The Cycliste Moderne, June 20, 2005

Orange Surprise in Switzerland

Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Aitor Gonzalez shocked everyone with a strong ride during the final stage of the Tour de Suisse on Sunday to ride into the leader’s jersey. He catapulted himself into contention on Saturday with a strong attack to pick up more than a minute on race leader Michael Rogers of Quick Step and T-Mobile’s Jan Ullrich.

Sunday, Gonzalez went on the attack again and rode away from Rogers, who had found himself isolated from his teammates during the final stage of the Tour de Suisse. Gonzalez is a strong time trialist and a strong climber. He is a past winner of the Vuelta a Espana. However, he has not shown anything since his victory in the Vuelta in 2002. He moved from the Italian team Fassa Bortolo to Euskaltel this season. He is certainly a good fit for Euskaltel and may give the orange Basque team the stage race presence that the team has lacked.

However, his victory and that of his teammate Inigo Landaluze during last week’s Dauphine Libere evidence the problem that Euskaltel faces with the ProTour. The team has strong climbers who have won some important races. However, it is not a team that is built to win events that require a strong team and thus it will not likely ever win a Grand Tour. Euskaltel has had success when no one expects them to have any results. It has failed when it comes to races as the favorite.

ProTour Team Time Trial

The first ProTour Team Time Trial was contested Sunday in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The results were pretty much as expected. Gerolsteiner won the six-man team race with Phonak, CSC, Rabobank and Discovery Channel finishing second through fifth all within a minute of the German winners. Euskaltel-Euskadi, not unexpectedly, finished last, more than five minutes behind Gerolsteiner.

Due to the fact that most of the teams did not come with their leaders for the Tour de France, all this race shows is who has a good core for the team time trial at the Tour. Discovery has got to be the favorite for the Tour de France team time trial, showing it continues to be a well managed and focused team. Similarly Phonak, CSC and Gerolsteiner will come to the Tour with a real possibility to win the team time trial. T-Mobile was a little disappointing in its mid-pack finish; however, it will be strong at the Tour.

Importance of the Team Time Trial

Many teams fail to take the team time trial discipline seriously. Instead of practicing at a discipline which could cost your team leader a shot at a top ten performance with a poor showing, many of the teams seem to spend their time whining about it. It is always riders from teams that are not cohesive and not focused on a single goal that seem to whine about the team time trial the most, i.e. Gilberto Simoni. The reason the Tour de France has reached such important status in cycling is that, unlike the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana, the stages are longer and faster. In the Giro and the Vuelta we have seen riders win opportunistically despite their weak teams.

Going back to the late seventies, with the exception of Greg LeMond in 1989 for ADR and Marco Pantani in 1998 for Mercatone Uno, no rider has won the Tour without a reasonably strong team, i.e. Renault 1978-79, 1981-84; Ti-Raleigh 1980; La Vie Claire 1985-86; Reynolds/Banesto 1988, 1991-1995; Deutsch Telekom 1996-97; US Postal Service 1999-2004. Both LeMond and Pantani were, however, the sole focus of their team’s efforts, so that may have compensated for their teams’ weakness on paper. They won in years where their opportunistic riding put them in the position to win the race.

It is not surprising, however, to see disappointing performances from the French teams. This is an event where you do not have to have the best and strongest athletes to win. The team time trial is all about technique and teamwork. With the exception of Credit Agricole, the descendant of Greg LeMond’s teams Z and Gan, no French team has come remotely close to winning the team time trial.

It is an event that a team like Bouygues Telecom (formerly Brioche Le Boulanger/Bonjour squad) ought to be competent at. The Bouygues Telecom team arises from an amateur program that moved up to the professional level about 6 years ago. The team was well known for developing skilled and tactically competent cyclists. Even though the team has not had the best talent as a professional team, it has still been recognized as a competent and aggressive team. Because of its history, Bouygues Telecom really ought to be a team that performs well in the team time trial. They have never gone to the Tour de France with real GC aspirations although they have been able to put riders into breaks that have resulted in the team having the yellow leader’s jersey several times over the last few years.

Horner to the Tour

Saunier Duval-Prodir has announced that Chris Horner will ride the Tour de France for the team in July. Horner’s hip fracture threw his early season into doubt and turmoil. He showed, however, with three strong performances during Wachovia Week that he was getting his form back. He then followed it up at the Tour de Suisse with a stage win and a top five finish. Horner certainly animates things and will likely seek to make an impact on the race.

Even though I have expressed my personal dislike for Horner and his style of racing, it will be great to see another American in this year’s Tour de France. What is most impressive is the number of Americans who will likely contest the Tour for teams other than Discovery Channel.