2011 - Page 4 of 10 - Irish Peloton

July 15, 2011

A hat-trick of domestique success

In the early years of the Tour de France at the beginning of the 20th century, riders were forbidden from receiving help of any kind. The most famous and extreme example of this came in 1913 when Eugène Christophe was penalised three minutes for allowing a boy to work the bellows as he attempted to fix his own broken forks at a local forge.

On a more day to day basis, receiving no help meant that taking advantage of another rider’s slipstream was also forbidden. This rule was an attempt by the Tour organisers to ensure that truly the strongest rider ended up winning the Tour and not the rider who had received the most help.

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July 13, 2011

Team-mates in the Tour

A fact I’ve become rather obsessed and impressed with over the last while is that Liquigas are on a run of seven straight Grand Tours in which all of their riders have finished the race. And currently they are one of only eight teams in the Tour de France who still have a full complement of riders.

The other teams still fully intact in the Tour are Saxo Bank, Leopard-Trek, BMC, Cofidis, Lampre, HTC-HighRoad and Saur-Sojasun. Importantly, Contador, the Schlecks, Evans and Basso all have full-strength squads to call on as the Tour finally reaches the mountains tomorrow.

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July 9, 2011

Cycling’s major nations go missing

The lads at Cycle Sport magazine have been churning out a heap of articles every day during this Tour de France, all available to read online. One of them in particular caught the eye yesterday. It alluded to the teams that have been winning stages in this year’s Tour.

Apart from Philippe Gilbert’s opening stage win, the rest of the victories have been divided amongst Garmin-Cervelo, HTC-High Road, BMC Racing and Team Sky. All relatively new teams, none of which hail from cycling’s traditional nations of mainland Europe.

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July 3, 2011

The Tour is more than just climbing and time-trialling

Alberto Contador was undoubtedly the biggest loser yesterday. The reigning Tour de France champion now finds himself 1’14” behind most of the other overall favourites as he got caught behind a crash which occurred with 9km to go. Only one stage has been raced and the Spaniard is forced to play catchup through no fault of his own.

But is he blameless? Could what happened yesterday have been prevented?

Stephen Roche once declared that to win the Tour you need four skills: climbing, time-trialling, tactical astuteness and an understanding of peloton diplomacy. Roche could tick all four boxes, but there are other skills required which Roche does not mention, perhaps because he takes them for granted – bike handling, descending and positioning.

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June 30, 2011

The Tour de France for stats geeks

Alberto Contador is aiming to win his fourth Tour de France. Should he be successful he will leave the company of Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond and be in a category of his own just behind Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, who all have five. It would also be Contador’s seventh Grand Tour victory which would see him move up to fourth on the list of all time winners, level with Indurain, Fausto Coppi and Lance Armstrong.

However, even if Contador makes it to seven Grand Tour wins, the CAS hearing in August could see him stripped of two Tours de France and a Giro d’Italia landing him right back down at four wins.

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June 24, 2011

How the big contenders have prepared for the Tour

It’s that time of year again when all the Tour de France contenders are done with their race preparation and we’re just left waiting for the big event to start. Once again, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador will be the overwhelming favourites for overall victory.

Andy Schleck has been beaten into second place by Alberto Contador in the last two Tours de France. Although the margin of victory in last year’s Tour (39″) was more than six times less than Contador’s winning margin in 2009 (4’11”). But if the Spaniard does this to Schleck again it will be the first time that one rider has beaten another into second place three times in a row.

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