. Normally this involves riding along with glasses of champagne in beautiful sunshine, at least until they reach Paris and begin actually racing the stage. Overcast weather and rain in Paris put a stop to a lot of that and added a terror factor for the observers. Vinokourov's surprisingly good time trial yesterday had put him up to sixth, close enough to fifth placed Leipheimer that a few seconds in intermediate sprint bonuses could get him that extra placing. He took the first intermediate sprint and pulled himself level with Leipheimer. Things got trickier after that and I discovered a rule that applies only to the final stage.
The stage into Paris involves eight circuits of Paris, passing the finish line on the Champs Elysee each time. This is where the racing usually hots up. Over the years the final stage has seen a number of crashes due to over-enthusiasm or poor judgement and bad weather compounds the problem. Light rain after three weeks of very dry weather makes the road slippery and greasy, which can be dangerous at the best of times and lethal on cobblestones. There is a rule that, if the weather starts making the final stage dangerous, the commissairs can take the final times on the next pass of the finish line - which could be the sixth or seventh pass or, in the case of today's stage, the first. Although the riders still have to complete the eight circuits, with the overall times decided they should take the route much more slowly and safely.
The weather did start drying out after around four circuits, but while it was dangerous the riders were remarkably sane, particularly in the sharp corner at the far end of the Champs Elysee where they turn back on themselves. This could have been the most dangerous part of the route, but nobody came off. Due to the weather there were a lot of punctures and a few minor tumbles, but nobody was seriously hurt and anyone dropped knew that their times were safe so they just tootled carefully around.
There were a number of attempted breakaways as the weather got better, but they were all caught and I fully expected the race to come down to a bunch sprint. Da and I both had Robbie McEwan picked out as the stage winner.
Obviously Vinokourov hadn't read the script because he jumped out with two kilometers to go and managed to hold of the peloton for the entire distance to get one of the best Champs Elysee victories I have seen. Da and I were both cheering him on during the final few meters and had a good old yell when he won :-)
The commissairs also decided that the time bonuses would be available on that final sprint so the win put Vino up to fifth overall. Brilliant.
Lance Armstrong
What can I say? Eddy Merckx is still the greatest cyclist in history, nobody can beat that, but Lance is a very worthy (and close) second and he is absolutely the greatest Tour rider in history. Feel free to correct me in a decade, but right now I sincerely doubt that we'll see another rider like him. His record of seven Tour wins will stay unbeaten for a long time - perhaps forever. He didn't win any road stages this year, but he still looked unbeatable and he did win the time trial. Part of what makes him so good is his intelligence and tactical ability - he knew who he could afford to ignore (all those breakaways in the mountains) and he knew who was dangerous and had to be watched. Even when his team weren't there to support him, he still couldn't be beaten. Basso was the only man who could stay with him when he attacked and I think that Armstrong is right to call him the next hope.
This year's Tour was, in many ways, a retirement do for Lance. Although I'm going to miss him a lot, I'm glad that he's going out at the top of his sport. It was painful to watch Indurain's last Tour because he suddenly looked mortal. Everyone will remember Armstrong as the unbeatable man.
The great thing about watching Lance over the past seven years is that every Tour has been interesting and thrilling. Indurain was a great champion, but his victories were never as enjoyable to watch. You always started each Armstrong Tour wondering whether this would be the year he was finally beaten and ended it with a huge grin because the win had been so good. Each year was unique to watch. Indurain won Tours by keeping up in the mountains and taking lots of time in the time trials. He never really attacked on the road and his rivals were always much more interesting to watch. Armstrong is a great time triallist but his Tour victories were created on the road, in the mountains. He climbed like a climber, putting in the most amazing accelerations on the hardest climbs and keeping the speed up. Watching him do that was one of the most beautiful sights in cycling and it's what made his Tour wins so good to watch.
Ivan Basso
I'm going to stick my neck out and put him as next year's Tour winner. He won't win seven times, probably only two or three, but with Lance Armstrong's retirement he is the best rider out there.
His performance this year was great and it's hard to believe that he also rode the Giro for a high placing, too. If this is what Basso can do with one tiring Grand Tour in him, what will he do if he doesn't ride the Giro next year? He rides the Tour in a very similar manner to Armstrong, taking all of his time in the mountains. Although his time trialing has improved and he doesn't lost much, he probably will never beat Ullrich against the clock. His strength is in the mountains, having Armstrong's ability to put in a big acceleration that Ullrich can't match and then keeping up the tempo so that Ullrich can't get back. He climbs like a climber and he can suffer like Armstrong. His team was much stronger this year and if his manager, Bjarne Riis, keeps building a team modelled on Discovery then Basso will have all the support he needs to win the Tour de France.
Jan Ullrich
Again he showed that he's a great rider, but probably past his best. His biggest problem is that he only gets his form late in the race and by then he's lost too much time to make it up. His fragmented team doesn't help, but at the end of the day the problem lies with Ullrich himself. His riding style is very much like Indurain's, but I have a feeling that if Indurain had been riding a few years later even he couldn't have beaten Armstrong or Basso. Ullrich pushes a massive gear in the mountains, which means than he doesn't have the ability to put in the sudden accelerations that Basso and Armstrong can. He also doesn't quite have the tactical abilities, quick reflexes or the bike handling skills, which probably explain why he ended up head-first through his team car's rear window a few days before the start of the Tour. His opening time trial was disasterous and had to have demoralised him. He didn't seem to regain his confidence until much too late. The Ullrich of '97, or even of '03, seems to have gone and I don't know whether he'll ever regain that edge. If Basso doesn't ride next year then Ullrich will probably win, but that's the only way that I can see him in Parish with the yellow again.
Alexendre Vinokourov
One of my favourite riders this year, although he'll need to make some changes to be a Tour winner. I like his aggression and passion. His victory on the Champs Elysee was beautifully timed and his win in Briancon showed that he can attack and climb on the big mountains to great effect. He even pulled off a better time trial than I expected and thoroughly deserves his high placing. However, he often attacked when he had nothing in the legs to follow it up with and expended too much energy on moves that were never going to work. Experience will iron out some of that, but he needs to learn how to ride tactically and intelligently like Armstrong if he's going to win one day. In many ways, his physical style is very much like Armstrong and Basso - he'll need to make his big time gains in the mountains and try not to loose to much time in the time trials.
I think that the biggest thing that Vino could do is change teams. His contract with T-Mobile is up at the end of the year and it would be career suicide to stay there. The team showed this year that they have no intention of supporting him and the uncertainty about who was team leader did none of them any good. When Ullrich lead the chase back to him on one stage, it just showed how fragmented and problematic that team is. The rumour is that Vino could be signing with Discovery next year and that's a move could be just right for him. Popovych, the young guy on the team who shows most promise of taking on Armstrong's mantel, is probably still too young to be a final winner. Vino needs a team like Discovery who will support him, help him and has older riders who can get him thinking more carefully about how he rides. My other choice for a team would be CSC, under Riis, but I doubt Basso will be moving out any time soon. Wherever Vino ends up, it needs to be a team that will be 100% behind him and has the strength in depth to help him win.
Floyd Landis
In some ways, he had the most disappointing performance of the Tour. I think that he's a Tour winner of the future and he's the best rider to come out of the USPostal/Discovery stable, but his time trial yesterday should have been better and he got dropped in the mountains when he shouldn't have done. He was still the best rider in his team and deserves to be promoted to official team leader next year with the full team's support behind him, but there is work to be done there. On the other hand, he's still a young guy and next year is going to see some major changes in the peloton. One to keep an eye on, definitely.
Michael Rasmussen
This guy was the revelation of the Tour. He's older than he looks, but I think he has a few good years in him and it will be great to see what he can do next year. With Ullrich chasing, I didn't think that he'd keep his third place yesterday, but nobody can say he didn't try. He was a worthy winner of the King of the Mountains and it was great to see a polka dot jersey wearer making such inroads on the GC as well. Winning the yellow may be beyond him, but it wouldn't be impossible, either. As with the others, he'll need to take a lot of time in the mountains to do it and have less bad luck in the time trial, but he's definitely going to be livening up the race.
Cadel Evans
Eighth overall while riding for a team that isn't geared up for high Tour placings is quite an acheivement. He won't win the Tour riding for Lotto, but a team change might see him becoming Australia's first Tour winner. He rode very well in the mountains and put in a decent time trial. He's got lots of years in him and wouldn't mind seeing him victorious.
Yaroslav Popovych
The strongest man on Team Discovery after Lance and I would have to agree with the observers that he is a definite candidate for Tour victory in the future. I'm not sure that he can win next year and it will be interesting to see whether he's given the team leader job or whether Discovery bring someone else in for a year or two instead.
There are lots of riders who did fantastic rides this year and it's been a great Tour. Every year, I try to decide whether this is the best Tour ever and I can never say that simply because each Tour is different. This year's Tour has been special because of Lance's retirement and everyone has acknowledged that. I've never seen anyone make a speech on the podium and I think the Tour organisers realised that this podium was a unique experience. We'll never see another champion like Armstrong. At the moment I'm both sad, because I've enjoyed watching him so much, and excited about next year's race because anything could happen.