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Lance Armstrong (USA) has won his fifth consecutive Tour the France and has joined the other five-time winners Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-1964), Eddy Merckx (1969-1972, 1974), Bernard Hinault (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985) and Miguel Indurain (1991-1995). This was the most difficult Tour for Armstrong to win. Ullrich, Beloki, Vinokourov and Mayo frequently attacked him in the mountains and Ullrich took an unprecedented 96 seconds of him in the first individual time trial. Armstrong has said that he will back next year. The Tour 2004 promises to be interesting.
This year 51 of the 198 cyclists that have started in the race, have failed to reach Paris. This is the largest number of dropouts since 2000 when 53 riders left the race. In 2002 the number was 36 and in the previous nine years that the game has been running, the average number of abandonments was 61. The maximum number of dropouts was 93 in 1998 and the minimum 36 in 2002.
Only three participants have managed to keep a complete team of 15 cyclists throughout the game: triple stage winner Bruno Steurs (Belgium), Paul Tully (USA) and Stephanie Baxter (UK/Scotland). Twenty eight participants have lost one rider and 149 lost two.
The A-team of Alwin Molanus (The Netherlands) remains the team that has suffered most from cyclists leaving the race. This team has lost eight of its fifteen riders. The smallest teams (five riders left) belong to the same trio as on the second rest day: Cor Voortman (The Netherlands, started with 6 cyclists) David Mark (Australia, started with 5) and Mustapha Ndanusa (USA, started with 5).
The winner of this edition of the game, Belinda Ward (USA) has lost two members of her team during the race. The team of our artificial participant Jan Modaal, who did almost as well as last year (120th) by finishing 134th, lost three cyclists.
At the second rest day, we have looked at the performance of 19 country teams. These teams have been constructed in the same way as that of our artificial participant Jan Modaal, which is composed from the list of the most favorite cyclists in the game. Each of the country teams contains the most favorite cyclists of the participants of that country. Teams have only been compiled for countries that supplied ten or more participants. Here are the final scores of the teams in this edition of the game:
Plc Pnt Name
100. 517 Team Finland
119. 512 Team Denmark
134. 508 Jan Modaal (United Nations)
157. 504 Team USA
178. 501 Team Poland
186. 499 Team Canada
499 Team New Zealand
229. 494 Team Germany
272. 489 Team UK
313. 485 Team Sweden
359. 479 Team Belgium
372. 478 Team The Netherlands
387. 477 Team Czech Republic
394. 476 Team Australia
406. 475 Team South Africa
419. 474 Team France
474 Team Portugal
459. 471 Team Switzerland
506. 466 Team Norway
613. 456 Team Spain
The country teams did not perform as well as last year when six of them beat 90% of the participants. This year only Team Finland and Team Denmark finished ahead of the 90% border (place 135). These two teams were already on the top 2 positions at the second rest day. Team USA moved up from sixth to claim a spot in the top 3 of the country teams.
At the second rest day, we have also looked at 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 the official site).
Top ten yellow jersey rankings
1. 77 Casper Dahl (Denmark)
2. 75 Ben Davis (USA)
3. 74 Bruno Steurs (Belgium)
74 Manuel Caicedo (USA)
5. 73 Steve Wagner (USA)
6. 72 Steve Hart (USA)
7. 71 Erik TKS (Belgium)
8. 70 Jolanta Kulik (Poland)
9. 69 J. Saastamoinen (Finland)
69 Mark Biggs (USA)
69 Sebastiaan Oosthout (The Netherlands)
Top ten green jersey rankings
1. 82 Michel Werts (The Netherlands)
2. 79 Leighton Smith (New Zealand)
3. 76 Lanterne Jaune (UK/Scotland)
76 Xiaojun Creemers (The Netherlands)
5. 75 Bren Conner (USA)
75 Phil Hamilton (UK)
7. 74 C. Karch (Canada)
8. 73 Amaryllis Frieser (The Netherlands)
73 Dirk Goudbeek (The Netherlands)
73 Felicia Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago)
73 Rien Post (The Netherlands)
73 Scott Hamo (USA)
73 Verm (Portugal)
73 Wil Gommans (The Netherlands)
Top ten polka dot jersey rankings
1. 60 Jolanta Kulik (Poland)
2. 59 Steve Wagner (USA)
3. 58 Ben Davis (USA)
58 Daniel M. Kokke (The Netherlands)
58 Manuel Caicedo (USA)
58 Miguel Vidal (Australia)
58 Rene Lagerburg (The Netherlands)
8. 57 John Stanton-Geddes (USA)
57 Ken Blundell (USA)
57 Rellison (USA)
Top ten white jersey rankings
1. 21 Bruno Steurs (Belgium)
2. 20 Thomas Isacson (Sweden)
3. 18 Jorgen Lovaas (Norway)
4. 16 Tiziano Urgert (The Netherlands)
5. 15 John Valentiner (USA)
6. 14 Antonio Garau Pons (Spain)
14 José Verlinden - Janssen (The Netherlands)
14 Ras Zbych (Czech Republic)
14 Ricky Ocana (Spain)
10. 13 Chris Donlon (Australia)
13 Hanno Schouten (The Netherlands)
13 Joop Hofman (The Netherlands)
13 Matt Wolf (UK/England)
13 Storm Bringer (United Nations)
There were not many changes in the yellow jersey rankings and the white jersey rankings since the second rest day but the top tens of the other two rankings changed considerably.
A separate page contains information about the optimal team for the 2003 edition of the Internet Tour de France Game.
Since the edition of 2001, we have examined the performance of the game veterans: participants which have participated in nearly all editions of this game. There are three participants which have taken part in all ten editions of the game: Erik TKS, Gosse Bouma and Tako Molanus. The artificial participant Jan Modaal has participated in all game editions as well. Nine more participants have missed only one edition: Benoit Rey, Erix Schokker, Frank Koper, Guus van Zadelhoff, Marcel Spanjer, Michael McQuillen, Nico Wienders, Wim Penninx 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 and participants which frequently occupy positions among the best 10% of the overall rankings:
## 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 avg.
Belinda Ward 1x - - - - - - - - - 100 -
Benoit Rey 9x - 85 30 63 72 29 45 90 88 75 64
Cameron Henderson 5x - - - - - 93 94 99 91 71 -
Daniel McQuillen 8x - 43 45 59 83 - 88 99 99 70 73
Erik TKS 10x 2 46 38 45 8 0 17 24 27 8 22
Erix Schokker 9x - 39 92 37 95 98 86 63 38 38 65
Etienne Gaasenbeek 7x - - - 83 96 35 100 81 74 38 -
Frank Koper 9x - 100 43 98 42 83 94 67 89 36 73
Gerard Creemers 7x - - - 97 95 94 97 56 85 86 -
Gosse Bouma 10x 83 78 86 68 85 73 89 81 50 60 75
Graeme Camp 6x - - - 45 * 71 94 93 96 92 -
Guus van Zadelhoff 9x - 83 45 79 65 83 81 79 82 83 76
Jan Modaal 10x 63 95 81 97 56 73 69 89 89 90 80
Jos Droste 7x - - - 88 90 95 97 75 99 82 -
Kees Winder 1x - - - 100 - - - - - - -
Marcel Spanjer 9x - 5 90 68 91 95 26 64 64 35 60
Marko Borst 1x 100 - - - - - - - - - -
Martin Smits 3x - - - - - - - 97 100 42 -
Michael Botzet 7x - - - 78 52 100 96 92 93 88 -
Michael McQuillen 9x - 76 68 78 94 90 86 98 99 73 86
Michiel Kokke 7x - - - 50 53 96 92 93 98 68 -
Nico Wienders 9x - 90 63 95 23 95 84 98 90 70 79
Reinier van Olderen 4x - - - - - 76 87 100 69 - -
Tako Molanus 10x 25 88 24 37 100 58 48 91 70 97 64
Wieger van Brug 2x - - 100 65 - - - - - - -
Wil Gommans 6x - - - - 94 49 99 96 91 94 -
Wim Penninx 9x 72 97 84 32 69 67 24 74 - 76 66
Xavier Pons 9x - 74 92 93 48 53 70 48 88 85 72
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.
This was a difficult year for the veterans among the participants: most of them have performed worse than could be expected from their average position of the previous editions. The winner of the 1998 edition of the game, Tako Molanus, is the best of the group at place 36, beating 97% of the field. Robot participant Jan Modaal, Graeme Camp and Wil Gommans are the only other ones that manage to finish ahead of 90% of the participants. Average scores have been computed for those that have taken part in at least 8 editions of the game. Michael McQuillen keeps the best overall ranking: beating on average 86% of the participants. Jan Modaal is second (80%) and Nico Wienders third (79%).
Nico Wienders and Wil Gommans are the most successful participants when it comes to positions among the best 10% of the field. Both have been among the best 10% in five different editions of the game. Cameron Henderson, Frank Koper, Gerard Creemers, Graeme Camp, Jos Droste, Michael Botzet, Michael McQuillen and Michiel Kokke have managed this four times.