We like to format our final review in a cute representation of the race, from Tete la Course to the Peleton to Abandons. We’re going with Jason’s rankings, but I’ll comment where I would move teams. Last year I moved them to my rankings, so it’s only fair that Jason gets final say this year.
Under each team is their top GC rider and their rank if team time was calculated by adding the top FIVE finishers. It’s my own ranking, but gives more value to team depth. We do the same with the points title and the polka dots, first listing the team leader and their placement and score, followed by the team’s combined points and where that ranks in the field. It’s a cheap tool, but it gives us an idea of how each team did. Feel free to disregard it.
Tete de la course
USPS:
6 stage wins, WON yellow jersey
GC: Armstrong (1, 0:00)/ 1st – -2:34:24
PTS: Armstrong (8, 143)/ 10th – 203
DOTS: Armstrong (2, 172)/ 2nd – 330
JASON: I’m tempted to remove the other teams from Tete de la course because USPS belong in a class of their own. They control the peloton with an iron grip whenever they want—on the cobblestones, or in the mountains. The domestiques made attacks in the mountains unlikely, and they chased down the few that did get away. Four Posties finished in the top 30; all nine finished the Tour. Even the last man finished 80th. Best rider, best strategy, best manager, best team.
STEPHEN: Actually, I included one other team in my Tete, and that was T-Mobile, but your point is valid. Not only did they take home the yellow, they controlled the peleton on virtually every stage. If there was a breakaway, it was the Posties who decided whether the peleton would chase it down. They set the pace even in stages they didn’t try and win. Just remarkable dominance.
Telekom (T-Mobile):
Best team time, 2nd & 4th in GC.
GC: Kloden (2, -6:19)/ 2nd - -4:27:33
PTS: Zabel (3, 245)/ 1st – 524
DOTS: Ullrich (6, 115)/ 3rd - 292
JASON: For a team that didn’t get a stage win, they were great. They won the team time because Ullrich, Kloden, and Guerini were great in the mountains. They even wore the white jersey for a day, and Zabel was third in the green jersey competition. They did all this with Vinokourov watching the Tour on TV.
STEPHEN: Zabel finished in third in the points competition without ever winning a contested sprint. That’s how good Telekom is at supporting their sprinter. They had two riders in the top five, three in the top 25, four in the top 50, and eight in the top 75. That’s how deep they are in the GC. They had two riders finish in the top 10 in climbing, and they scored the third most climbing points as team. Simply put, Telekom is the only team that does everything at the very highest level.
Quick Step:
4 stage wins, polka dot jersey.
GC: Virenque (15, -28:11)/ 5th - -6:09:53
PTS: Boonen (6, 163)/ 8th- 284
DOTS: Virenque (1, 226)/ 1st- 337
JASON: They owned the polka dot jersey from start to finish. Three different riders won stages: Virenque in the mountains; Boonen in 2 sprints; Mercado on a long breakaway. They were fifth on team time. Despite the fact that no one tries to challenge Virenque for the dots and we take every opportunity to disrespect him, this team was good in all facets.
STEPHEN: The poor man’s Telekom. However, they did something the boys in pink couldn’t muster, and that’s taking home some hardware. If they can hold this team together, we are looking at one of the new powerhouses of cycling. They still lack a real GC contender, but Rogers did finish 22nd, a pretty good Tour for a young guy.
CSC:
1stage win, 3rd place GC, 3rd in team time
GC: Basso (3, -6:40)/ 4th- -4:42:49
PTS: Basso (15, 78)/ 9th- 206
DOTS: Basso (4, 119)/ 4th- 240
JASON: Basso was a great addition to this team. If they and he get just a bit stronger, we’re looking at a Tour winner here. They’ve got great talent all over with Sastre, Voigt, and Piil. Let’s give Bobby Julich a pat on the back for a nice come-back Tour.
STEPHEN: The poor man’s US Postal. They found a team captain, and that’s a huge, huge deal. Sastre is about as good as a domestique you’ll find. Julich has really rebounded, and Piil was a complete maniac. CSC’s already a powerhouse, but the future is very bright.
Parsuviants:
Brioches La Boulangere:
10 days in yellow, 14 days in white.
GC: Voeckler (18, 31:12)/ 10th- -7:33:45
PTS: Pineau (14, 79)/ 13th- 169
DOTS: Chavanel (15, 53)/ 8th- 83
JASON: I want to bump them up to Tete de la course, but my problem is they never won anything. No stage wins, and they lost both jerseys. Superb effort, though. They were much better than we expected. I’d say the future looks bright because they had 3 riders in the top 30, and all of them were eligible for the white jersey, but their sponsor pulled out, so the team might get scattered about. Good news for everyone else.
STEPHEN: I agree. As impressive as they were, let’s not get carried away. They didn’t win anything. Had, say, CSC, performed like this we’d be all over them with harsh criticism. It’s an expectations game. And really, is this a sign of things to come, or just a one year fluke? Is Voeckler going to be a yellow jersey contender? Chavanel? Pineau? I highly doubt it. They’ll be nice pickups for somebody, but let’s not think they’ll be the future of French cycling.
Fassa Bortolo:
3 stage wins, 1 day in yellow, white, and green.
GC: Gonzalez (45, -1:17:23)/ 17th- -10:34:56
PTS: Kirchen (16, 78)/ 7th- 288
DOTS: Flecha (26, 21)/ 16th- 32
JASON: The jerseys were all worn by Cancellara, who won the prologue. Aitor Gonzalez and Filippo Pozatto each won a stage. It shows what an elite team can do even when they don’t give their best shot. Cancellara were both young punks in their first Tour, so Fassa has reason to be happy with the young talent.
STEPHEN: They won three stages, which is nice, but they were completely non-competitive for any jersey. Forget about not winning anything, they weren’t even close. They lost the yellow by over an hour and both the points competitions by about 200. Three stage wins is supposed to make up for that? I have them down in the peleton.
Banesto (Illes Balears):
White jersey, two riders in top 15
GC: Mancebo (6, -18:01)/ 6th- -6:27:20
PTS: Mancebo (13, 86)/ 15th- 130
DOTS: Mancebo (8, 77)/ 7th- 114
JASON: Mancebo led them in 6th, and that’s after falling apart in the last week. Karpets won the white jersey. They were active in a few breakaways, though they never panned out. Imagine how well they would have done with Denis Menchov.
STEPHEN: Mancebo really carried this team. Karpets came out of nowhere to get them on the final podium, so I feel obligated to agree with your ranking. You win a jersey, you merit a bump up. A solid, unspectacular Tour, but they go home with some fabulous parting gifts.
Peloton:
Credit Agricole:
1 stage win, one day in yellow, two days in green
GC: Moreau (12, -24:36)/ 8th- -7:25:57
PTS: Hushovd (2, 247)/ 3rd- 357
DOTS: Moreau (5, 115)/ 6th- 124
JASON: They did well to focus on Thor Hushovd. He picked up the stage win and the jerseys. He ended up second to McEwen in the race for the green jersey. His team really did a good job in support with lead outs and chasing down breakaways. Oh, Christophe Moreau did another respectable ride. Maybe he should get serious about riding for the King of the Mountains—it would be good to see some competition in that again. His problem is that he’s pretty weak as a climber.
STEPHEN: Well, that hasn’t stopped Virenque. Hushovd is an absolute stud, and all things being equal, I think he’s better than McEwen. Unfortunately, things are not equal, Lotto’s a better team and that’s the difference.
Phonak:
3 riders in top 30
GC: Pereiro Sio (10, -22:54)/ 3rd- -4:35:47
PTS: Pereiro Sio (28, 46)/ 16th- 126
DOTS: Gonzalez (22, 31)/ 13th- 47
JASON: When Tyler Hamilton went down it was a disaster, but this team’s talent was there under the radar. They come away with no hardware, but Santos Gonzalez, Oscar Pereiro, Jose Gutierrez, and Oscar Sevilla are a solid team. If they can ride this well with their captain out, imagine what they can do with their best incentive in the race.
STEPHEN: They rode well without their leader, but they were completely non-competitive in the secondary classifications. A top ten salvages some for this Tour, and they still win the ballsiest move of the Tour during the TTT. A nice debut, and they should be a real force next year.
Rabobank:
2 riders in top 15
GC: Leipheimer (9, -20:12)/ 7th- -7:25:20
PTS: Leipheimer (29, 45)/ 12th- 181
DOTS: Rasmussen (3, 119)/ 5th- 158
JASON: Without any hardware, it’s tough to put them in the peloton, but I can’t see sending them to the Autobus because Leipheimer and Rasmussen did so well. Leipheimer continues to hang with the elite, though it doesn’t appear that he’ll ever be aggressive enough to win. Michael Rasmussen had a great first Tour. He’s got to decide if he wants to go for stage wins and the polka dot jersey, or if he thinks he can try to be one of the contenders.
STEPHEN: What a deep team. Outside of Postal, they were the only team to finish all nine riders and five of them were in the top 100. Five riders scored more than 20 sprinting points, and six total riders got climbing points. They are just a deep, solid team.
AG2r:
2 stage wins
GC: Goubert (20, -37:11)/ 12th- -8:01:24
PTS: Nazon (7, 146)/ 6th- 308
DOTS: Brochard (27, 20)/ 17th- 28
JASON: And can you believe they had two top 30 finishers? Kirsipuu and Nazon delivered the stage wins while Stephan Goubert and Laurent Brochard made the top 30. I was critical of them in the preview, but they responded pretty well.
STEPHEN: This is about as good of a Tour as they could ever expect. They even scored two top tens in the Green Jersey classification. It’s like they took your advice and decided on an identity. They even seemed organized at times, they really could win somebody a green jersey.
Lotto:
2 stage wins, green jersey, 1 day in yellow
GC: Merckx (21, -39:54)/ 16th- -10:10:40
PTS: McEwen (1, 272)/ 5th- 320
DOTS: Merckx (10, 65)/ 9th- 70
JASON: I’m tempted to put them in the Autobus, but Robbie McEwen once again did enough to salvage his team. McEwen is great, Merckx and Verbrugghe have their brief moments, and the rest of the team is anonymous.
STEPHEN: So you put Fassa in the Parsouivants despite competing for nothing, but you want to relegate Lotto because they won a Green Jersey and two stages? Lotto came here with one goal: win McEwen the green. Mission accomplished. Give ‘em credit. You’re just mad because Merckx is a big baby.
Autobus
Gerolsteiner:
1 top 10 finish
GC: Totschnig (7, -18:27)/ 14th- -9:54:42
PTS: Hondo (5, 227)/ 4th- 227
DOTS: Totschnig (16, 53)/ 10th- 65
JASON: The good news is that they did better than last year. Totschnig had another great race, finishing 7th, but their next best finisher was 53rd. Danilo Hondo was pretty good in the sprinter’s competition, but never won a stage and wasn’t really in contention after the first week.
STEPHEN: Wow, you’re a tough crowd. Autobus for a team with a top ten finish and a top five sprinter? Sure, they aren’t world beaters, but isn’t that what the peleton is? A solid team? I think you’re confusing the mediocre with the bad.
Cofidis:
2 stage wins, 2 days in green
GC: Moncoutie (34, -1:04:37)/ 19th- -11:23:31
PTS: O’Grady (4, 234)/ 2nd- 385
DOTS: Moncoutie (20, 36)/ 12th- 51
JASON: Two stage wins is great. O’Grady and Moncoutie both did well on their breakaways. But as a team, they were really weak. Only one man from their team finished in the top 60. I guess if you’re not a good team, you need to save everything for one day.
STEPHEN: See, Cofidis was clearly worse than Gerolsteiner. When the team sprinter finishes second in the GC on your team, you probably had a lousy Tour. Even O’Grady’s fourth was pretty weak. They had zero riders within an hour of the front, only two within two, and four within three. They got smoked.
Saeco:
1 top 20 finish
GC: Simoni (17, -29:00)/ 9th- -7:26:00
PTS: Simoni (63, 19)/ 21st- 30
DOTS: Simoni (11, 64)/ 11th- 64
JASON: No hardware at all, but I’m putting them in the Autobus because they don’t deserve to be with the chumps at the bottom of the barrel. They didn’t do much at all to distinguish themselves, but they rode to the finish line without doing anything genuinely bad.
STEPHEN: It’s one thing to put all your eggs in one basket and ride for one man. Plenty of teams do that, but when the one man finishes in 17th, that’s bad. It’s not so much that this team sucks, it’s just that the strategy is so remarkably dumb that it makes my head hurt. Look, things went well and they still were a total non-factor. I’m putting them in the Abandons just for stupidity. Pick a strategy.
Abandon
Euskaltel:
GC: Camano (26, -47:14)/ 11th- -7:47:47
PTS: Landaluze (22, 50)/ 14th- 134
DOTS: Martinez (33, 14)/ 18th- 22
JASON: The good news is that Iker Camano was 26th in his first Tour. Aside from that, it was a total disaster. Mayo had the energy of a corpse. Zubeldia abandoned even before Mayo. The team was inept—think of the failure to catch the peloton off of the cobblestones, the blown breakaways. Come on…Landaluze’s breakaway was caught 10 meters from the line. A nightmare.
STEPHEN: A total and unmitigated disaster of a Tour. Let’s put it like this, a team that specializes in climbing only earned 22 mountain points as a team. 22 points would make them 27th as an individual. It started bad and only got worse.
RAGT:
GC: Calzati (71, -2:09:34)/ 20th- -13:48:23
PTS: Calzati (52, 28)/ 20th- 32
DOTS: Martin (21, 33)/ 14th- 38
JASON: I’m not going to be too hard on them because this was their first Tour, and they really were in over their heads. Ludovic Martin did us a favor by being in a breakaway so we could see what their uniforms look like. But their best rider was 71st, and the team was dead last—6 hours behind Telekom and over an hour behind the second to last team. Yeah, they were in over their heads.
STEPHEN: Hey, by ranking the top five, they nose ahead of Domina! It’s nice that you’re being generous because I’m not. They had no business getting an invite and did nothing over the last three weeks to change my opinion. Their bid was joke, the team is a joke, and their uniforms are a joke. And not a good joke, more like a joke told by Carrot Top.
FDJeux:
1 top 20 finish
GC: Casar (16, -28:53)/ 15th- -9:55:30
PTS: Cooke (12, 95)/ 11th- 202
DOTS: Casar (54, 3)/ 21st- 7
JASON: Last year everything went their way, but nothing went right in 2004. Brad McGee didn’t make a peep in defending his green jersey. Aside from Sandy Casar’s second place in the young rider classification, they had nothing to be happy about.
STEPHEN: Shield your eyes. SEVEN climbing points? SEVEN?! 47 riders managed to earn that many, what are the odds none were on FDJ? And what the hell happened to Baden Cooke? Casar had a nice Tour, so I’m tempted to bump them to the Autobus, but he does not make up for the overwhelming crappiness around him.
Liberty:
GC: Gonzalez Galdeano (44, -1:16:45)/ 13th- -9:32:16
PTS: Davis (17, 67)/ 19th- 85
DOTS: Vandevelde (43, 8)/ 20th- 11
JASON: Can you believe this is the old ONCE team? They were awful. Heras was terrible in the mountains and abandoned the Tour. Their only highlight was a very late attack by Christian VandeVelde. That’s all they brought to the table. F—terrible.
STEPHEN: Man, looking at the their final results makes you vomit a bit in your mouth. Some teams down here in the dregs we expected to suck, but what the hell is Liberty doing down here? When did Heras forget how to ride? They managed to make Euskatel look good.
Domina Vacanze:
GC: Scarponi (32, -1:03:01)/ 21st- -10:24:20 four finishers
PTS: Scarponi (19, 60)/ 17th- 119
DOTS: Simeoni (23, 25)/ 15th- 35)
JASON: Michele Scarponi did quite well, finishing a respectable 32nd, but he was their only finisher in the top 100. What will you remember about this team? Cipollini quit, and Fillippo Simeone got bullied by Lance Armstrong. Only 4 riders made it to Paris. Yeah, that qualifies as a bad Tour. It’ll be another 5 years before the Tour invites another second tier Italian team.
STEPHEN: For years, we’ve railed about the Tour not letting in mid-level Italian teams while they stacked the field with French teams. Um, nevermind. This was beyond bad. Scarponi was decent, but they will be remembered mainly for one of their riders getting bitched out by Lance. Four riders in Paris? That’s embarrassing.
Under each team is their top GC rider and their rank if team time was calculated by adding the top FIVE finishers. It’s my own ranking, but gives more value to team depth. We do the same with the points title and the polka dots, first listing the team leader and their placement and score, followed by the team’s combined points and where that ranks in the field. It’s a cheap tool, but it gives us an idea of how each team did. Feel free to disregard it.
Tete de la course
USPS:
6 stage wins, WON yellow jersey
GC: Armstrong (1, 0:00)/ 1st – -2:34:24
PTS: Armstrong (8, 143)/ 10th – 203
DOTS: Armstrong (2, 172)/ 2nd – 330
JASON: I’m tempted to remove the other teams from Tete de la course because USPS belong in a class of their own. They control the peloton with an iron grip whenever they want—on the cobblestones, or in the mountains. The domestiques made attacks in the mountains unlikely, and they chased down the few that did get away. Four Posties finished in the top 30; all nine finished the Tour. Even the last man finished 80th. Best rider, best strategy, best manager, best team.
STEPHEN: Actually, I included one other team in my Tete, and that was T-Mobile, but your point is valid. Not only did they take home the yellow, they controlled the peleton on virtually every stage. If there was a breakaway, it was the Posties who decided whether the peleton would chase it down. They set the pace even in stages they didn’t try and win. Just remarkable dominance.
Telekom (T-Mobile):
Best team time, 2nd & 4th in GC.
GC: Kloden (2, -6:19)/ 2nd - -4:27:33
PTS: Zabel (3, 245)/ 1st – 524
DOTS: Ullrich (6, 115)/ 3rd - 292
JASON: For a team that didn’t get a stage win, they were great. They won the team time because Ullrich, Kloden, and Guerini were great in the mountains. They even wore the white jersey for a day, and Zabel was third in the green jersey competition. They did all this with Vinokourov watching the Tour on TV.
STEPHEN: Zabel finished in third in the points competition without ever winning a contested sprint. That’s how good Telekom is at supporting their sprinter. They had two riders in the top five, three in the top 25, four in the top 50, and eight in the top 75. That’s how deep they are in the GC. They had two riders finish in the top 10 in climbing, and they scored the third most climbing points as team. Simply put, Telekom is the only team that does everything at the very highest level.
Quick Step:
4 stage wins, polka dot jersey.
GC: Virenque (15, -28:11)/ 5th - -6:09:53
PTS: Boonen (6, 163)/ 8th- 284
DOTS: Virenque (1, 226)/ 1st- 337
JASON: They owned the polka dot jersey from start to finish. Three different riders won stages: Virenque in the mountains; Boonen in 2 sprints; Mercado on a long breakaway. They were fifth on team time. Despite the fact that no one tries to challenge Virenque for the dots and we take every opportunity to disrespect him, this team was good in all facets.
STEPHEN: The poor man’s Telekom. However, they did something the boys in pink couldn’t muster, and that’s taking home some hardware. If they can hold this team together, we are looking at one of the new powerhouses of cycling. They still lack a real GC contender, but Rogers did finish 22nd, a pretty good Tour for a young guy.
CSC:
1stage win, 3rd place GC, 3rd in team time
GC: Basso (3, -6:40)/ 4th- -4:42:49
PTS: Basso (15, 78)/ 9th- 206
DOTS: Basso (4, 119)/ 4th- 240
JASON: Basso was a great addition to this team. If they and he get just a bit stronger, we’re looking at a Tour winner here. They’ve got great talent all over with Sastre, Voigt, and Piil. Let’s give Bobby Julich a pat on the back for a nice come-back Tour.
STEPHEN: The poor man’s US Postal. They found a team captain, and that’s a huge, huge deal. Sastre is about as good as a domestique you’ll find. Julich has really rebounded, and Piil was a complete maniac. CSC’s already a powerhouse, but the future is very bright.
Parsuviants:
Brioches La Boulangere:
10 days in yellow, 14 days in white.
GC: Voeckler (18, 31:12)/ 10th- -7:33:45
PTS: Pineau (14, 79)/ 13th- 169
DOTS: Chavanel (15, 53)/ 8th- 83
JASON: I want to bump them up to Tete de la course, but my problem is they never won anything. No stage wins, and they lost both jerseys. Superb effort, though. They were much better than we expected. I’d say the future looks bright because they had 3 riders in the top 30, and all of them were eligible for the white jersey, but their sponsor pulled out, so the team might get scattered about. Good news for everyone else.
STEPHEN: I agree. As impressive as they were, let’s not get carried away. They didn’t win anything. Had, say, CSC, performed like this we’d be all over them with harsh criticism. It’s an expectations game. And really, is this a sign of things to come, or just a one year fluke? Is Voeckler going to be a yellow jersey contender? Chavanel? Pineau? I highly doubt it. They’ll be nice pickups for somebody, but let’s not think they’ll be the future of French cycling.
Fassa Bortolo:
3 stage wins, 1 day in yellow, white, and green.
GC: Gonzalez (45, -1:17:23)/ 17th- -10:34:56
PTS: Kirchen (16, 78)/ 7th- 288
DOTS: Flecha (26, 21)/ 16th- 32
JASON: The jerseys were all worn by Cancellara, who won the prologue. Aitor Gonzalez and Filippo Pozatto each won a stage. It shows what an elite team can do even when they don’t give their best shot. Cancellara were both young punks in their first Tour, so Fassa has reason to be happy with the young talent.
STEPHEN: They won three stages, which is nice, but they were completely non-competitive for any jersey. Forget about not winning anything, they weren’t even close. They lost the yellow by over an hour and both the points competitions by about 200. Three stage wins is supposed to make up for that? I have them down in the peleton.
Banesto (Illes Balears):
White jersey, two riders in top 15
GC: Mancebo (6, -18:01)/ 6th- -6:27:20
PTS: Mancebo (13, 86)/ 15th- 130
DOTS: Mancebo (8, 77)/ 7th- 114
JASON: Mancebo led them in 6th, and that’s after falling apart in the last week. Karpets won the white jersey. They were active in a few breakaways, though they never panned out. Imagine how well they would have done with Denis Menchov.
STEPHEN: Mancebo really carried this team. Karpets came out of nowhere to get them on the final podium, so I feel obligated to agree with your ranking. You win a jersey, you merit a bump up. A solid, unspectacular Tour, but they go home with some fabulous parting gifts.
Peloton:
Credit Agricole:
1 stage win, one day in yellow, two days in green
GC: Moreau (12, -24:36)/ 8th- -7:25:57
PTS: Hushovd (2, 247)/ 3rd- 357
DOTS: Moreau (5, 115)/ 6th- 124
JASON: They did well to focus on Thor Hushovd. He picked up the stage win and the jerseys. He ended up second to McEwen in the race for the green jersey. His team really did a good job in support with lead outs and chasing down breakaways. Oh, Christophe Moreau did another respectable ride. Maybe he should get serious about riding for the King of the Mountains—it would be good to see some competition in that again. His problem is that he’s pretty weak as a climber.
STEPHEN: Well, that hasn’t stopped Virenque. Hushovd is an absolute stud, and all things being equal, I think he’s better than McEwen. Unfortunately, things are not equal, Lotto’s a better team and that’s the difference.
Phonak:
3 riders in top 30
GC: Pereiro Sio (10, -22:54)/ 3rd- -4:35:47
PTS: Pereiro Sio (28, 46)/ 16th- 126
DOTS: Gonzalez (22, 31)/ 13th- 47
JASON: When Tyler Hamilton went down it was a disaster, but this team’s talent was there under the radar. They come away with no hardware, but Santos Gonzalez, Oscar Pereiro, Jose Gutierrez, and Oscar Sevilla are a solid team. If they can ride this well with their captain out, imagine what they can do with their best incentive in the race.
STEPHEN: They rode well without their leader, but they were completely non-competitive in the secondary classifications. A top ten salvages some for this Tour, and they still win the ballsiest move of the Tour during the TTT. A nice debut, and they should be a real force next year.
Rabobank:
2 riders in top 15
GC: Leipheimer (9, -20:12)/ 7th- -7:25:20
PTS: Leipheimer (29, 45)/ 12th- 181
DOTS: Rasmussen (3, 119)/ 5th- 158
JASON: Without any hardware, it’s tough to put them in the peloton, but I can’t see sending them to the Autobus because Leipheimer and Rasmussen did so well. Leipheimer continues to hang with the elite, though it doesn’t appear that he’ll ever be aggressive enough to win. Michael Rasmussen had a great first Tour. He’s got to decide if he wants to go for stage wins and the polka dot jersey, or if he thinks he can try to be one of the contenders.
STEPHEN: What a deep team. Outside of Postal, they were the only team to finish all nine riders and five of them were in the top 100. Five riders scored more than 20 sprinting points, and six total riders got climbing points. They are just a deep, solid team.
AG2r:
2 stage wins
GC: Goubert (20, -37:11)/ 12th- -8:01:24
PTS: Nazon (7, 146)/ 6th- 308
DOTS: Brochard (27, 20)/ 17th- 28
JASON: And can you believe they had two top 30 finishers? Kirsipuu and Nazon delivered the stage wins while Stephan Goubert and Laurent Brochard made the top 30. I was critical of them in the preview, but they responded pretty well.
STEPHEN: This is about as good of a Tour as they could ever expect. They even scored two top tens in the Green Jersey classification. It’s like they took your advice and decided on an identity. They even seemed organized at times, they really could win somebody a green jersey.
Lotto:
2 stage wins, green jersey, 1 day in yellow
GC: Merckx (21, -39:54)/ 16th- -10:10:40
PTS: McEwen (1, 272)/ 5th- 320
DOTS: Merckx (10, 65)/ 9th- 70
JASON: I’m tempted to put them in the Autobus, but Robbie McEwen once again did enough to salvage his team. McEwen is great, Merckx and Verbrugghe have their brief moments, and the rest of the team is anonymous.
STEPHEN: So you put Fassa in the Parsouivants despite competing for nothing, but you want to relegate Lotto because they won a Green Jersey and two stages? Lotto came here with one goal: win McEwen the green. Mission accomplished. Give ‘em credit. You’re just mad because Merckx is a big baby.
Autobus
Gerolsteiner:
1 top 10 finish
GC: Totschnig (7, -18:27)/ 14th- -9:54:42
PTS: Hondo (5, 227)/ 4th- 227
DOTS: Totschnig (16, 53)/ 10th- 65
JASON: The good news is that they did better than last year. Totschnig had another great race, finishing 7th, but their next best finisher was 53rd. Danilo Hondo was pretty good in the sprinter’s competition, but never won a stage and wasn’t really in contention after the first week.
STEPHEN: Wow, you’re a tough crowd. Autobus for a team with a top ten finish and a top five sprinter? Sure, they aren’t world beaters, but isn’t that what the peleton is? A solid team? I think you’re confusing the mediocre with the bad.
Cofidis:
2 stage wins, 2 days in green
GC: Moncoutie (34, -1:04:37)/ 19th- -11:23:31
PTS: O’Grady (4, 234)/ 2nd- 385
DOTS: Moncoutie (20, 36)/ 12th- 51
JASON: Two stage wins is great. O’Grady and Moncoutie both did well on their breakaways. But as a team, they were really weak. Only one man from their team finished in the top 60. I guess if you’re not a good team, you need to save everything for one day.
STEPHEN: See, Cofidis was clearly worse than Gerolsteiner. When the team sprinter finishes second in the GC on your team, you probably had a lousy Tour. Even O’Grady’s fourth was pretty weak. They had zero riders within an hour of the front, only two within two, and four within three. They got smoked.
Saeco:
1 top 20 finish
GC: Simoni (17, -29:00)/ 9th- -7:26:00
PTS: Simoni (63, 19)/ 21st- 30
DOTS: Simoni (11, 64)/ 11th- 64
JASON: No hardware at all, but I’m putting them in the Autobus because they don’t deserve to be with the chumps at the bottom of the barrel. They didn’t do much at all to distinguish themselves, but they rode to the finish line without doing anything genuinely bad.
STEPHEN: It’s one thing to put all your eggs in one basket and ride for one man. Plenty of teams do that, but when the one man finishes in 17th, that’s bad. It’s not so much that this team sucks, it’s just that the strategy is so remarkably dumb that it makes my head hurt. Look, things went well and they still were a total non-factor. I’m putting them in the Abandons just for stupidity. Pick a strategy.
Abandon
Euskaltel:
GC: Camano (26, -47:14)/ 11th- -7:47:47
PTS: Landaluze (22, 50)/ 14th- 134
DOTS: Martinez (33, 14)/ 18th- 22
JASON: The good news is that Iker Camano was 26th in his first Tour. Aside from that, it was a total disaster. Mayo had the energy of a corpse. Zubeldia abandoned even before Mayo. The team was inept—think of the failure to catch the peloton off of the cobblestones, the blown breakaways. Come on…Landaluze’s breakaway was caught 10 meters from the line. A nightmare.
STEPHEN: A total and unmitigated disaster of a Tour. Let’s put it like this, a team that specializes in climbing only earned 22 mountain points as a team. 22 points would make them 27th as an individual. It started bad and only got worse.
RAGT:
GC: Calzati (71, -2:09:34)/ 20th- -13:48:23
PTS: Calzati (52, 28)/ 20th- 32
DOTS: Martin (21, 33)/ 14th- 38
JASON: I’m not going to be too hard on them because this was their first Tour, and they really were in over their heads. Ludovic Martin did us a favor by being in a breakaway so we could see what their uniforms look like. But their best rider was 71st, and the team was dead last—6 hours behind Telekom and over an hour behind the second to last team. Yeah, they were in over their heads.
STEPHEN: Hey, by ranking the top five, they nose ahead of Domina! It’s nice that you’re being generous because I’m not. They had no business getting an invite and did nothing over the last three weeks to change my opinion. Their bid was joke, the team is a joke, and their uniforms are a joke. And not a good joke, more like a joke told by Carrot Top.
FDJeux:
1 top 20 finish
GC: Casar (16, -28:53)/ 15th- -9:55:30
PTS: Cooke (12, 95)/ 11th- 202
DOTS: Casar (54, 3)/ 21st- 7
JASON: Last year everything went their way, but nothing went right in 2004. Brad McGee didn’t make a peep in defending his green jersey. Aside from Sandy Casar’s second place in the young rider classification, they had nothing to be happy about.
STEPHEN: Shield your eyes. SEVEN climbing points? SEVEN?! 47 riders managed to earn that many, what are the odds none were on FDJ? And what the hell happened to Baden Cooke? Casar had a nice Tour, so I’m tempted to bump them to the Autobus, but he does not make up for the overwhelming crappiness around him.
Liberty:
GC: Gonzalez Galdeano (44, -1:16:45)/ 13th- -9:32:16
PTS: Davis (17, 67)/ 19th- 85
DOTS: Vandevelde (43, 8)/ 20th- 11
JASON: Can you believe this is the old ONCE team? They were awful. Heras was terrible in the mountains and abandoned the Tour. Their only highlight was a very late attack by Christian VandeVelde. That’s all they brought to the table. F—terrible.
STEPHEN: Man, looking at the their final results makes you vomit a bit in your mouth. Some teams down here in the dregs we expected to suck, but what the hell is Liberty doing down here? When did Heras forget how to ride? They managed to make Euskatel look good.
Domina Vacanze:
GC: Scarponi (32, -1:03:01)/ 21st- -10:24:20 four finishers
PTS: Scarponi (19, 60)/ 17th- 119
DOTS: Simeoni (23, 25)/ 15th- 35)
JASON: Michele Scarponi did quite well, finishing a respectable 32nd, but he was their only finisher in the top 100. What will you remember about this team? Cipollini quit, and Fillippo Simeone got bullied by Lance Armstrong. Only 4 riders made it to Paris. Yeah, that qualifies as a bad Tour. It’ll be another 5 years before the Tour invites another second tier Italian team.
STEPHEN: For years, we’ve railed about the Tour not letting in mid-level Italian teams while they stacked the field with French teams. Um, nevermind. This was beyond bad. Scarponi was decent, but they will be remembered mainly for one of their riders getting bitched out by Lance. Four riders in Paris? That’s embarrassing.
posted by Poseur at 12:34 PM
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