An optimal team for the Internet Tour de France Game 2003 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. It cannot be guaranteed 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 729 points. Game winner Belinda Ward (USA) has obtained 585 points.
Name | Stage results in top ten
1. A. Vinokourov | 7x: 10 2 1* 3 5 6 8 2. B. Cooke | 6x: 1 3 2* 10 10 2* 3. L. Armstrong | 6x: 3* 4 2 4 1 3* 4. H. Zubeldia | 6x: 5 9 4* 3 9 4* 5. T. Hamilton | 7x: 7 10 5* 10 7 1 2 6. I. Basso | 5x: 8 6* 6* 10 6* 7. I. Mayo | 5x: 1 3 8 7* 2 8. S. O'Grady | 6x: 8* 10 8* 6 10 6 9. R. McEwen | 5x: 6 5 5 9* 3 10. L. Paolini | 5x: 6 6 10* 4 4 11. J. Ullrich | 5x: 5 1 2 3 4 12. E. Zabel | 5x: 4 4 4 2 7 13. B. de Groot | 4x: 3 2 6 9 14. T. Hushovd | 4x: 5 7 4 5 15. A. Petacchi | 3x: 1 1 1
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. A. Vinokourov 108 . . . . 15 15 18 . . 15 15 15 15 . . . . .
2. B. Cooke 90 14 . 14 17 . . . 14 14 . . . . . . . . 17
3. L. Armstrong 84 . . . . . 16 13 . . 13 13 . 13 . . . 16 .
4. H. Zubeldia 76 . . . . . 12 12 . . 14 12 12 14 . . . . .
5. T. Hamilton 79 . . . . . 11 11 . . 13 11 . 11 11 . . 11 .
6. I. Basso 56 . . . . . 10 12 . . . 12 10 12 . . . . .
7. I. Mayo 47 . . . . . 9 9 . . . 9 11 9 . . . . .
8. S. O'Grady 52 10 8 10 . . . . . 8 . . . . 8 . . . 8
9. R. McEwen 37 7 7 7 . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . 7
10. L. Paolini 32 . 6 6 8 . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . 6
11. J. Ullrich 25 . . . . . . 5 . . 5 5 . 5 . . . 5 .
12. E. Zabel 20 4 4 4 . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . 4
13. B. de Groot 12 . . . . . . . 3 3 . . . . 3 3 . . .
14. T. Hushovd 8 2 . 2 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
15. A. Petacchi 3 . 1 1 1 *
Points: 729 37 26 44 28 15 73 80 17 34 60 77 48 79 32 3 0 32 44
Percentiles: 100 40 20 44 89 80 99100 96 79 98100 99100 87 95 0 62 63
The team top ten contains more GC contenders (Vinokourov, Armstrong, Zubeldia, Hamilton, Basso and Mayo) than sprinters (Cooke, O'Grady, McEwen and Paolini). The team of game winner Belinda Ward contains eight of these ten cyclists. This optimal team would have done better in the mountains than in the flat stages. It would have won three mountain stages: stages 9, 13 and 15.
Apart from the 15 cyclists of this team, the following cyclists finished in the stage top tens that were relevant for the game:
Name | Stage results in top ten
. G. Glomser | 3x: 8 5 9 . D. Millar | 3x: 8 7 1 . C. Moreau | 3x: 6 9 5 . F. Guidi | 3x: 3 9 9 . R. Vainsteins | 3x: 2 5 8 . S. Chavanel | 3x: 3 10 9 . D. Nazon | 3x: 6 4 10 . F. Mancebo | 2x: 4 8 . J. Garcia | 2x: 8 6 . S. Commesso | 2x: 9 5 . C. Dacruz | 2x: 5 2 . P. Bettini | 2x: 7 2 . M. Rogers | 2x: 4 8 . R. Virenque | 2x: 1 3 . J. Kirsipuu | 2x: 3 2 . F. Rodriguez | 2x: 9 9 . G. Totschnig | 2x: 9 7 . L. Dufaux | 2x: 7 2 . Y. Krivtsov | 2x: 9 3 . V. Ekimov | 1x: 6 . G. Hincapie | 1x: 8 . V. Pena | 1x: 7 . J. Rubiera | 1x: 9 . J. Beloki | 1x: 6 . I. Nozal | 1x: 3 . S. Botero | 1x: 10 . R. Aldag | 1x: 2 . D. Nardello | 1x: 3 . J. Flecha | 1x: 1 . P. Lastras | 1x: 1 . J. Mercado | 1x: 7 . O. Freire | 1x: 3 . G. Simoni | 1x: 1 . P. Fornaciari | 1x: 8 . F. Sacchi | 1x: 2 . M. Clain | 1x: 8 . I. Cuesta | 1x: 4 . P. Gaumont | 1x: 6 . M. Lelli | 1x: 5 . P. Luttenberger | 1x: 7 . A. Peron | 1x: 4 . J. Piil | 1x: 1 . C. Sastre | 1x: 1 . M. Bruseghin | 1x: 10 . S. Casar | 1x: 8 . C. Mengin | 1x: 3 . J. Gutierrez | 1x: 9 . I. Parra | 1x: 10 . L. Bodrogi | 1x: 5 . D. Canada | 1x: 4 . S. Knaven | 1x: 1 . S. Hinault | 1x: 7 . D. Plaza | 1x: 9 . S. Baguet | 1x: 7 . L. van Bon | 1x: 4 . I. Chaurreau | 1x: 8 . A. Flickinger | 1x: 6 . N. Portal | 1x: 7 . S. Garzelli | 1x: 5 . P. Bossoni | 1x: 2 . S. Zampieri | 1x: 8 . M. Artetxe | 1x: 10 . R. Laiseka | 1x: 9 . W. Beneteau | 1x: 5 . T. Voeckler | 1x: 7 . R. Haselbacher | 1x: 5 . U. Peschel | 1x: 6 . O. Pollack | 1x: 7 . M. Zberg | 1x: 7 . P. Caucchioli | 1x: 10 . A. Furlan | 1x: 8 . V. Miholjevic | 1x: 10