Description of the Game

This is the description of the Internet Tour de France Game 2003. The competition is open for anyone owning an e-mail address. Compose a team of fifteen Tour the France competitors and earn points for any team member that finishes in the first ten of a stage in the Tour de France 2003.

Participation form

The deadline for submitting teams (Monday July 7, 2003. 10:00 GMT) has passed.

Competition Rules

1. A team consists of fifteen competitors of the Tour de France 2003.

2. The player receives points if one or more of his team members finishes within the first ten of a stage. The higher the ranking of the team member within the team, the higher the number of points:

      team member 1: 15 points    team member  9: 7 points
      team member 2: 14 points    team member 10: 6 points
      team member 3: 13 points    team member 11: 5 points
      team member 4: 12 points    team member 12: 4 points
      team member 5: 11 points    team member 13: 3 points
      team member 6: 10 points    team member 14: 2 points
      team member 7:  9 points    team member 15: 1 point
      team member 8:  8 points
   

3. The player receives additional bonus points if the ranking of the ranking of a member of his team corresponds with the ranking of the team member in a stage:

      team member 1, 2 and 3:              3 bonus points
      team member 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10: 2 bonus points
      team member 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15:   0 bonus points
   

   There is a scoring example following this rule list.

4. The winner of the game is the person that collects the highest score over the stages of the Tour the France 2003 that are used in this competition. The results of the prologue (July 5), stage 1 (July 6) and the team time trial (July 9) will not be used in this competition.

5. Anyone that owns an e-mail address can participate in the game. Only one contribution per person will be allowed. Note: possessing more than one e-mail address does not mean that you have the right to participate with more than one team.

6. The list with team members should have been contributed via the web form or sent by e-mail to erikt@stp.ling.uu.se before Monday July 7, 2003 10:00 GMT = 12:00 MET summertime (some minutes before the start of the second stage). List arriving later than this deadline cannot take part in this competition.

7. You have an option for mentioning five reserve team members. If one of your team members does not start in the tour or drops out before the second stage the cyclists that follow him in the list will move one position higher and a reserve team member will enter your list. From stage 2 onwards the teams are fixed. The remaining reserve team members will not be used in later parts of the game. Dropouts after stage two will not change the team format.

8. The official result of a stage is the result as published by `De Volkskrant' the day after the stage (Monday for the stages on Saturday). `De Volkskrant' is a quality Dutch morning paper which has its publication deadline at least 8 hours after the finish of the stages.

9. Daily stage results (top 10), participant stage standings, and overall standings of the participants will be available on the web at http://poeha.com/tdf

Scoring example

Tour de France 1993
stage 19 (time trial)    team Erik TKS (Groningen, The Netherlands)
 1. T. Rominger           1. L. Jalabert         .
 2. M. Indurain           2. O. Ludwig           .
 3. Z. Jaskula            3. C. Chiappucci      13
 4. J. Bruyneel           4. M. Indurain        12
 5. G. Bugno              5. G. Bugno          11+2
 6. J. Bernard            6. W. Museeuw          .
 7. V. Ekimov             7. D. Abdoesjaparov    .
 8. P. Louviot            8. S. Roche            .
 9. C. Chiappucci         9. V. Ekimov           7
10. A. Mejia             10. P. Delgado          .
                         11. G. Fidanza          .
                         12. A. Zulle            .
                         13. E. Breukink         .
                         14. J. Van Poppel       .
                         15. M. Sciandri         .
                                               ----
                         points in this stage:  45

How to compose the winning team

This competition corresponds to the Tour the France competition for the green jersey. Tour the France competitors that are in the top of the standing for the green jersey are likely to be a good choice for your team.

Top sprinters tend to be a good choice especially if the competition contains a lot of sprint finishes but it is difficult to predict that. Also, one should be careful with putting too many sprinters in the team as some of them will not survive the mountain stages.

The top Tour the France cyclists are a good choice to put in the top of your team. You can rely on Zabel to be in the stage top 10 for at least 5 times. If you feel sure about Ullrich winning the time trial, put him at the top of your team to earn you a certain 3 bonus points.

Alternatively, you can attempt to beat the other players in one stage result. Compose a team of fifteen time trial specialists in order to attempt to earn a first place in the time trial stage. Or bring together fifteen excellent climbers or fifteen top sprinters to take a high ranking in a mountain stage or a sprint finish. Teams like that will not bring you in the overall top 10 but perhaps you will have the satisfaction of beating the other players in some stages.

This advice comes from a player who has some years of experience in this game. Feel free to use your own insight and, what is important, your own cycling expertise to compose your winning team.

Participants Tour de France 2003

You can take a look at a list of teams which contains information about the cyclists that will participate in the Tour.

Relevant standings from previous Tour de Frances

Number of times a cyclist finished within the first ten in the previous four Tour de Frances (all stages except team time trial stage):

2002
 8  Armstrong,Beloki,McEwen,Rumsas,Zabel
 7  Cooke,O'Grady
 6  Botero
 4  Brochard,Frigo,Hauptmann,I. Gonzalez,Hushovd,Kirsipuu,Millar,Svorada

2001
10  O'Grady
 8  Armstrong,Nazon,Zabel
 7  Beloki,Ullrich
 6  Capelle,I. Gonzalez,Petacchi,Teutenberg
 4  Botero,Casper,Laiseka,Sevilla,Svorada,Vainsteins

2000
 9  Zabel
 8  Vainsteins
 7  Armstrong,Moreau
 6  Botero,McEwen
 5  Beloki,Heras,Ullrich,Virenque
 4  Commesso,Dekker,Escartin,Koerts,Magnien,Piziks,Wust,Zanini

1999
11  O'Grady
10  Zabel
 7  Hincapie,Steels,Zulle
 6  Armstrong,Cipollini,Kirsipuu,Martinello,Zulle
 5  Belli,Capelle,Minali,McEwen,Mondini,Vinokourov
 4  Dufaux,Nazon,Simon,Svorada

The last line of each list might be incomplete.

The cyclists that are likely to earn you many points are often cyclists that in the top of the competition of the green jersey. In the previous years the top-10 in the green jersey competition was:

1999             2000             2001             2002
 1. Zabel         1. Zabel         1. Zabel         1. McEwen
 2. O'Grady       2. McEwen        2. O'Grady       2. Zabel
 3. Capelle       3. Vainsteins    3. Nazon         3. O'Grady
 4. Steels        4. Magnien       4. Petacchi      4. Cooke
 5. Simon         5. Dekker        5. Teutenberg    5. Svorada
 6. McEwen        6. Zanini        6. Armstrong     6. Armstrong
 7. Hincapie      7. Durand        7. Ullrich       7. Hushovd
 8. Mondeni       8. Simon         8. Svorada       8. Brochard
 9. Moreau        9. Commesso      9. Capelle       9. Rumsas
10. Martinello   10. Mattan       10. Simon        10. Botero

The optimal team for the Internet Tour de France Game 2002 was:

    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

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. This team would have obtained 761 points (more information).