An optimal team for the Internet Tour de France Game 2002 is a team that would have achieved the highest possible number of points in this edition of the game. There are different teams that achieve the same score so the team presented here is not unique. I cannot guarantee that the team shown here cannot be improved so if you are able to construct a team that achieves more points you can send it to erikt@stp.ling.uu.se . Please include the overall score of your team.
The team presented here would have earned 761 points. Game winner Martin Smits (The Netherlands) has obtained 659 points.
Name | Stage results in top ten
1. L. Armstrong | 7x: 2 1* 1* 3 9 3 1* 2. R. McEwen | 7x: 2* 1 6 3 4 8 1 3. E. Zabel | 7x: 3* 2 9 1 5 9 7 4. J. Beloki | 7x: 10 2 3 8 8 4* 9 5. R. Rumsas | 7x: 6 5* 6 5* 7 5* 2 6. S. O'Grady | 6x: 10 10 8 6* 3 6* 7. B. Cooke | 7x: 4 3 7* 6 8 10 2 8. S. Botero | 5x: 1 4 1 9 8* 9. J. Svorada | 4x: 9* 4 7 8 10. A. Hauptman | 4x: 6 4 10* 10* 11. J. Kirsipuu | 4x: 5 7 1 2 12. T. Hushovd | 4x: 7 10 5 1 13. D. Millar | 3x: 7 1 4 14. R. Heras | 3x: 3 2 10 15. C. Sastre | 3x: 7 2 10
A cyclist gets (16-his place) points if he finishes within the top 10 of a stage. Bonus points are awarded if the place of the cyclist in the team is equal to his place in a stage (3 points for a top 3 cyclist and 2 for the other top 10 cyclists). Behind each cyclist you will find the number of times that he finished in the top-10 and the rankings he has achieved. If the cyclist has finished at the same place as his place in the list, a star is appended to the place.
Here is the score sheet for this team. It contains the scores per cyclist per stage:
tot 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
1. L. Armstrong 114 . . . . . . 15 . 18 18 . 15 15 15 . . 18 .
2. R. McEwen 101 17 14 14 14 14 14 . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3. E. Zabel 94 16 13 13 13 13 13 . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4. J. Beloki 86 . . . . . . 12 . 12 12 . 12 12 14 . . 12 .
5. R. Rumsas 83 . . . . . . 11 . 13 11 . 13 11 13 . . 11 .
6. S. O'Grady 64 10 10 10 . 12 . . 10 . . . . . . . . . 12
7. B. Cooke 65 9 9 11 9 9 9 . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. S. Botero 42 . . . . . . 8 . . 8 . . 8 8 . . 10 .
9. J. Svorada 30 . 9 . 7 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
10. A. Hauptman 28 6 6 8 8 . . . . . *
11. J. Kirsipuu 20 5 5 5 . 5 . . . *
12. T. Hushovd 16 . . . 4 4 . . . . . . . . . 4 4 . .
13. D. Millar 9 . . . . . . 3 . . . 3 . . . . . 3 .
14. R. Heras 6 . . . . . . . . 2 2 . . . 2 . . . .
15. C. Sastre 3 . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . 1 1 . . .
Points: 761 63 66 61 55 64 36 49 10 45 52 3 40 46 53 5 4 54 55
Percentiles: 100 97 98 99 98 97 97 89 42 75 73 53 95 97 95 85 78 94 91
The team top ten is a nice mix of sprinters (McEwen, Zabel, O'Grady, Cooke, Svorada and Hauptman) and GC contenders (Armstrong, Beloki, Rumsas and Botero). The team of game winner Martin Smits contains eight of these ten cyclists. This optimal team would have done reasonably well in all stages rather than very well in a few stages. The best position of the team in a stage would have been second in stage 5. It manages something that only 26 participants have been able to achieve: obtain points in all stages of this Tour (the highest-ranked participant managing this is Glen Way of Canada at place 218).
Apart from the 15 cyclists of this team, the following cyclists finished in the stage top tens:
Name | Stage results in top ten
. I. Gonzalez | 3x: 4 5 5 . I. Basso | 3x: 7 6 7 . P. Horillo | 3x: 7 3 5 . F. Mancebo | 3x: 4 7 10 . G. Fagnini | 2x: 9 7 . J. Azevedo | 2x: 10 8 . J. Jaksche | 2x: 9 5 . M. Serrano | 2x: 8 8 . O. Sevilla | 2x: 6 9 . A. Kivilev | 2x: 8 10 . A. Piziks | 2x: 9 9 . F. Rodriguez | 2x: 8 9 . F. Baldato | 2x: 5 4 . S. Gontchar | 2x: 3 6 . N. Loda | 2x: 10 10 . M. Boogerd | 2x: 3 1 . E. Dekker | 2x: 3 8 . O. Freire | 2x: 1 2 . L. Bodrogi | 2x: 5 3 . M. Aerts | 2x: 2 2 . R. Belohvosciks | 2x: 7 7 . L. Dierckxsens | 2x: 3 4 . D. Frigo | 2x: 8 1 . L. Brochard | 2x: 8 4 . V. Pena | 1x: 10 . G. Guerini | 1x: 3 . B. Julich | 1x: 10 . C. Zaballa | 1x: 9 . N. Mattan | 1x: 8 . D. Moncoutie | 1x: 4 . L. Jalabert | 1x: 9 . A. Peron | 1x: 9 . J. Piil | 1x: 3 . M. Sandstod | 1x: 2 . N. Sorensen | 1x: 6 . S. Hinault | 1x: 5 . R. Virenque | 1x: 1 . E. Cassani | 1x: 10 . S. Knaven | 1x: 2 . A. Merckx | 1x: 3 . L. van Bon | 1x: 4 . S. Ivanov | 1x: 5 . N. Vogondy | 1x: 7 . S. Casar | 1x: 5 . B. McGee | 1x: 1 . C. Mengin | 1x: 2 . L. Leipheimer | 1x: 6 . K. Kroon | 1x: 1 . B. Zberg | 1x: 9 . E. Magnien | 1x: 4 . D. Nazon | 1x: 3 . J. Pineau | 1x: 2 . F. Renier | 1x: 4 . F. Simon | 1x: 8 . M. Martinez | 1x: 8 . D. Baranowski | 1x: 9 . J. Garcia | 1x: 6 . D. Latasa | 1x: 5 . U. Osa | 1x: 7 . J. Pascual | 1x: 6 . M. Serpellini | 1x: 4 . D. Etxebarria | 1x: 2 . P. Bossoni | 1x: 6 . E. Mazzoleni | 1x: 7 . A. Botcharov | 1x: 2 . A. Flickinger | 1x: 6 . T. Loder | 1x: 9 . S. Casagranda | 1x: 4 . D. Casarotto | 1x: 5 . I. Gotti | 1x: 10 . P. Halgand | 1x: 1 . S. Auge | 1x: 6 . C. Edaleine | 1x: 5 . L. Lefevre | 1x: 6