As much as I want to celebrate the amazing performance tonight by Annamay Pierce (yay...world record #2 in 2009) and the great results by the Canadian ITU teams in Hamburg last week, but we should recap the not-really-ultimately-competitive but fairly entertaining Tour de France.
The 2009 Tour will be remembered as much for the Astana squabbling as much as it will be for Lance's return or Alberto Contador's fairly convincing win. And it kept going thru the final weekend, with Lance skipping the celebratory Astana team dinner on Saturday night (after the epic climb up Ventoux) to spend time with his new RadioShack team organizers and sponsors. And after a brief issue about Lance not really acknowledging Contador on the podium, the fireworks really began on Monday. Contador admitted that his relationship with Lance was "zero", and that he has no "admiration for Lance on a personal level". Wow. Anyhow, it doesn't really matter, Astana won the Tour as expected, and with Contador and Armstrong sure to be on different teams in 2010, it only makes for some great drama for next year.
Speaking of winning the Tour, the financial totals for the 2009 Tour are in. The Tour is interesting in that small amounts of money are accumulated throughout the various stages, with small amounts won on categorized climbs and sprint points, and larger amounts for stage wins and leading the various jersey classifications and team categories. Even in a peloton finish, the top 100 finishers add small amounts to each team's financial coffers. Obviously, Astana, with 3 finishers in the overall top 6 and 4 stage wins, was the big winner with €697,050 in prize money (almost a million US dollars). Here are the totals for all 20 teams, courtesy of cyclingnews.com.
1 Astana € 697,050
2 Team Saxo Bank 362,850
3 Liquigas 156,360
4 Garmin-Slipstream 151,870
5 Team Columbia-HTC 102,300
6 Cervélo TestTeam 86,710
7 BBox Bouygues Tele 63,470
8 AG2R La Mondiale 54,730
9 Euskaltel-Euskadi 49,820
10 Cofidis Le Credit 40,690
11 Team Katusha 36,820
12 Française des Jeux 35,660
13 Team Milram 32,830
14 Caisse d'Epargne 31,540
15 Rabobank 31,310
16 Agritubel 27,690
17 Silence-Lotto 22,570
18 Skil-Shimano 22,530
19 Quick Step 17,760
20 Lampre-NGC 17,040
This actually leads me to my next topic, who had a good Tour and who didn't. Here's my Top 5 Winners and Top 5 Losers from the 2009 Tour.
Winners
1. Johan Bruyneel and Team Astana - despite the internal squabbling, Johan Bruyneel has now presided over 9 Tour de France wins, and is expected to go for #10 with Team RadioShack and Lance in 2010. He's the undisputed master tactictian (let other teams defend the yellow jersey for as long as possible). Sure, he has a strong team (could have easily had 4 riders in the overall Top 5 if Levi didn't get injured and if Contador hadn't dropped his teammate Kloden during an ill-fated attack), but he goes into every Grand Tour with the singular goal of winning the overall title. Not stage wins, not polka-dot jerseys, not trying to get into breakaways or competing in sprint finishes...it's all about the podium on the last day!
2. The Schlecks - although they ultimately failed to move Frank Schleck into a podium position or move Andy into the overall lead, the Schleck brothers showed unbelievable determination by attacking, re-attacking, and re-re-attacking during the most important mountain stages. Contador and Armstrong were able to hold their position on the podium by marking the frequent Schleck attacks, but you have to be amazed and impressed by the attempts. Good work Andy and Frank, and if Contador ever slips, Andy Schleck will most likely become the next winner of the Tour.
3. Team Columbia and Mark Cavendish - It's unbelievable that I've made it this far without mentioning Team Columbia and the unbeatable Cav. 6 stage wins for Cavendish, including a unreal performance on Stage 21 that resulted in Cav's lead-out man Mark Renshaw finishing second overall. I can't remember when the lead-out man beats all the rest of the sprinters. Anyhow, all the discussion about other sprinters like Tyler Farrar, Oscar Friere, etc turned moot as Mark Cavendish dusted them all. He's the best. And while he didn't win the Green Jersey (due mainly to Thor Hushovd's impressive stage win and even more impressive mountain breakaway), he did finish a Grand Tour for the first time, and his 10 career Tour wins already at age 25 show that Cavendish could become an all-time great.
4. Team Liquigas - 3rd in total dollars won. Won the polka dot jersey (Franco Pellizotti). Had 2 riders in the top 9 overall (Nibali and Kreuziger), who also finished second and third in the white jersey. Nice job by a team that might be best known as Ivan Basso's team. Basso skipped the Tour (he competed in the Giro and will compete in the Vuelta) as he rides back into shape following his two-year sit in the doping penalty box. But Liquigas had a great Tour, and could become a team to beat in the next couple of years as Nibali and Kreuziger get stronger and have Pellizotti and Basso as other Grand Tour options.
5. Team AG2R and Bbox Bouygues Telecom - these two French teams represented themself well. Bbox won two stages (Thomas Voeckler and Pierrick Fedrigo) and was in a bunch of breakaways, while AG2R somehow managed to hold the yellow jersey for 8 days after one good stage by Rinaldo Nocentini. They defended it well (with some help from Astana) but had a great Tour for a smaller French team. The goal of most French teams is stage wins since they don't normally have big mountain contenders or top sprinters. For these two teams, mission accomplished in 2009!
Losers
1. Carlos Sastre - last year's winner spent the whole pre-Tour leadup complaining about how little respect he was getting, despite being the 2008 champion. Ultimately, he finished 17th overall (26 minutes behind Contador), and probably made only one decent mountain attack. True, Sastre was on a new team (without the Schlecks by his side like in 2008) and was competing in his 4th straight Grand Tour. But he was never a factor in this year's Tour. As an aside, his team Cervelo did have a great Tour, with two stage wins (Thor Hushovd and Heinrich Haussler) and the Green Jersey win. But Sastre really didn't have a great 2009 Tour.
2. Cadel Evans - the 2007 and 2008 second place finisher fell into a pre-Tour hole when his teammate Thomas Dekker was excluded from the Tour for doping. Then his team and his overall position took another hit during the team time trial. Evans actually tried a few times during the second week of the Tour to move back into podium contention before completely folding in the third week. He finished in 30th place (45 minutes back). Not a memorable Tour for Cadel.
3. Denis Menchov and Team Rabobank - after a great Giro win where Menchov time trialed to the lead and then climbed alongside his rivals with ease, much was expected of Menchov in this year's Tour. But perhaps the difficulty of two Grand Tours back-to-back caught up with him. Menchov struggled on every mountain stage, and finished 51st overall. Still, that was the best overall position for a Rabobank rider, and there only saving grace was the great stage win by Juan Manuel Garate during Stage 20's ride up Mt Ventoux.
4. Team Lampre - you might not have even known that Lampre participated in this year's Tour. Despite having the reigning World Champion Allesandro Ballan participating for them, Lampre, and their ugly pink jerseys, were almost invisible in the Tour. No riders in Top 50 . No Top 5 finishes. No great showings in memorable breakaways. They also won less than 1/40th as much prize money as Team Astana. Thanks for coming guys...
5. Quick Step - for a big-name team with Tom Boonen and Sylvain Chavanel, this year's Tour was a disaster. They fought in the courts until the day before the Tour started to try and get Tom Boonen included in the race (the Tour wanted to exclude him due to his ongoing problem with cocaine) and ultimately succeeded, resulting in the team letting their top sprinter Allan Davis go home to make room for Boonen. Boonen showed that he wasn't in Tour shape, not bothering to compete in sprints and made the highlights only for his frequent crashes before dropping out before Stage 15. Chavanel, despite his big salary and high expectations, was also a non-factor in the race.
It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times Award
Team Garmin gets this one all to themselves. They did some good days: Tyler Farrar finishing second a few times, David Millar almost winning an epic breakaway, Bradley Wiggins might have been the biggest surprise of the Tour in finishing 4th overall, and Christian Vande Velde also had a good Tour, finishing 8th overall after last year's 4th place finish. But despite all the good stories, their inability to win a stage has to leave Garmin feeling a bit disappointed heading home. Until they start winning some stages, their Tour won't be considered an outright success.
Ok, thats enough about the 2009 Tour. The 2009 Vuelta is only 4 weeks away (YAY!) and Universal Sports will be showing all the stages live online. And with a solid field in place that includes Andy Schleck, Alejandro Valverde (perhaps), Ivan Basso, Samuel Sanchez, and Cadel Evans, it should provide some good early morning entertainment for 3 weeks in September. Looking forward to it already!
Doping suspensions seem to inevitably lead to comebacks, and with this week being the 2 year anniversary of the il-fated 2007 Tour, two big names are on their way back. Alexander Vinokourov has already stated that he wants to compete on Team Astana (whatever remains of it after Team RadioShack hires most of the current team) the rest of 2009 and into 2010, while The Chicken, Michael Rasmussen, has already started his comeback, finishing second in a Danish race without having being signed by a team yet. He is hopeful to find a team for 2010 and will perhaps return to the Tour next year as well.
The other big cycling story won't really break until September, when teams are allowed to officially sign and announce their riders for 2010. With Alberto Contador probably the biggest free agent out there, it remains to be seen where he will end up. My best bet is Caisse D'Epargne as of now, but Katusha, Garmin, Rabobank, and even staying on Team Astana are still possibilities. I'll keep you posted on who gets him, plus who Team RadioShack signs to help Lance out in 2010.
Okay, while we wait for the cycling world to return to the headlines in a month or so, there are plenty of other things to keep us interested. The World Swimming Championships are currently going on in Rome, and there are plenty of stories to cover. Michael Phelps has actually been beaten (it took a world record in the 200m butterfly by German Paul Biedermann) but has won two golds and a silver in the 3 events he has competed in so far. The swimsuit controversy is still raging (more below) but the biggest news so far happened from my biased Canadian point of view was tonight's World Record by Annamay Pierce, from Vancouver by way of Edmonton. She set the record in the semifinals of the 200m breaststroke, and will hopefully bring home a shiny gold medal during the final this weekend. This is Pierce's second World Record set this year (to go with her record in the 200m breast in the 25m shortcourse distance), and while swimming world records are very suspect (keep reading) the fact that a Canadian is the fastest ever over that distance is pretty remarkable.
You may remember that Canada won only one medal at the Olympics in the swimming pool (a bronze by Ryan Cochrane in the 1500m free) and so far this week, Canada has one medal (a bronze by Ryan Cochrane in the 800m free) . We do have some close calls (including a 4th place finish in the 100m free by Brent Hayden, who missed a medal by 0.02s) but ultimately only the one medal. Cochrane does compete in his better event (the 1500m) this weekend, so we do have a good chance at eclipsing the one medal total. Good luck all...
Ok, the World Records and the Swimsuit Controversy deserve a mention. Before the 2009 Worlds started, the governing body of swimming (FINA) announced that it will be banning all high-tech swimsuits. But not until a TBA date in 2010. So sometime next year, all swimmers will have to swim in textile-only suits (no polyurethane like all the suits they wear now) and will only be allowed to be waist-to-knee length for men and shoulder-to-knee for women. No more bodysuits will be allowed. But they permitted the space-age suits for this week's World Championships. So the World Records keep falling...because of these suits.
It's not even the Speedo LZR's fault. Well, not exactly. The suit that ushered in the polyurethane revolution in 2008 is only about 50% polyurethane, whereas new suits are 100% polyurethane, and the added muscle compression, buoyancy, and propulsion are obliterating World Records at a ludicrous pace. 29 World Records so far during the World Championships!! The geniuses at SportScientists.com said it best...
Being a follower of athletics, I'm accustomed to a sport where world records are special, seen by only a few lucky people, achieved by the true greats of the sport. Anyone who has ever witnessed a running world record, for example, can be assured that they were seeing a human being run faster than anyone in history, and that this performance was special.
For swimming, it is not the case. The records are broken with an extra-ordinary regularity.
They go on to evaluate every swimming World Record and determine that the average swimming World Record has been held for less than 12 months, while the average track and field record has been held for almost 10 years! It's 100% about the suits, and swimming now has a huge problem on their hands. Do they banish all the records set with these suits? Do they add asterisks to the record book? Do they do nothing, and let these 2009 records live forever? Or will they simply restart the record book in 2010 with new times and let the 2009 records stand as memories to the good old days when it was all about the swimsuit and less about the swimmer?
More to come...
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