Cycling: Le Tour

By Stephen Baker: Senior Writer

I've been immersed in one of the greatest events on the sports calendar, the Tour de France. I've been following it day-by-day in a series of emails with my good friend, Jason. Instead of tackling this year's Tour on my own, I've brought Jason in to answer the biggest questions from this year's Tour.

Which teams shouldn't be in this tour?

Jason: Big Mat-Auber 93 has no business in the TdF. They have been in it for years, and have never amounted to anything. This year they have had no stage wins, no jerseys, no significant breakaways -- and they've been that way for years. It gets worse. They have ZERO points in the King of the Mountains -- the whole team! And they have fewer Sprinter (Green Jersey) points than does the leader, Stuart O'Grady. They are last in team time with their highest racer over 90 minutes back. This is a typical year for the Door Mats.

Lampre's TdF performance is better by the narrowest of margins. They have zero mountain points and fewer sprint points than Door Mat. If memory serves, they have not sniffed a jersey in years, either. The only thing that makes them better than Door Mat is that they have Ludo Dierckxsens, who rides like a Madman, but can't climb. He abandoned on stage 13.

CPK: I can't add a whole lot to that. Big Mat is a disgrace to the Tour, really. Stephane Heulot was the only member of the team worth tracking, and he's an hour and a half back now that we're out of the mountains. They have had absolutely no impact on the race in any classification, a truly difficult feat when you think about it. Lampre's dismal performance was predictable since they seemingly took the Tour off. Ranked seventh in the world, the team didn't send any of its top four riders, including Simoni, the #4 rider in the world. The organizers went out of their way not to invite the top Italian teams, but even when one gets an invite, they don't send their top riders. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. The Italians are giving the French justification for not inviting them.

Which teams should be in this tour?

Jason: Three teams have great credentials, but got left out. Mercury features a core of solid riders led by Pavel Tonkov, who has had multiple top five finishes in major tours. Saeco is a Tour regular, led by Mario Cippolini, who leads all active riders in Tour stage victories. Liquigas is the highest ranked team that failed to make it, and they feature the second ranked rider in the world. Marco Pantani's Mercatone Uno team might be a sentimental pick, but the team is poor and Pantani is having a terrible year.

CPK: Ignoring the media outcry, Pantani has no business on the Tour this year. He's been a non-factor in every event he has participated in, his world ranking is hovering around 250, and his team has zero riders in the top 100. Mercury, on the other hand, has SIX riders in the top 100. Saeco has four, including the aforementioned Cipollini. However, the team with the largest grievance is Liquigas. Rebellin is second in the world, and Honchar is 22nd. They have a total of five riders in the top 100, and the team is actually ranked ahead of US Postal in the world rankings. There is simply no reason why they aren't participants.

Who has been the biggest disappointment?

Jason: Team Telekom-let me count the ways....

1) Ullrich IS riding a fantastic race. My only complaint is that he was too passive (early), allowing Armstrong to throw the gauntlet first. But he's got to be personally disappointed that Lance is impervious to his greatest effort.

2) Ullrich's mountain support crew has had poor tactics and has cracked under pressure. They were completely duped in stage 10 (Alpe d'Huez) by Armstrong, and they were no match for Lance's climbing support.

3) Just to drive the point home, stealing Kevin Livingston from USPS backfired because he was replaced with superior climbers in Rubiera and Heras.

4) Eric Zabel is in danger of losing his five-year hold on the green jersey. The team left Zabel hanging twice in the first week. On the Team Time Trial, it was actually the smart thing to do, but they also failed to help him on another occasion. Not good for morale.

CPK: Let's get one thing straight first. Ullrich probably wouldn't beat Lance even with a perfect ride from his team. That's not really an insult to Ullrich; it's just an admission that Lance is virtually unbeatable right now. That said, outside of Vinokourov, Team Telekom has given their leader virtually no support. They have been all over the place on the early climbs, only to disappear at the end when Armstrong makes his move, usually surrounded by Posties. And Zabel was dropped early and often. He's spent virtually the entire race over an hour back in the GC, while also chasing O'Grady for the green.

Jason: Biggest personal disappointment: Christophe Moreau inexplicably abandoned in the Pyrenees. No guts from France's best hope and a podium contender. Also, it's hard to criticize a man who is in eighth place, but Santiago Botero never distinguished himself in the mountains. He rarely attacked and was typically the first of the elite climbers to get dropped. He failed to even attempt to defend his polka dot jersey from last year. Francesco Casagrade abandoned, but it's understandable considering he's not quite recovered from his Giro-ending crash.

CPK: Moreau's abandonment was a gutless performance. Festina has had a troubled recent history, as they were one of the teams fingered in the doping scandals a few years back. A good performance by Moreau could have given this team a much-needed boost. Instead, he abandons the race at the first sign of trouble. It was a completely gutless act by a man riding in front of his countrymen. Cassagrande had a miserable race, abandoning in Stage 3, but the great British Hope, one of the favorites for the white jersey, David Millar, never showed up and spent the majority of the race in dead last before finally giving up in the Alps.

Who has been the biggest surprise?

Jason: What a question. I cannot name just one.

Stuart O'Grady turned all heads by taking the yellow jersey, keeping it when his team won the Team Time Trail, and then re-taking it on the monster 35 minute breakaway. But that's not even his goal. He's racing to win Zabel's green jersey. He's got a small lead now, and he even attacked in the mountains in order to grab rinky-dink points.

The big 34-minute breakaway produced two unlikely contenders: Simon and Kivilev. Simon wore yellow for a few days until he cracked on the mountains. Kivilev never got it, but still lingers in third. He's impressed me again and again in the Pyrenees by being the last mortal hanging with the elite, attacking climbers. Simon's team Bonjour has been a revelation. In previous tours, they were in the cellar, but this year they had a yellow jersey, solid riding from Didier Rous, and they took their turns setting the peleton pace.

In another surprise, there has only been one incident of dope on the Tour.

CPK: Credit Agricole was easily the story of the first week. O'Grady held the yellow jersey for seven days, and at one point, his team held all of the top three positions. The Team Time Trial was perhaps their greatest feat, as they clearly went into the day expecting to get blown off the roads by ONCE, US Postal, and Telekom. Instead, they held their own and even extended their lead with the best time trial in team history. Since then, Julich has faded, but O'Grady is still in green, but only by a few points.

However, Bonjour has impressed at every turn. Rous has spent the entire race just outside the top ten, and even supported his lieutenant, Simon, who launched to a huge lead. It's not often a team captain will ride to support one of his men, but Rous did just that, nursing Simon up the Pyrenees. The team has usually been in the front of the peleton and they have attacked throughout the Tour. They seem ready to play with the big boys, no small feat since they were one for the questionable entries placed in the Tour because of their French nationality more than their riding skill.

Jason: But the biggest surprise is Laurent Jalabert. We had so many reasons to think he was washed up -- leaving ONCE for a struggling team, being old, and breaking his ribs in the winter. The man has had two stage wins, one on Bastille Day, and a huge breakaway on stage 13. He did not get the stage win, but he picked up a whopping 151 climbing points in one day because of his solo breakaway! He will be the King of the Mountains in Paris, and he also leads the classification for most aggressive rider.

CPK: Jalabert will definitely put Stage 13 in his scrapbook. He picked up more points in the King of the Mountains contest in one day than any other rider save one had accumulated over the entire Tour. It was simply an amazing day, one that was almost lost since Armstrong blew past him at the end to take the stage and the yellow jersey. No one leaves perhaps the best team in the world (ONCE) to one that struggles to qualify for major events (CSC-Tiscali), so it's nice to see Jalabert cap off a wonderful career with a major award in his national race. Is he in decline? Sure, but he still had enough left in those legs to impress.

Best Stage?

Jason: Stage 13 had all the drama. 194 km with four category-1 climbs and one off the scale. Jalobert had his amazing climbs. Lance took the yellow jersey, but not before duking it out with Ullrich & Co. Ullrich survived riding off a mountain and still beat everyone but Lance. That includes the feisty Kivilev and the devious Beloki. There was also the grand sportsmanship of Lance in waiting for Ullrich to ride back into the race after his fall. And what about the work of Rubeira and Heras to catch up to the Ullrich attack after being dropped so that they could support Lance. There was Garzelli's attack and stubborn defense against the Ullrich-Armstrong chase. It was also the day in which Kelme and ONCE asserted themselves into a two-way battle in the team competition. And, someone painted porn on the street.

CPK: I'm sure the riders enjoyed the porn. You also left off Armstrong dedicating the win to Fabio Casartelli, his deceased former teammate, who has a monument erected to him on the side of the course. Armstrong passed it and decided he was going to win. Words cannot describe how good Armstrong is. He decided to win?

However, Armstrong first asserted himself in Stage 10 on the Alpe d'Huez. On the most famous climb of the Tour, Lance faked his opponents into thinking he was hurting throughout the day. He grimaced, he lost radio, he talked to the team car, and then he rode to the front and won the race. Before Armstrong ripped out the heart of the field, he took a moment to stare Ullrich down, virtually telling him that he was making his break now and catch me if you can. Ullrich couldn't and Lance took over the Tour. The drama of all of these stages was set up by the 35-minute break on Stage 8, putting the race favorites on their heels on the first day in the mountains. Still, Stage 10 was where this Tour was probably won.

Best Moment?

Jason: "The Stare" at the foot of Alpe d'Huez. Finally, after more than a week, the two studs faced off for the pivotal climb of the Tour. In launching his attack, Lance turned to look at Jan, but stared an unusually long time. He was not just sizing up his opponent, he was making the grand announcement: "I will smash you on the mountains -- complete domination." Lance ripped out Ullrich's heart right there. As they say in The Evil Dead, "I'll swallow your soul." That was the turning point in the Tour.

Honorable mentions:

Marc Wauters grabbed a stage win and a yellow jersey in front of the royal family in his home country of Belgium. Roberto Laiseka also won a stage in his Basque homeland. Jalobert won on Bastille Day. Ullrich hops back on the bike after crashing off a mountain. Ullrich (again) continued to attack Lance and blow away the field despite knowing he can't win. Daniele Nardello tells the doctor he's riding anyway despite a terrible crash in stage 1. Bits of his flesh are still on the road in Belgium. When your jersey is full of your own blood, but it's the jersey of the Italian national champion, you get up and ride. He limped to the line that day. Since being in last on the second day of the tour, he has steadily climbed his way up to #61. Over 30 riders have abandoned, but Nardello is too tough for that.

CPK: The Nardello crash absolutely terrified me. Then to see him get back on his bike and continue to race simply amazed me. He has spent the entire race wrapped in bandages, a reminder of his dedication to simply finishing the race. He could have easily abandoned and not one person would have questioned him, team doctors asked him to quit and it looked like he had broken his arm. He didn't quit, a stark contrast to Moreau.

The great thing about this Tour has been the remarkable display of sportsmanship and camaraderie between the riders. Armstrong waited for Ullrich after his crash, so he could make sure his biggest rival was okay, and also so he wouldn't win the race by default. He wanted to beat Ullrich through racing, not through an accident. This sportsmanship reached its zenith when Armstrong let Ullrich win the sprint at the end of Stage 14, allowing Ullrich to pick up an eight-second time bonus so he could move into second place overall. Ullrich then reached back and shook Armstrong's hand to acknowledge that Armstrong is the better rider this year -- a touching moment on a grueling race. As much as we obsess about the Tour, it's just a race, and it's wonderful to see the two rivals treat each other with dignity and class.

Who will win the team competition?

Jason: Tough call. Kelme has a 10-minute lead on ONCE, but the mountains are history. ONCE should make up time on the final time trial, but 10 minutes?? It's a tall order, but I'm going to go with ONCE -- they are that much better in time trials. Only Sevilla is likely to have a good day for Kelme, and he will not be as good as Igor Gonzalez.

CPK: Kelme has the two-head monster of Sevilla and Botero, but little else. Only the top three count for the team classification, so they need Gutierrez to continue the best Tour of his life. If he falters, the team will tumble down the standings quickly. ONCE is the deepest team in the world, they just keep coming at you in waves. If one rider falters, there are about three left to pick up the slack. They are less vulnerable to a crash than Kelme, and though its tough to pick up time in the flat stages, 10 minutes is not a huge margin. ONCE will take it.

Who will win the White Jersey?

Jason: Sevilla has it sewn up. This dude is even four minutes over his team leader, Botero. What a great ride for this youngster.

CPK: It was close for a while, and we'd like to think Montgomery and Mancebo for showing up. They are the only two riders who even have a snowball's chance of taking the jersey, but the chances are ridiculously slim. All three rode very well, but Sevilla has the better team behind him. Kelme won't let the other two get close in the flat stages.

Who will win the Green Jersey?

Jason: Zabel is a machine. I think he will close the 13-point gap because he really is a more consistent finisher. He's more likely to get the big points for a stage victory, and as Telekom showed today, they will respond to O'Grady's attacks on the intermediate sprints.

CPK: Credit Agricole showed that it can ride with Telekom in the flatlands. Now that the Tour has put the mountains behind them, O'Grady will see a sudden return of his team support. Of course, Telekom now knows Ullrich will not win the yellow, so they might start attacking on behalf of Zabel. We've already mentioned their incredible inconsistency, but they can redeem two bad weeks by winning Zabel the green and placing Ullrich on the final podium. I'm a sentimental guy and O'Grady is the sentimental choice.

Who will win the Yellow Jersey?

Jason: Lance (Armstrong) is the strongest man in the world on a bike. Ullrich is head and shoulders better than everyone in the race, save one.

CPK: An absolutely stunning performance so far. Five minutes in the flatlands should be an insurmountable lead. It's now up to the Posties to just surround their leader and keep him out of trouble. They should do just that and Armstrong will become the first American to win the Tour de France three consecutive times. Kivelev and Beloki will duke it out for the final spot on the podium, and this time sentiment doesn't win, Beloki will make the finish the same exactly as it was last year. Armstrong- Ullrich- Beloki.

Article courtesy of CPKSports.com