The Beat Goes On – 21 Aug 2007
All teams (with the exception of Astana and, of course Unibet) are preparing themselves for a big couple of weeks with the Eneco Tour imminent not to mention a host of one-day races in Italy and Belgium. Team announcements have been made and I suggest you visit team websites (click the links over there on the right) for the latest team selections.
The Astana Team have announced that they intend on getting back to business in September starting with the Pro Tour event, the Grand Prix de Plouay in France. Once again, as part of the announcement the Astana Team Management have assured all who will listen that they are determined to set up a system of independent and external anti-doping measures for the team.
The rumours about Milram’s main sponser Nordmilch pulling their backing after Joerg Jaksche’s allegations have proven to be unfounded. The boss of Nordmilch, Martin Mischel has said, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t continue”. Their current contract is in force until 2009.
Credit Agricole have announced that Laszlo Bodrogi has renewed his contract with the team for the 2008 season. They have also announced their Vuelta a Espana team with the leader being Pietro Caucchioli and he will be led through the mountain passes by Alexandre Botcharov and Remi Pauriol.
The Lampre-Fondital team are still basking in the glory of Alessandro Ballan’s victory in Sunday’s Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg. “We’ve been perfect and we obtained the victory even if some accidents happened – Guido Bontempi commented, talking about the crash suffered in the last 2 kilometres by Claudio Corioni. Bontempi does admit that Corioni’s crash probably had a big influence over the final result which is true considering it took out Thor Hushovd.
Quickstep – Innergetic have assured us that, apart from a few cuts and bruises, Tom Boonen looks to have suffered no major ill effects after the fall with 20km to go that he suffered during the Vattenfall Cyclassics.
Team CSC experienced Dane Nicki Sørensen’s season is over after he suffered an accident at home in which he broke three bones in his foot. “He’s really upset, because he’ been looking forward to doing Tour of Ireland, Vuelta a España and of course the World Championships,” said CSC sports director Kim Anderson. On another note, the team has signed 24 year old Lasse Bøchmann from the Glud & Marstrand Horsens as new team stagliare.
2007 Tour de France Team Report Cards
The 2007 Tour de France is over and we all celebrate the efforts of Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans, Levi Leipheimer, Tom Boonen and Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez. But just how did each team fare this year. I’ve decided to cast my eye over the teams to extract their high points, their low points, their dominance and their insignificance during the race. We’re going to go in alphabetical order.
AG2R – Team placing : 10th. Noted moments in the Tour : Christophe Moreau finished 4th in stage 8 on the climb up to Tignes. This took him to 7th place on the GC. He climbed to 6th after stage 9.
High GC positions : Stephane Goubert – 27th
High Stage placings :
Martin Elmiger – 3rd (Stage17)
Christophe Moreau – 4th (Stage 8)
Agritubel – Team placing : 17th. I think AGR will be known as the “other wildcard” entrant in the 2007 TdF with little of note in terms of memorable moments. Freddy Bichot picked up the Combativeness award in the final stage.
High GC position : Moises Duenas Nevado – 39th
High Stage placings :
Romain Feillu - 5th (Stages 1 & 2)
Astana – Team placing : Ejected After Stage 15. The first team removed from the Tour were flying high on top of the Team standings thanks to strong showings from Andreas Kloden and Andrey Kushechkin. Two stage wins by Alexandre Vinokourov looked to have settled things a little after Vino’s earlier crash and shocking injuries. But then the blood-doping scandal broke, Vinokourov and the entire team were asked to leave.
High Stage placings :
Alexandre Vinokourov – 1st (Stages 13 & 15)
Barloworld – Team placing : 15th. The revelation of the 2007 Tour de France. This is how you make the most of a wildcard invite with a couple of stage victories and taking ou the King of the Mountains competition courtesy of Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez. The team was impressive across the board riding up the front of the peloton when required and generally making their presence felt.
High GC position : Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez – 11th
High Stage placings :
Robert Hunter – 1st (Stage 11), 2nd (Stage 4), 3rd (Stage 12)
Juan Mauricio Soler – 1st (Stage 9), 3rd (Stage 14)
Bouyges Telecom – Team placing : 14th. Matthieu Sprick picked up the combativeness award for his attacks in Stage 4.
High GC position : Xavier Florencio – 46th
High Stage placings :
Laurent Lefevre - 3rd (Stage 18), 5th (Stage 7)
Caisse D’Epargne - Team placing : 2nd. Here was a team who put in a strong showing throughout the entire Tour, challenging for GC honours and stage victories yet falling frustratingly short each time. High stage placings were the order of the day without managing to take out a major honour.
High GC positions : Alejandro Valverde – 6th, Oscar Pereiro Sio – 10th
High Stage placings :
Alejandro Valverde – 2nd (Stage 9), 3rd (Stage 8)
Vladimir Karpets – 3rd (Stage 19)
Cofidis – Team placing : Ejected after stage 16. The other team to be thrown out of the 2007 Tour thanks to the positive drugs test of Christian Moreni. Before that the team was having a memorable tour with some jersey wins and high stage placings. Most notable were Stephane Auge who held the polka dot jersey for stages 3 & 4 only to give it up to team mate Sylvain Chavanel who held it on stages 5, 6 and 7. Sylvain Chavanel won the combativity award in Stage 5 and Bradley Wiggins also picked up a combativity award for his lone break away ride in Stage 6.
High GC position : N/A
High Stage placings :
Bradley Wiggins – 4th (Prologue), 5th (Stage 13)
Credit Agricole - Team placing – 9th. Thor Hushovd picked up a stage win early on and Patrice Halgand was awarded the combative prize for Stage 10 in a Tour that provided only rare highlights.
High GC position : Dmitriy Fofonov – 26th
High Stage placings :
Thor Hushovd – 1st (Stage 4), 2nd (Stage 1), 2nd (Stage 20)
Patrice Halgand – 4th (Stage 10)
CSC – Team placing : 3rd. There always seemed to be a member of the CSC team up towards the front of the race. Whether it was Jens Voigt in a break away (For which he took out the combativity award in Stage 17) or Carlos Sastre trying to make it happen in the mountains, they figured prominently and with great consistency. Not only that but Fabian Cancellara took out the Prologue and then won the 3rd stage, holding onto the yellow jersey for 6 stages of the Tour.
High GC position : Carlos Sastre – 4th
High Stage placings :
Fabian Cancellara - 1st (Prologue), 1st (Stage 3), 2nd (Stage 11)
Jens Voigt – 4th (Stage 17)
Discovery Channel – Team placing – 1st. Far and away the best team of the Tour not only for the strength of their personnel but also the strength of their tactics and the way they both attacked and defended. They consistently put riders in break aways, protected the yellow jersey when they had it and took stage victories. It was an all around impressive display. Early on Vladimir Gusev took the white jersey before it was won by Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer’s win in the 19th Stage time trial was an awesome display and Alberto Contador’s explosive climbing speed was a sight to behold. Throw in the work done at the front of the peloton on the big mountain stages by George Hincapie and Yaroslav Popovych and it was a true team effort.
High GC positions : Alberto Contador – 1st, Levi Leipheimer – 3rd, Yaroslav Popovych – 8th.
High Stage placings :
Alberto Contador – 1st (Stage 14), 3rd (Stage 16) 4th (Stage 9)
Levi Leipheimer – 1st (Stage 19), 2nd (Stage 16) 4th (Stage 14)
George Hincapie – 3rd (Prologue)
Yaroslav Popovych – 4th (Stage 19)
Euskaltel – Euskadi – Team placing – 5th. Although the Euskaltel team were often prominent in the mountain stages, stage victories were narrowly elusive. Two top 10 finishers is a good indication of how consistently strong the team were. Amets Txurruka was rewarded for his aggression during the race by being awarded the Most Aggressive Rider of the Tour.
High GC positions : Haimar Zubeldia – 5th, Mikel Astarloza – 9th
High Stage placings :
Inigo Landaluze – 2nd (Stage 7)
Haimar Zubeldia – 3rd (Stage 15)
Francaise de Jeux – Team placing – 19th. A stage win and a second placing by Sandy Casar made this a reasonably successful Tour de France for the FDJ squad.
High GC position : Thomas Lovkvist – 64th
High Stage placings :
Sandy Casar – 1st (Stage 18), 2nd (Stage 10)
Sebastien Chavanel – 4th (Stage 1), 4th (Stage 6)
Gerolsteiner – Team Placing – 16th. Difficult to find anything of note to mention about the GST performance other than Markus Fothen’s second placing in the 17th stage and the occasional appearance of Bernhard Kohl at the head of the group. Sprinter Robert Forster could never really get going with a best placing of 6th (twice).
High GC position : Bernhard Kohl – 31st
High Stage placings :
Markus Fothen – 2nd (Stage 17)
Robert Forster – 6th (Stage 1), 6th (Stage 3)
Fabian Wegmann – 6th (Stage 7)
Lampre – Fondital – Team Placing – 8th. Daniele Bennati’s 2 stage wins capped a pretty good Tour for the Lampre – Fondital squad. They spent most of the Tour at the head of the peloton, particularly when chasing down the early stage break aways, often helping Quick Step in whipping up the pace.
High GC position : Tadej Valjavec – 19th
High Stage placing :
Daniele Bennati – 1st (Stage 17), 1st (Stage 20), 3rd (Stage 5), 6th (Stage 6), 4th (Stage 12)
Danilo Napolitano – 3rd (Stage 3), 5th (Stage 4)
Allessandro Ballan – 5th (Stage 11)
Liquigas – Team Placing – 11th. Always prominent throughout the Tour, the LIQ tam were rewarded with a stage victory pus a few minor places. Whenever a break away was orchestrated there invariably seemed to have a member of the team at hand.
High GC position : Manuel Beltran – 18th
High Stage placing :
Filippo Pozzato – 1st (Stage 5), 3rd (Stage 2), 4th (Stage 11)
Michael Albasini – 3rd (Stage 10)
Murilo Antoniobil Fischer – 3rd (Stage 11)
Milram – Team Placing – 18th. Through Erik Zabel the Green Jersey was Milram’s for 1 day and the sprinter also kept the team’s colours flying at the end of each stage.
High GC position : Christian Knees – 47th
High Stage placing :
Erik Zabel – 2nd (Stage 3), 4th (Stage 4), 5th (Stage 5), 3rd (Stage 6), 2nd (Stage 12), 3rd (Stage 20)
Predictor – Lotto – Team Placing – 7th. An outstanding Tour for PRL and for Cadel Evans in particular, only 24 seconds away from standing on the top step of the podium in Paris. Add to that a stage win by Robbie McEwen and the team can be well pleased with their efforts. Chris Horner was courageous in his support of Evans during the arduous Pyrenean stages. A few more team members able to ride for Evans might have changed the result a tad.
High GC positions : Cadel Evans – 2nd, Chris Horner – 15th
High Stage placing :
Robbie McEwen – 1st (Stage 1)
Cadel Evans – 3rd (Stage 8), 2nd (Stage 13), 4th (Stage 16), 2nd (Stage 19)
Quick Step – Innergetic – Team Placing – 12th. No team had more stage wins the QSI with Tom Boonen taking a couple, Gert Steegmans winning one in a lead out that was so quick Boonen couldn’t get past and a successful break away by Cedric Vasseur. In the early stages it was the Quick Step Team that reeled in every break away to give Boonen sprinting chances. The result was a fine Green Jersey win for the Belgian sprinter.
High GC position : Juan Manuel Garate – 21st
High Stage placings :
Gert Steegmans – 1st (Stage 2)
Tom Boonen – 2nd (Stage 2), 4th (Stage 3), 1st (Stage 6), 1st (Stage 12), 5th (Stage 18), 5th (Stage 20)
Cedric Vasseur – 1st (Stage 10)
Juan Manuel Garate 5th (Stage 15)
Rabobank – Team Placing – 4th. Everything was on track for a wonderfully successful Tour for the RAB tam, but the storm clouds began brewing early on over the missed documentation supplied by Rasmussen earlier in the year. Rasmussen took both the yellow jersey and the polka dot jersey on Stage 8 and was still wearing them when his team ejected him from the race. Herculean performances were put in by his team-mates, most notably Michael Boogerd who was having an outstanding final Tour. The team was understandably gutted when Rasmussen left after Stage 16.
High GC position : Michael Boogerd – 16th
High Stage placings :
Michael Rasmussen – 1st (Stage 8), 2nd (Stage 14), 1st (Stage 16)
Michael Boogerd – 4th (Stage 18)
Saunier Duval – Prodir – Team placing : 6th. Noted moments in the Tour : David Millar held the climbers polka-dot jersey for stages 1 & 2. Millar also managed to be on hand to condemn every rider that was thrown out of the Tour with a solid sound bite or two. That, and his skin condition which was the subject of much conversation by commentators each day, occasionally brought the team to my attention. They were also regularly mistaken by my 7 year old son as the leaders of the Tour mistaking their yellow jersey for the leader’s jersey.
High GC positions : Iban Mayo – 16th, Juanjo Cobo – 20th
High Stage placings :
Iban Mayo – 2nd (Stage 8)
David de la Fuente – 3rd (Stage 7)
T-Mobile Team – Team Placing – 13th. A brief moment in the sun for Linus Gerdemann was the high point for the T-Mobile Team. He held the yellow jersey and the white jersey after a momentous stage victory up on Le Grand-Bornand. This was to be some consolation for the team because they were about to lose team leader Mick Rogers in the next stage just as he was moving into the virtual lead in a crash while descending the Cormet du Roselend. Kim Kirchen assumed the team leadership role and rode bravely to finish inside the top 10 on the GC.
High GC position : Kim Kirchen – 7th
High Stage placing :
Linus Gerdemann – 1st (Stage 7), 2nd (Stage 8)
So there we have the highlights, some of the low lights and some who passed unnoticed despite their best efforts. Unfortunately this year’s Tour de France was not without its fair share of controversies, but it ended up one of the closest ever finishes and threw up 1 or 2 extremely exciting prospects for us to follow in the years to come.
