Monday, July 27, 2009

Team evaluations

Tete de la Course

Astana
Contador,1st, 85:48:35; 3 stage wins; won yellow jersey and team competition.
Wow! This team was awesome. They had 2 men on the podium and 3 in the top 6, and that's with Levi Leipheimer crashing out midway through the Tour and with a token roster spot given to a Kazak cyclist to satisfy the sponsor. They were as good as advertised and held up despite having the turmoil of having to figure out who would lead the team.

Columbia
Hincapie, 22nd, + 33' 27"; 6 stage wins; 8 days in green jersey; 12 days in white jersey.
Obviously, it was mostly the work of Cavendish, who won 6 stages himself. Although Tony Martin wore white for half the race, he suffered in the Alps and finished far behind, although he did finish second on Ventoux. The fact that George Hincapie was their best finisher shows the GC was really an afterthought for Columbia. But since Cavendish is a juggernaut, Columbia is a juggernaut.

Saxo Bank
Andy Schleck, 2nd, +4:11; 3 stage wins; white jersey winner; 6 days in yellow, 1 day in green, 2 days in team lead.

That’s a lot of hardware for a team that’s only the 3rd most impressive of the Tour. In addition to the Schleck brothers contending for the yellow jersey, Cancellara and Sorensen won stages. This team lost Carlos Sastre to free agency and Jens Voigt to a crash and was still awesome.

Poursuviants


Garmin-Slipstream
Wiggins, 4th, +6:01; no stage wins or jerseys.
Is it fair to put them in “Peloton” when they had two men in the top 8 and were runner up in the team competition? Is it fair to put them in “Poursuviants” when they didn’t win anything? Well, I’ll err on the side of being generous. They are very talented, fought hard, and came up short. Good pursuit…poursuviants.

Ag2r
Nocentini, 14th, +20:45; 8 days in yellow; 5 days in team lead.

Nocentini’s week in the race lead was an unexpected surprise. The team did a fine job of defending, and even after he lost it, he still rode respectably. Nick Roche had a decent finish too, despite his stupid tactics on stage 14 that nearly cost Nocentini the yellow jersey. Once a lousy laughingstock, Ag2r may be the best French team now.

Liquigas
Nibali, 7th, +7:35; won King of Mountains; 2 days in white jersey.
Franco Pellizotti changed his focus from a GC position to the KoM after losing a ton of time one day…turned out to be a good move. He was tough in the Alps and ran away with the polka dots, winning by 75 points. Nibali and Kreuziger were 2nd & 3rd in the race for the white jersey. This could be a great TdF team if they can keep it together.

Cervelo
Sastre, 17th, +16:21; won green jersey and 2 stages.

OK, as a defending champ Sastre imploded, but if you win green and two stages, that’s a darn good Tour. Yet Cervelo seemed anonymous in the Tour. Did you know this is THOR! Hushovd’s team before I mentioned the words “green jersey?”

Peloton

FDJ
Le Mevel, 10th, 14:25; 4 days in dots.

It’s hard to believe that in addition to LeMevel finishing 10th, Sandy Casar was 12th. Jussi Viekkanen wore led the KoM before the race hit any mountains, which is always a fun thing to put on a rider’s resume. If this team had a real GC contender, LeMevel and Casar would be a pretty good support for him.

Euskaltel
Astarloza, 11th, +14:44; 1 stage win, 4 days in dots.

This was their best Tour in a long time—first stage win in 6 years and first time wearing any leader’s jersey. Martinez had the rare ability to take the KoM jersey out of the Pyrenees and lose it before the Alps, but he still finished second.

Bogus Telekom (Bbox/Bouygues Telecom)
Rolland, 22nd, +37:44; 2 stage wins.

Thomas Voeckler and Perrick Fedrigo each took stage wins with well-timed attacks out of breakaway groups. Short on talent, but with plenty of hustle. We make fun of this team a lot, but they definitely belong.

Autobus

Banesto (Cassie D’ Epargne)
Sanchez, 26th, +41:27; 1 stage win.

It was Sanchez who got the stage win. He also gave a stab at a couple other mountain attacks that went nowhere. No one else on the team was noteworthy. Rojas was 4th in the green jersey race, yet I can’t remember him contesting any sprints. He only finished in the top 5 three times.

Agritubel
Feillu, 25th, +41:14; 1 stage win; 1 day in dots.
At least this team is improving from laughing stock to a bit player.

Cofidis
Minard, 38th, +57:37; 2 days in dots.

Two different guys wore the dots, one of which was in the Pyrenees. Nothing else to write home about. Blah.

Katusha
Karpets, 13th, +18:34; 1 stage win.

Ivanov is a good rider. His stage win was the result of a well-executed attack, and he was aggressive in other stages too. Al Botcherov also finished in the top 20, so it wasn’t too bad for their first Tour.

Rabobank
Menchov, 51st, +1:17:04; 1 stage win.

Juan Garate’s stage win salvages what was an otherwise terrible Tour, but a win at Ventoux will pull any team out of the cellar. Menchov rode like a guy whose legs were cooked at the Giro, and Freire rode like a guy who didn’t care to defend his 2008 green jersey.

Lotto
Van Den Brouck, 15th, +20:50.

Congratulations to Jurgen Van Den Brouck on a fine ride. Remember a long time ago, before the days of Robbie McEwen, when Lotto was just a terrible team wasting space at the Tour? Well, even with Cadel Evans on the team, they were still a terrible waste of space. If Sastre was a disappointment, how do you describe Evans, who finished 30th, over 45 minutes off the lead? The whole team didn’t even have anyone finish top ten in any jersey race. They make the Autobus on the strength of VanDen Bouck (a sentence no one could have predicted) and because the teams in the bottom category are even scarier.

Abandon

Milram
Knees, 21, +34:48.

Cioleck was third in the green jersey race, but he was barely noticeable. The sponsor should ask for a refund.

Quick Step, Lampre, Skil-Shimano.

I’m lumping them all together to save time and to save myself the trouble of coming up with individual ways of describing how they suck. They won nothing. They contested for nothing. They finished in the bottom 3 in the team competition.

Best riders: Chavanel, 20th, +34:09 (Quick Step); Loosli, 53rd, 1:51:53 (Lampre); Hupond, 90th, 2:22:58 (Skil-Shimano).

OK, I don’t even know who Loosi and Hupond are; I couldn’t even identify them as cyclists until I looked this up. I’m almost tempted to move QuickStep, and Milram up to Autobus just for having riders in 20th and 21st place. That implies they have some talent. Lampre and Skil-Shimano apparently don’t. Skil-Shimano, in particular, was a woeful eyesore. QS was +2:40:01 in the team competition. Lampre was a few seconds shy of 4 hours, but Skil-Shimano takes the cake with a 7 hour deficit behind Astana’s winning time. Amazing!

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