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The Tour de France 2001 has been an interesting one. The absence of big sprinting teams, like Mario Cipollini's Saeco, has made it difficult to keep the peloton together in the flat stages. This has produced unpredictable stage results and a gigantic advantage of a break in the eight stage which has influenced the remainder of the race. The main GC contenders were made to work hard in the mountains and the final time trial to get the people of that break out of the top places in the overall rankings. We saw some great battles in the mountains in which the brave Jan Ullrich tried to get rid of Lance Armstrong without any success. There also was the resurrection of former sprinter Laurent Jalabert who to everybody's surprise managed to win the polka dot jersey for the best climber. The unsuspected developments in the Tour have resulted in an exiting game with many different stage winners and overall leaders.
This year 45 of the 189 cyclists that have started the race, have failed to reach Paris. This is a low number compared with previous years. In the seven previous editions of the game, on average 64 cyclists abandoned the race. The maximum number of dropouts was 93 in 1998 and the minimum 39 in 1999.
Only one participant has managed to keep a complete team of fifteen cyclists throughout the game: Brian Witts of Canada. Twenty-one participants have finished the game with fourteen cyclists. The teams of Hilary Sinclair (UK) and Keith M. (USA) have been damaged severely during the race: they have lost eight cyclists. The smallest teams to finish the game are those of Amanda Triccas (UK) and Holtz Grivitz (USA). They have started with incomplete teams and after the final stage they only have 6 riders left.
The winner of this edition of the game, Reinier van Olderen (The Netherlands), has lost three members of his team during the race. Our artificial participant Jan Modaal, who did well by finishing 115th, lost five cyclists.
At the second rest day we compared the performance of the team of the artificial participant Jan Modaal with the average teams for the three largest countries in the game, The Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom. The four teams would have obtained the following results in the final overall rankings:
101. 548 Team UK 115. 543 Jan Modaal 134. 538 Dutch Team 144. 535 Team USA
Team UK remains the best of the four teams at place 101. It is also the only of the country-specific teams that does better than the Jan Modaal team (115). The Dutch Team benefits from a few sprint finishes in the final week and climbs to place 134 just ahead of Team USA (144).
We have also used the second rest day for examining alternative rankings, namely those that use the rankings for the four main jerseys. Here are the participants of whom the teams best reflect these rankings (see official site):
Top ten yellow jersey rankings
1. 83 Rene Coppens (The Netherlands)
2. 81 Tore Högman (Sweden)
3. 73 Roel van Beuningen (The Netherlands)
4. 70 Justin Gulien (The Netherlands)
5. 69 Jan ter Horst (The Netherlands)
6. 68 Leelou Hansen (USA)
7. 67 Boris (Spain)
67 Margaret Kilmister (Australia)
9. 66 Richard Fernie (UK/England)
66 Wicher Otten (The Netherlands)
Top ten green jersey rankings
1. 76 Scott Johnson (UK/England)
2. 75 P. Brandt (The Netherlands)
75 Stefano Ferrarini (Australia)
4. 74 Berthold B. Journaille (The Netherlands)
74 Eugene L. Ryser (USA)
74 Remco van Veenendaal (The Netherlands)
7. 73 R. Wilson (UK/England)
8. 72 Ferry Deurloo (The Netherlands)
72 Wim Kep (The Netherlands)
10. 71 David Holm (Denmark)
71 Dick Blom (The Netherlands)
71 Hans Broeksteeg (The Netherlands)
71 Mike Ross (New Zealand)
Top ten polka dot jersey rankings
1. 66 Marc Nuijten (The Netherlands)
2. 65 Ria Molanus (The Netherlands)
3. 64 Bert Kerkhofs (The Netherlands)
4. 62 Tjerk Destombes (The Netherlands)
5. 61 Jeannie Mulder (The Netherlands)
6. 59 B. McDonald (USA)
59 Jeroven Pietersz (The Netherlands)
8. 58 Lennart van den Ende (USA)
9. 57 H. Jurriens (The Netherlands)
57 Jorge Gallastegui (Spain)
57 Peter Steenssens (Belgium)
Top ten white jersey rankings
1. 26 Frank Swinkels (The Netherlands)
2. 25 Iñigo Garcia Martinez de Artola (Spain)
3. 21 Lange Pier (The Netherlands)
21 Tore Högman (Sweden)
5. 19 Peter Steenssens (Belgium)
6. 18 Ferran Carmona (Spain)
18 Henrik Westerweele (The Netherlands)
18 Jim Clarke (Canada)
9. 17 Estelle van Lunteren (The Netherlands)
17 Gavin Waterston (UK/Scotland)
17 Hank Ebert (USA)
Top ten combativity rankings
1. 50 Jimmy Sørensen (Denmark)
2. 36 Mike McLaughlin (USA)
36 Tim Tempany (Australia)
4. 35 Oran (United Nations)
5. 34 Neil van Limbeek (UK)
34 Sean R. Jones (USA)
7. 32 B.F. Rich (UK)
32 Preben Larsen (Denmark)
9. 31 Johannes Lijzen (The Netherlands)
10. 30 Jeff Nyman (USA)
A separate page contains information about the optimal team for the 2001 edition of the Internet Tour de France Game.
There are four participants which have taken part in all eight editions of the game: Erik TKS, Gosse Bouma, Tako Molanus and Wim Penninx. The artificial participant Jan Modaal has also participated in all game editions. Nine more participants have missed only one edition: Bas Zwaan, Benoit Rey, Erix Schokker, Frank Koper, Guus van Zadelhoff, Marcel Spanjer, Michael McQuillen, Nicolas Wienders and Xavier Pons. It is interesting to compare the performance of these game veterans and check whether their performance is improving. In the following list we have also included the winners of the game:
## 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 avg.
Bas Zwaan 7x - 99 55 86 68 52 30 51 63
Benoit Rey 7x - 85 30 62 71 28 44 90 59
Erik TKS 8x 13 46 37 44 7 0 17 24 24
Erix Schokker 7x - 39 92 37 94 98 85 63 73
Etienne Gaasenbeek 5x - - - 83 96 34 100 81 -
Frank Koper 7x - 100 43 98 42 83 94 67 75
Gosse Bouma 8x 80 78 85 67 85 72 89 81 80
Guus van Zadelhoff 7x - 82 45 79 64 83 80 79 73
Jan Modaal 8x 63 95 81 97 55 72 69 89 78
Kees Winder 1x - - - 100 - - - - -
Marcel Spanjer 7x - 5 89 68 91 95 25 64 62
Marko Borst 1x 100 - - - - - - - -
Michael Botzet 5x - - - 78 51 100 96 91 -
Michael McQuillen 7x - 76 68 78 94 90 86 98 84
Nico Wienders 7x - 90 63 95 23 95 84 98 78
Reinier van Olderen 3x - - - - - 76 87 100 -
Tako Molanus 8x 27 88 23 36 100 58 48 91 59
Wieger van Brug 2x - - 100 65 - - - - -
Wim Penninx 8x 75 97 84 32 68 67 23 74 65
Xavier Pons 7x - 72 92 93 48 53 69 47 67
Immediately behind each participant name there is a number indicating how often the participant has taken part in the game. The other numbers show what percentage of the other players obtained fewer points than the participant. So 100 means the participant was first and 13 means that only 13% of the field obtained fewer points.
Michael McQuillen has the highest average overall ranking of the game veterans: 84%. Gosse Bouma (80) and Nico Wienders (78) complete the group of only three veterans which have a higher average position than Jan Modaal (78). Wienders is the most successful of the veterans with four positions among the best 10% of the field (1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001). Two of the game veterans have managed to win an edition of the game: Frank Koper (1995) and Tako Molanus (1998). Only one participant of this list has improved his position every year: the 2001 winner Reinier van Olderen. Michael Botzet, winner in 1999, is the only one of this list that has managed three consecutive top 10% places (1999-2001). Three more participants which are not present on the list have managed this as well: Michiel Kokke, Michel Oberson and Cameron Henderson.