The Unlucky Tour

I must say that the 2010 Tour De France has been one of the ones I have least enjoyed.  I might have found the characterless Miguel Indurain hammering out his tempo and winning year after year tedious; in 2008 I certainly found Cadel Evans incredibly irritating, but this year there were a lot of things that seemed to spoil the race.  The battle between Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck, of course, was a classic, but reflecting on Contador's stronger performance all round, it was clear given the time trial, and barring any bad luck, he was going to win.  Of course, if it had not been for the faulty decision in 2008 not to let him defend his 2007 win, then this would be his fourth consecutive win and it would be looking like he would be close to entering that select band of multiple winners, not least his fellow countryman.  Given his youth, he is still only 28, he has a reasonable chance of getting into that kind of category, especially in a sport in which men like Lance Armstrong and Christophe Moreau riding the race almost into their 40s.  Schleck has come a long way even in the past year and showed that he could no longer simply be dropped by Contador on a climb, but whether he can ever beat him in a time trial is a different issue.

Contador can be said to not been particularly lucky or unlucky, but this year being in such a position was itself an advantage.  The first few days had an intolerable level of crashes.  Of course, any leading cycle tour has crashes, but this year it seemed to exceed the acceptable level in terms of severity.  Andy Schleck was able to recover but the greatest loss to him was his brother Frank Schleck being taken out of the race due to injury at such an early stage.  If Schleck was going to beat Contador this year he needed an exceptional team.  Both Saxobank and Astana fielded good teams, Alexander Vinokurov was almost as challenging for Contador on the Astana team as Armstrong was in that role last year.  What would have made a real difference was if Frank Schleck had been there to lift his brother beyond Contador's pace.  It was only bad luck that meant he was not there. 

The other piece of bad luck was Andy Schleck's chain coming loose when he was launching a strong attack on Contador, something which will be discussed for years.  Contador genuinely seems to like Schleck and seems to have been unsettled by feeling he had snatched an unfair advantage.  I think at the end of the day he would have caught Schleck anyway and wiped out any small advantage in the time trial.  However, it is hard on Schleck to think that he could have retained the yellow jersey that little bit longer if he had not had a mechanical fault, but this year they do seem to be common.

Of course, the man to suffer most from bad luck was Lance Armstrong.  I know why he rode the race in 2009 and 2010, but it was a shame for him simply to fade after multiple mechanical faults and crashes.  I do not think he would have had a high finish, but to go out in his final tour this way seems to have been bad luck and it would have been nice to have seen him have a tour a little more like fellow last time rider, Moreau.  Others did not have bad luck, just bad form, notably Cadel Evans who seems to have had a personality transplant and is rather unsettlingly cheery these days.  However, looking back, his slide after a burst of glory has characterised many of his recent tours no matter his personality.  Bradley Wiggins, the great British hope who came 4th last year, similarly had no single bad thing to point to, just occasional lack of lucky breaks and unfortunately as time passed, a flagging of morale.  He now sees last year's position as a 'fluke'.  Perhaps Geraint Thomas, second in the race for so many days, though, it seems, quickly forgotten, will step into that position.  David Millar the rather erratic British rider, was also unlucky, like too many of the riders this year plagued by mishaps and ill health.

Mark Cavendish after a challenging year as a result of his rather fast temper and playful/offensive gesturing showed he still had the power and speed to win sprints.  However, it did become more apparent that his skill does not suit all finishes and the longer run-ins can be taken by Thor Hushovd and even Alessandro Petacchi even at the age of 36.  Perhaps 2010 should be seen as the year of the 'old' men in the Tour De France.  Cavendish in HTC Columbia, perhaps had the best team for doing what that team focuses on, i.e. winning sprints.  I think their success, however, was a little dangerous and whilst Mark Renshaw, Cavendish's lead-out man over the final metres was probably right in trying to keep his space, he was too vigorous with his head and clearly was blocking people trying to catch Cavendish.  Success often leads to a fear of even the chance of failure and a willingness to behave in a way which eliminates even that risk.  It was not bad luck, it was arrogance stemming from too great success.  Cavendish remains the fastest man in the last metres; Hushovd has proven himself to be what the green jersey competition is really about, i.e. consistency no matter what the environment.  Though these two things intersect at times, this year even more than last showed the difference between the two.

Looking ahead, I certainly will watch the career of Canadian Ryder Hesjedal with great interest.  In a more mundane year I think we would be talking much more about him.  At 30 it may be a little late for him to be seen as a newcomer, but I expect to see big things from him in the 2011 Tour De France, just as we have this year over as varied situations as the pave of northern France and the Pyrenean climbs of its South.

Perhaps people will accuse me of asking for too much.  A head-to-head battle for the yellow jersey, surely is excitement enough.  However, I think a lot of space around and behind Contador and Schleck was cleared not by their strength and ability but by too much bad luck on dangerous routes.  This year's organisers got their undecided race until the end but it came at the price of inadvertently eliminating too many other contenders.

Why I Believe Lance Armstrong is in the 2009 Tour de France

Many people have asked why Lance Armstrong, Texan seven-times consecutive winner of the Tour de France decided to come back and race this year not having been in the competition since 2005. Armstrong dominated the race 1999-2005 and at times had a cool demeanour, partly because as he became more successful he faced questions from the media, especially in France, who felt that he could only have succeeded with the use of drugs. You have to remember that in this era leading racers in the competition were eliminated when it was found they had been taking drugs. However, despite all the numerous tests Armstrong came through that with a clean bill of health. Armstrong is also renowned for the fact that he survived an aggressive cancer which started in his testicles but spread to his lungs and brain. He has established the LiveStrong charity and a foundation to help people with cancer. When Armstrong, aged 37, returned to the Tour de France this year on the Astana team based in Kazakhstan, people were surprised. He has the second position on the team to Alberto Contador, the winner of the 2007 Tour de France, seen as a very possible candidate for victory in 2009. Contador was unable to ride in the 2008 Tour de France because Astana were blocked due to connections of the former team management and cyclists from the team with drugs, notably the team leader Alexandre Vinokourov ejected from the 2007 race for doping.

Now, it is very unlikely that anyone will ever equal let alone surpass Armstrong's record in the Tour de France and many people worried that coming back after 4 years away from the race and 3.5 years out of profiessional cycling he would end up humiliating himself. Given by the end of the fifth stage he was 0.22 seconds away from holding the leader's yellow jersey, I think has blown away any such concerns. Perhaps 29th in the Tour Down Under, 7th in Tour of California and 2nd in the Tour of the Gila with a 3rd place in the Team Time Trial for Astana in the Giro d'Italia were hardly astounding results at the highest level, but they show that Armstrong is not unfit. The clear factor as seen on Stage 3 of the Tour de France was that Armstrong is experienced. He could always read the field well and the tactics he pulled in the mountains in the years of his victories were as vital as his stamina. This is what made Armstrong, though at times rather irritable (though we had not experienced Cadel Evans taking that to a new height then), was he was far more exciting to watch than the morose Miguel Indurain, winner of the Tour 1991-5 who just hammered out a pace. The break in the field on Stage 3 was not expected, but Armstrong saw it and went with it; Contador, perhaps lacks the experience, or maybe the sixth sense, that Armstrong has.

One interesting fact is, that with seven of the nine Astana riders currently in the top 10 of the riders in the race, how much less success my least favourite rider, Cadel Evans, would have had last year when Astana, particularly Contador was absent. I think Evans simply got lucky. I was glad he did not win last year, but I think that he should not even have got as close as he did. The man is incredibly self-centred and arrogant and gives professional cyclists a bad name. I know they can be terse but in his desire to be a diva he has stepped into the realm of rude and has put himself on the same level as the worst of boxers and football players. He is rapidly disappearing from the upper levels of the General Classification and in my view, all for the good. I trust this year with the race back to a proper standard, he will not come close to the 2nd position he held in 2007 and 2008.

To some extent I feel Armstrong has been sincere he saying he did not come to the Tour this year to win. I feel he has been surprised by his success, but now senses it might be possible to win again. However, we have yet to see the mountain stages in which Contador excels. Hopefully he will listen to Armstrong about playing the field and do so in the way that allowed Armstrong to blow away his close opponents in previous years. The thing that I believe that brought Armstrong to this race was not the chance of another win, but sheer enjoyment. I am sure that he is pleased that Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara is wearing the yellow jersey still. Obvously riders will keep an eye on Armstrong but not to the extent that they would have done if he had also been in yellow. What brings us back to watching the Tour year after year, people standing by the roadside for hours, waiting for days for a few minutes of a passing cavalcade? It is enjoyment of the event and the Tour de France is the most prestigious of cycling's events. I think Armstrong enjoys simply taking part, riding those roads, being mixed up in all of day's events. Though not all the pressure is off him, and he is getting more than he perhaps might have hoped for, it is certainly less than when he was winning yellow year after year, so he can enjoy the event to a much greater extent and share his vast expertise with the next generation like Contador, only 26.

I think we can see something that there was a similar motive for German rider, Erik Zabel, a sprinter who was still riding in last year's Tour de France at the age of 38, having won the green points jersey every year 1996-2001 and by 2008 still coming 3rd in that competition. Zabel is now a technical advisor to Team Columbia HTC on which British sprint marvel, Mark Cavendish (who has already won 2 stages this year and managed 4 in total last year) rides. These men love the sport and are going to be at the heart of it as long as they can. For Armstrong it is not a sad swansong, rather he can participate in an event he loves without everyone spoiling it for him by targeting him day after day. Well, that was the theory. His experience and clear enduring strength may make things more complex for him in the next fortnight.

A Very Good Tour

Well, regular readers will know my opinion of Cadel Evans in the Tour de France and so will understand how glad I was that he was not able to pull back the time on Carlos Sastre on the time trial on Saturday and so went on to ultimate victory. Sastre is very self-effacing a trait which appeals highly to British viewers but probably seems perverse to US or Australian ones.

Commentators say fans of the Tour de France divide into two camps, those who like to see a champion like Miguel Indurain or Lance Armstrong tactically and strategically take apart the opposition and those, including myself, who prefer an open race in which it is uncertain who will win and there are chops and changes throughout. The 2008 race was in the latter category, often with less than a minute dividing the top 5-6 riders and there were others such as Denis Menchov and Bernhard Kohl with maybe some more luck could have won. There were days when successful breakaways won for heroes like Marcus Burghart of Stage 18 or Sylvain Chavanel of Stage 19 and there were stages for sprinters, notably the four victories by Mark Cavendish, the best a British rider has done in a single tour. There was excellent tension, such as on the first day in the Alps when Sastre staked out his claim for victory by breaking away in Alpe D'Huez and then again in the final time trial as he rode excellently to hold on to it. Seven people held the yellow jersey throughout the race this year and even when it seemed a foregone conclusion that Cadel Evans would win, there were still surprises, it was really edge of the seat stuff.

The interesting thing is that the man who won the Tour de France last year, Alberto Contador was not invited to compete this year. This is because the Central Asian team, Astana that he rides for were barred in 2006 and kicked out in 2007 when Alexandre Vinokourov, Andrey Kashechkin and Matthias Kessler were detected as having taken drugs. The Astana team is now run by Johan Bruyneel and he has a strict drugs checking policy, but clearly the team has to serve its time in exile before the authorities will let it back in. I do hope so as a Sastre-Contador-Evans (plus Menchov and Kohl) battle will make for exciting cycling.

The thing that stopped 2008 being an excellent tour for me was the continued presence of drugs. Of course it was nothing on the scandals of recent years. In 2006 Floyd Landis was stripped of his victory of the whole race for drugs taking. Last year two leaders of the race, Alexandre Vinukurov was kicked out for drug taking and then Michael Rasmussen for irregularities around his drug tests. Last year whole teams went, this year Moises Duenas Nevado and Manuel Beltran were removed but their teams remained, following the removal of Ricardo Ricco who had one the 9th stage and the departure of the Saunier Duval team with the winner of Stage 10, Leonardo Piepoli and Juan Jose Cobo who came second on that stage. Effectively the Barloworld team funded from South Africa will dissolve after Nevado on that team was caught, as they are withdrawing sponsorship. This is the shame as Barloworld were one of the few non-European teams. Interestingly the new approach of the authorities targeting suspicious riders seems to have paid off, maybe in future they should be barred from even entering. Three teams in this year's race have their own drugs monitoring on top of the official one and I think in future any team being entered into the race must be compelled to adopt this approach.

The thing that effectively lost Cadel Evans the 2008 Tour de France was his team, Silence Lotto. They were almost invisible in the race and you can contrast this with the strength of the CSC team which put first Frank Schleck and then Carlos Sastre into the yellow jersey. A team even half as good as CSC would have allowed Evans to claw back Sastre's gain on Alpe D'Huez which was a model of team working with the two Schleck brothers policing the people pursuing Sastre and breaking up any pursuit. Evans had no-one to help him counter that and he also lacked the gall of someone like Armstrong, who knew that even when he was in the yellow jersey sometimes he had to attack rather than simply defend. Evans has come second in 2007 and 2008. He can win the Tour (though given his acid personality I hope he never does) if he can get even 2-3 decent team members around him. He has the all-round ability which he has demonstrated throughout this race, but he lacks that added spark of a team that can haul him up a mountain or break up his pursuers that both Sastre and Frank Schleck could call upon. The Tour de France was won by the CSC not only in actuality, but in terms of performance and they are an example in terms of how they work on the road (and their drugs screening policy) that other teams should really seek to copy.

Though the race is just over, I am very excited about 2009. I trust that it will be a clean race and one in which there will a whole host of exciting riders battling out for victory. That will be the sport of cycling at its peak. It has been a long, hard slog to reach, but I feel we are finally getting there and that is all for the good. Walking around my home town, I can see the impact that Cavendish's wins have already had on British cycling, there are so many more people (all men interestingly, maybe we need to bring back coverage of the women's Tour de France) and also children rather than wearing football strips, are in cycling caps and outfits. In the long-run this is not only good for the sake of cycling as a sport, but, I feel, for the health of the UK population.