An optimal team for the Internet Tour de France Game 2004 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 897 points. Game winner Arthur Denneman (The Netherlands) has obtained 706 points.
Name | Stage results in top ten
1. L. Armstrong | 8x: 6 9 2 1* 1* 1* 1* 1* 2. S. O'Grady | 9x: 5 1 2* 10 8 3 10 10 7 3. A. Kloden | 8x: 5 2 3* 4 4 3* 2 3* 4. D. Hondo | 8x: 4* 6 4* 10 8 8 9 3 5. E. Zabel | 8x: 7 2 3 3 5* 3 5* 5* 6. R. McEwen | 8x: 1 3 6* 4 1 6* 8 4 7. T. Hushovd | 7x: 2 8 8 1 2 4 7* 8. I. Basso | 6x: 1 2 2 8* 4 6 9. J. Ullrich | 5x: 6 3 2 3 2 10. C. Sastre | 4x: 5 10* 10* 8 11. T. Boonen | 5x: 4 1 6 7 1 12. J. Azevedo | 4x: 7 8 4 10 13. F. Mancebo | 4x: 3 4 4 5 14. J. Nazon | 4x: 3 1 10 2 15. K. Kirchen | 3x: 5 2 8
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 135 . . . . . . . 15 15 15 18 . 18 18 18 . 18 .
2. S. O'Grady 129 14 . 14 17 14 14 14 . 14 . . . . . . 14 . 14
3. A. Kloden 113 . . . . . 13 . 13 . 16 13 . 13 16 13 . 16 .
4. D. Hondo 100 14 12 . 14 . 12 12 . 12 . . . . . . 12 . 12
5. E. Zabel 94 11 11 . 11 . 11 13 11 13 . . . . . . . . 13
6. R. McEwen 84 10 10 12 . . 10 10 . 12 . . . . . . 10 . 10
7. T. Hushovd 65 9 . 9 . 9 9 9 . 9 . . . . . . 11 . .
8. I. Basso 50 . . . . . . . . . 8 8 . 8 10 8 . 8 .
9. J. Ullrich 35 . . . . . . . . . . 7 . 7 7 7 . 7 .
10. C. Sastre 28 . . . . . . . . . 6 . . 8 8 6 . . .
11. T. Boonen 25 . 5 . 5 . 5 5 . . . . . . . . . . 5
12. J. Azevedo 16 . . . . . . . . . . 4 . 4 4 . . 4 .
13. F. Mancebo 12 . . . . 3 . . 3 . 3 3 . . . . . . .
14. J. Nazon 8 2 2 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
15. K. Kirchen 3 . 1 . . . 1 . 1 . . . . . . . . . .
Points: 897 60 41 37 47 26 75 63 43 75 48 53 0 58 63 52 47 53 56
Percentiles: 100 84 89 93 95 98 99 97 99100 98 97 0 99100 98 99 99 90
The team top ten contains five GC contenders (Armstrong, Kloden, Basso, Ullrich and Sastre) and 5 sprinters (O'Grady, Hondo, Zabel, McEwen and Hushovd). The team of game winner Arthur Denneman contains eight of these ten cyclists. This optimal team would have won two flat stages and the individual time trial at Alpe d'Huez: stages 8, 11 and 16.
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. Totschnig | 3x: 7 3 10 . J. Tombak | 3x: 7 9 6 . M. Scarponi | 3x: 6 9 8 . F. Landis | 2x: 5 4 . S. Gonzalez | 2x: 10 5 . O. Pereiro | 2x: 9 6 . I. Landaluze | 2x: 10 9 . E. Martinez | 2x: 3 10 . J. Flecha | 2x: 2 6 . J. Voigt | 2x: 9 7 . V. Karpets | 2x: 7 8 . D. Moncoutie | 2x: 1 9 . R. Virenque | 2x: 1 6 . P. Bettini | 2x: 7 7 . J. Pineau | 2x: 7 4 . T. Voeckler | 2x: 4 5 . P. Caucchioli | 2x: 10 9 . L. Brochard | 2x: 4 7 . J. Kirsipuu | 2x: 6 7 . L. Leipheimer | 2x: 5 7 . M. Lotz | 2x: 6 5 . M. Rasmussen | 2x: 7 9 . B. Cooke | 2x: 5 8 . S. Marinangeli | 2x: 6 9 . J. Rubiera | 1x: 9 . S. Botero | 1x: 8 . G. Guerini | 1x: 6 . J.E. Gutierrez | 1x: 10 . N. Jalabert | 1x: 2 . I. Mayo | 1x: 9 . I. Flores | 1x: 2 . A. Petacchi | 1x: 8 . A. Gonzalez | 1x: 1 . F. Pozzato | 1x: 1 . C. Moreau | 1x: 8 . J. Dean | 1x: 8 . P. Fedrigo | 1x: 4 . S. Hinault | 1x: 5 . S. Joly | 1x: 4 . B. Julich | 1x: 5 . J. Piil | 1x: 2 . J. Garcia | 1x: 2 . D. Menchov | 1x: 7 . R. Haselbacher | 1x: 9 . P. Wrolich | 1x: 5 . J. Casper | 1x: 6 . D. Fofonov | 1x: 3 . J. Mercado | 1x: 1 . I. Gonzalez | 1x: 7 . M. Backstedt | 1x: 5 . F. Baldato | 1x: 9 . A. Bertolini | 1x: 8 . S. Sunderland | 1x: 9 . S. Dumoulin | 1x: 10 . B. de Groot | 1x: 10 . S. Casar | 1x: 3 . C. Mengin | 1x: 3 . G. Simoni | 1x: 10 . G. Glomser | 1x: 9 . A. Merckx | 1x: 6 . M. Cipollini | 1x: 10 . M. Mori | 1x: 9