The Cycliste Moderne, July 11, 2005

How Quickly Things Turn

As predicted, Saturday’s Stage 8 was a difficult day for the peleton and particularly Lance Armstrong. Discovery Channel, which had been labeled by some as one of the strongest teams ever to line up at the Tour de France, looked like a weak domestic team on Saturday under the relentless attacks by T-Mobile during the final climb of the day.

Armstrong was quickly isolated as he endured attacks by Alexander Vinokourov, then Jan Ullrich, then Vinokourov again and finally Andreas Kloden who Armstrong allowed to ride off the front. Kloden ultimately finished second in a photo finish and Armstrong finished in the chase group of 35 which contained all of the team leaders for the general classification at the Tour. What that group lacked, however, was any Discovery Channel teammate of Armstrong. Paolo Salvoldelli was the last rider with Armstrong who closed the gap on Vinokourov’s first attack and was quickly lost.

Discovery’s climbers did a poor job of protecting Armstrong and a poor job of getting themselves to the finish. It was not a good day at all. The OLN TV broadcast team did not pull any punches in their interviews with Kloden and Armstrong at the finish nor did they withhold the criticism that Discovery Channel deserved for its poor performance. Even ESPN dedicated significant coverage and commentary to the team’s poor performance with John Eustice being interviewed on ESPN News. The team looked a lot like the 1999 US Postal Service team which was possibly the weakest team since Greg LeMond’s 1989 ADR team to have its leader win the Tour de France.

The events of Saturday show how quickly the fortunes of teams change in a week. Discovery had looked strong from the outset. The start for the Stage 1 individual time trial had every T-Mobile rider followed after one minute by a Discovery Channel rider. In a little reported fact, last Saturday’s individual time trial was incredibly demoralizing for T-Mobile, not just because Jan Ulrich got passed by Lance Armstrong, but rather because seven of nine Discovery Channel riders caught and passed the T-Mobile rider that started one minute ahead of them. Alexander Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden were the only T-Mobile riders not to get passed by a Discovery Channel rider before of the finish.

Saturday gave T-Mobile hope that it could isolate Armstrong and use their multiple leaders to attack him relentlessly. T-Mobile’s strategy has shown that it can put Armstrong under pressure but its strategy will only work if T-Mobile is not wedded to Ullrich as its team leader. If the team races to beat Armstrong with Ullrich, Kloden and Vinokourov each taking turns to attack, the team can beat Armstrong. If the team races for Ullrich to be the team leader and to take Armstrong on directly, T-Mobile will once again finish on the podium but not in first place.

Sunday was not a good day for T-Mobile. Ullrich crashed early on a descent. Discovery Channel worked hard to keep the chase together but clearly had no desire to bring Michael Rassmussen, Christophe Moreau and Jens Voight back. That resulted in a surrender of the yellow jersey to Voight, but it puts the pressure back on to CSC as the race enters the Alps. Tuesday’s first mountain stage is hard but not the most difficult mountain stage as the final climb is only about 6% and there are only two climbs during the stage. Wednesday’s mountain stage is more difficult but does not have an uphill finish. If Discovery Channel does not get the jersey back until the Pyrennes it will not be the end of the world.

T-Mobile and CSC can beat Armstrong if they race opportunistically and aggressively. With one week down and today’s rest day, it is clear that the Tour has just begun.

How Quickly Things Turn #2

Sunday unfortunately saw the withdrawal of David Zabriskie of Team CSC after less than 20km. Saturday, Zabriskie finished dead last on the stage, more than fifty minutes behind the winner. He was still suffering from his crash in the team time trial and had crashed again. He barely made the time cut on Saturday and pulled out Sunday after starting the race.

When a rider abandons during the Tour de France, race officials remove the rider’s numbers from their jersey pockets. It was very sad to see Zabriskie going from leading the race to last place to out of the race in the course of four days. He will certainly be back and he has a bright future on Team CSC.

Why Discovery Channel Raced So Poorly On Saturday

There has been a lot of speculation as to Discovery Channel’s poor performance on Saturday. I think it comes down to one thing: hubris. The team’s dominating performance in Stage 1, humiliating most of the T-Mobile riders, made the team over confident. Although Discovery Channel was strong, Team CSC was just as strong in the opening stage.

With the modification of the rules for the team time trial that results in relatively limited time losses among the teams, it is still important to place well and ride a strong team time trial. A team that finishes in the top six or seven in the team time trial will not see its team leader lose significant time to its chief rivals. Additionally, Stage 4 was over a course that everyone knew would be fast, would have a strong tail wind and would have a technical final 20km which would significantly limit the gaps between the teams. Discovery Channel was clearly overconfident going into and completing Stage 4.

Discovery Channel knew it was riding a good time trial during Stage 4. It knew it was gaining time on its rivals and that it had increased its lead over T-Mobile significantly over the last 20km. Discovery Channel did not need to win the stage but did so anyway, putting Armstrong in yellow. The team’s stated strategy had been to be over a minute and a half ahead of the main riders from T-Mobile and CSC by the end of the team time trial. Any belief that Discovery could put those kinds of gaps into teams as strong as those was just silly. It was not going to happen and Discovery Channel wasted a lot of energy trying to make something that was impossible happen.

Discovery Channel also believed that it would not have to defend the yellow jersey and could relinquish it at will, as has happened over the last few years. Had the team more closely considered the dynamics of the first week of the Tour, caused by the larger time gaps caused by the stage one individual time trial as well as the clear opportunities for the sprinters, Boonen, McEwen, Hushovd, Davis, Cooke and O’Grady, due to the relatively flat, straight and tailwind aided routes of the first week of this year’s Tour, Discovery should have known that it was unlikely that a breakaway would get away, let alone one with a rider who could take the yellow away from Armstrong. Just because it worked in the past did not mean that it would work this year.

When it became apparent that the routes and time gaps would not result in an unthreatening rider getting up the road in a breakaway and riding into yellow, Discovery Channel actually discussed trying to get George Hincapie into yellow. Hincapie came out of the team time trial second to Armstrong in the general classification but almost a minute behind. Saturday, Discovery Channel put Hincapie in an early break that did not succeed. Having failed to break away and ride into yellow, Hincapie, who has been the only member of all six of Armstrong’s winning teams, was maxed out and unable to provide any assistance to Armstrong on Saturday even though the climbs were not anything that should have put him in difficulty.

If Discovery Channel loses the Tour de France this year it will be because of the team’s hubris. This weekend may have just been one of those momentary bad days that every winner of the Tour has to endure. Three weeks is an incredibly long time. If this is just a momentary flash of weakness, then Discovery Channel should be able to overcome and guide Armstrong to victory. I fear however, that complacency and overconfidence are manifesting themselves in the team’s performance.

Tour Fashion Review #6

Both Phonak and Fassa Bortolo wear team kits that are closely tied to the color scheme and logos of their primary sponsors. Fassa Bortolo uses classic colors and a simple design that conveys the sponsor’s logo. There is nothing wrong with that, it is the safe thing to do. However, being safe only gets you a B.

Phonak is much like Fassa Bortolo in holding true to their sponsors logo and colors. However, lime green shorts are neither flattering nor something joe average cyclist would ever purchase. Lime green gets you a D.