Just about any Cycling fan will happily acknowledge that the Tour is the event they wait for all year. Yes, the Classics are great, but they aren't televised live here, and even in Europe, each individual race comes and goes in a day. The Tour is three weeks of exquisite plots and subplots. It's also an even grander stage than the great Classics, with far better fields than its respective Giro/Vuelta/Rundfahrt counterparts. Notwithstanding all that, here are five reasons why this year's Tour was almost a complete dud:
- Lance
- The other jerseys
- The route
- The subplots
- The hosts
The first problem can be dispensed with quickly: Lance showed on day one that barring a horrible disaster, the competition for yellow was over. What fun is that? Seriously, name one team besides CSC that was interested in Yellow after day 1. T-Mobile? Not really, I always thought Ullrich was eyeing the second step; Kloden wasn't all there; and Vino just wanted to attack to get attention (and a contract). Gerolsteiner and Phonak folks spent the entire race talking about "improving our placings," the Belgies focused on green, and Rabo and the Spaniards went hunting for stage wins. Meanwhile, as late as the start of the third week Lance's lead was a paltry 38 seconds, then 2.40 or something. But because it was Lance, and there was a 55km time trial waiting, nobody acted as if there was a Tour to contest. Rightly so, of course, but next year it will be refreshing to see teams playing their hands.
The lesser jerseys, i.e. green and polka dot (I don't count the white jersey, a kind of a kiddie, "thanks for playing" prize, scarcely more prestigious than the red number or team classification) totally lacked suspense. Richard Virenque has ruined the KOM competition for the time being, by showing the field that if they can spring one guy on a solo breakaway on the first stage with multiple KOM awards, they can end the competition before it really starts. Rasmussen racked up 56 points in his long win in the Vosges to Mulhouse, so all he had to do from there was mark Moreaun and try to score a few points occasionally. As for the green jersey, the judges completely loused up the competition when they docked McEwen out of contention for a fairly innocuous maneuver. Not that he didn't deserve it, but what fun was left? Watching Boonen, of course... but fate intervened on that one, and we were left with a battle between two guys, Hushovd and O'Grady, who didn't win a single stage. Begging the question, what skill is it that the green jersey celebrates... the ability to consistently hang around?
The route was lovely, if you are considering seeing France by bicycle. Seriously, the Atlantic coast, the Loire valley, the lesser Vosges and Massif Central ranges, a dip into Deutschland for some riesling and wienerschnitzel... talk about a great vacation. I'd even recommend driving it. But whoever drew this up as a course for the Grand Boucle should be fired, docked their last year's pay, and banned from the sport of Cycling. A mere three mountaintop finishes of any consequence, along with two other pseudo mountain stages ending in descents and mass groupings of absolutely no consequence. A slew of mini-mountain stages where an enterprising climber could gain 5 or 10 seconds on his rival (yawn), but which also had the effect of ending the fun of green jersey sprints on stage 13, making the post-Pyrenean stages a complete snore. On the bright side, this was THE year for teams hunting for stage wins, but you know, there's a reason the Pro Tour only gives one point for stage wins... because nobody gives a flying f#ck! The Amaury people have regularly tried to flatten the course to keep Lance in sight of the other GC players, so they get what they deserve here.
The subplots... as already discussed, the maillots jaune, vert et pois were barely contested. The stage wins were hotly contested, but often among a bunch of complete nobodies, plus Pereiro and Vinokourov, and the only real fun was when those guys got bested by Discovery riders completely out of their element. That leaves GC placings. The battle for the Chicken's podium spot was dramatic for about a half hour, when the inevitable got hurried along by four crashes and an unprecedented 17 bike changes. And podiums are nice, and top ten placings are nice too, and I understand there's a lot of cash involved... but seriously, are you going to scroll through the DVD to revisit the moment when the judges decided to award time bonuses on the Champs sprint, vaulting Vino from 6th to 5th?
Finally, the hosts... I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Tour needs French Cycling!! Which means Cycling needs French Cycling. This year was especially pathetic, with the only result of consequence being David Moncoutie's stage win (see prior post on stage wins), which was really just the same scripted nonsense we see every year on Bastille Day. Oh, and Christophe Moreaun's heroic near-miss of the top 10, accomplished while simultaneously whining about how his team was trying to replace him with Vinokourov, which eventually didn't happen. Oh, and the fact that the Norwegian green jersey winner was in fact riding on a French team (is it fitting then that he won the sprinter's jersey without winning a sprint?). Seriously, are all the strong, under-160-pound athletes in France playing soccer now?
Ah well... next year promises the most exciting Tour in several years, and if McEwen and Boonen are battling it out for green, while seven or eight others still think they have a shot at yellow, and Amaury puts the fun back in the race... maybe we'll have a reason to buy the DVD again. And maybe it'll be worth blogging at 6am again.