This is the description of the Usenet Tour de France Game. The competition is open for anyone owning an e-mail account. 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 1995.
Send your team via e-mail to erikt@let.rug.nl (Erik TKS). Your contribution must arrive before Monday July 3, 1995 9:00 GMT, otherwise you cannot participate in the game.
Daily results and standings will be posted in the Usenet newsgroups soc.culture.netherlands and nlnet.sport. A complete list of players together with the current standings will be available by ftp in ftp://ftp.let.rug.nl/pub/Erikt/tour95 and by World Wide Web in http://www.let.rug.nl/~erikt/.TourDeFrance/welcome.html
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
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 pointsThere is a scoring example following this rule list.
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 .
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points in this stage: 45
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 stage.
The top Tour the France cyclists are a good choice to put in the top of your team. You can rely on Rominger and Indurain to be in the stage top 10 for at least 5 times. If you feel sure about of Rominger winning both time trials, put him at the top of your team to earn you a sure 6 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 standings. 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 stage standings.
This advice comes from a player who has three years of experience in this game. Last year he finished just in the top half of a similar competition. Feel free to use your own insight and, what is important, your own expert cycle knowledge to compose your winning team.
At this moment the precise list of participants of the Tour de France 1995 is not known yet. In this list of participants you can find the teams participating in the Tour de France together with possible members of the team.
Number of times a cyclist finished within the first ten in the previous four Tour de Frances (all stages except team stage):
1994 11 Abdoesjaparov 10 Martinello 8 Svorada 7 Indurain, Pantani 6 Conti, Leblanc, Oegroemov 5 Bortolami, Magnien, Virenque 1993 8 Abdoesjaparov, Jalabert, Rominger 7 Cipollini, Indurain 6 Capelle, Chiappucci, Jaskula, Ludwig, Mejia 5 Collage, Fidanza, Museeuw, Roche, Sciandri 4 Alcala, Bruyneel, Bugno, Nelissen, Riis 1992 10 Jalabert 8 Chiappucci 7 Ludwig 6 Indurain 5 Bugno, Ghirotto, Konysjev, Museeuw, Roche 4 Delgado, Lilholt 1991 10 Jalabert 9 Abdoesjaparov 7 Kappes, Lemond, Ludwig, Museeuw, De Wilde 6 Anderson, Indurain, Kelly, Schur
The last line of each list is incomplete.
The cyclists that are likely to earn you many points are usually the 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:
1991 1992 1993 1994 1. Abdoesjaparov 1. Jalabert 1. Abdoesjaparov 1. Abdoesjaparov 2. Jalabert 2. Museeuw 2. Musseeuw 2. Martinello 3. Ludwig 3. Chiappucci 3. Sciandri 3. Svorada 4. Colotti 4. Ludwig 4. Simon 4. Bortolami 5. Kappes 5. Ghirotto 5. Capelle 5. Indurain 6. De wilde 6. Indurain 6. Moncassin 6. Ludwig 7. Lemond 7. Roche 7. Indurain 7. Museeuw 8. Fondriest 8. Bugno 8. Riis 8. Simon 9. Anderson 9. Lilholt 9. Rominger 9. Leblanc 10. Konychev 10. Nijdam 10. Colage 10. Edo
The optimal team for the Tour de France 1994 was:
1. D. Abdoesjaparov # 11x : 6 7 5 2 2 7 8 3 6 1* 6 2. J. Svorada # 8x : 4 8 1 6 9 2* 7 2* 3. S. Martinello # 10x : 3* 6 3* 6 8 10 4 8 3* 8 4. L. Leblanc # 6x : 4* 1 7 7 8 4* 5. M. Pantani # 7x : 3 2 10 8 3 5* 2 6. M. Indurain # 7x : 1 2 6* 9 5 2 3 7. P. Oegroemov # 6x : 10 7* 7* 2 1 1 8. R. Conti # 6x : 9 4 1 8* 6 10 9. G. Bortolami # 5x : 9* 1 10 4 7 10. E. Magnien # 5x : 2 10* 5 8 10* 11. R. Virenque # 5x : 4 1 5 4 3 12. O. Ludwig # 4x : 2 2 3 10 13. A. Edo # 4x : 8 10 6 9 14. F. Andreu # 3x : 10 7 2 15. B. Riis # 3x : 6 1 5
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 achieved 893 points.