White victorious, but Joost takes final stage with new highest stage score

The final Excel is here. Summaries of the stages of the tour including results are here : stages 1 to 11 and stage 12 to 21

Thanks to everyone for following the Fella’s tour 2005. I’m honoured to have come first, having expected to be in the middle of the peloton for most of the race. My tactic of putting Vinokourov in the team was the move which gave me the race : it turns out that the optimal 1-2 was Vinokourov – Armstrong, which made the difference for my squad.

Next year I expect the competition to be hotter still, as there will be no predictable Armstrong victory, more battling in the peloton, and hopefully some very exciting attacks.

Paul Evans made a valiant effort to pull back points, gaining ten on Francis Lee. However, from today’s morning analysis we knew he had a mountain to climb, and it was a flat stage after all.

It just remains for me to give you some summary information, most of which is also included as new data in the Excel sheet (attached).

Rankings

The rankings of the teams based on the number of top ten placings for all 15 riders shows that ranking your squad, once selected, is the most important factor. It’s very close between the first three riders, and given Paul’s excellent score in spite of a lack of top ten places, his team positioning wasn’t as bad as he made out : thankfully he didn’t have a couple more strong riders or he’d have been a big challenger.

No contest for last place, where Keir’s random selection proved that you would have to work hard to do worse even if you were trying.

Final Ranking :

481(+54,-54) Simon White (France)
464(+57,-71) Joost Dantuma (UK)
410(+33,-125) Francis Lee (France)
400(+43,-135) Paul Evans (France)
107(+15,-428) Keir Mitchell (UK)

Most stage wins :

5. Francis Lee
4. Simon White
3. Joost Dantuma
3. Paul Evans
3. Keir Mitchell

Highest stage score :

57*. Joost Dantuma
54*. Francis Lee
54. Simon White
51. Paul Evans
26. Keir Mitchell

* this score also a stage winning score

Most “efficient” squad

Most top ten places :

49. Joost Dantuma
47. Simon White
46. Francis Lee
38. Paul Evans
10. Keir Mitchell

Number of riders who failed to make any top ten positions:

2. Joost Dantuma (Beloki, Heras)
3*. Paul Evans (Azevedo, Beloki, Jaksche)
3*. Simon White (Kirsipuu, Heras, Sastre)
3*. Francis Lee (Mayo, Rogers, Heras)
9. Keir Mitchell (Gonchar, Garcia Acosta, Spezialetti, Moos, Kroon, Canada, Loosli, Noval, Cortinovis)

* ranked according to the importance of riders who failed to make scores, e.g. Paul had 3 no scoring riders who were lower ranked in his team than Simon or Francis’ no score squad members.

Of these riders Heras (White, Lee) and Beloki (Dantuma, Evans) feature in 2 teams.

See the Optimal Team :
https://staff.science.uva.nl/~erikt/tdf/getpart.cgi?YEAR=2005&SEARCH=optimal%20team

What of Keir’s challenge for the wooden spoon? Well, given Eisel and McGee’s return to top ten places, Adios Mofo was forced into submission. His final score was 93, 14 points adrift. Keir can take the honours for lowest placed rider not to win a stage, as both Adios Mofo and S. Chaumette just above Keir won stages. I don’t think we’ll see that kind of phenomenon again at the bottom of the table.

The rainy conditions, the foregone conclusion of a seventh victory for Lance Armstrong and the traditional go slow before getting to the Champs Elysées meant that the stage took time to warm up. Late attack hopes were wiped out as the official GC placings were decided as soon as the riders crossed the line for the first of eight times. This was for safety reasons as the organisers didn’t want any crashes in attacks on the slippery Paris roads. Vinokourov had other ideas as he sprinted to take fifth place on the GC due to bonus allocations. He outpaced McGee who had gone with him, cementing my victory to boot.

If anyone wants to calculate a green or polka-dot jersey ranking, I’m interested. I can’t come up with a methodology short of taking all points for those competitions and weighting them with Fella’s tour teams, which seems like a bit too much work.

Cheers, and I hope to see you all next year on the Fella’s tour.

-Simon

3 Comments

  1. Francis Lee

    24/7/2005 at 10:33 pm

    just arriving from a heroic tour myself of the balkans (2500km covered in 2.5 days) I’d just like to thank S.White for his superb analysis and commentary of this years cycling fest.

    i managed to catch up some of the news and updates on eurosport, but was mainly distracted by the unbelievable women that paraded past my widening eyes everyday.

    tsavit.

  2. Id just like to say thanks to Simon for his excellent commentary during
    these last 3 weeks…a career in Tdf journalism could well be the next step
    for fella…

    Who could forget the photo of my polished chopper ? Joost and I still have a
    bet on to ride them up alp d’huez at some point during our lives….

    So to prepare next years race,
    have a look at this

    Fella

  3. Joost Dantuma

    31/7/2005 at 5:26 pm

    Excellent stuff white. Congratulations on your deserved victory!

    I got back from my own Balkan tour an hour ago, and didn’t even know who had won le Actual Tour. No TV, no internet, NUFFINK! Needless to say, my first port of call was Simon’s emails!

    I’ll get you next time!

    Paul, if that bird is riding a chopper in front of us, Alp Duez will be a doddle.