The final stage from 154 km finishing in Paris ended in a sprint finish as usual. No disqualifications today and the man that crossed the finish first, Nicola Minali from Italy, won the stage. Jan Ullrich from Germany won the Tour overall. The Tour winner of last year, Bjarne Riis from Denmark, finished on seventh spot. The other jerseys went to the same cyclists as last year: Erik Zabel from Germany took the green jersey and Richard Virenque took the polkadot jersey.
After a long tiresome Tour it did not came as a surprise that not all top sprinters could compete in the final sprint. Still we see the sprint teams finishing high in the game stage. The stage was won by Johannes Homan of The Netherlands, the maintainer of the CycleBase website. Two people finished on second place: Frank van Hinsberg from The Netherlands and Jack Habets from the same country.
Kees Winder from The Netherlands has won the Internet Tour de France Game 1997. In the last stage he managed to extend his small lead over runner up René Leerdam from the same country to four points. Dutchman Wim Hoefs got a good score in the final stage and finished at third spot only one point behind behind Leerdam. The difference between number one and three is only five points. This is the smallest margin in the four year history of the game.
The players from The Netherlands have performed very well in this edition of the game. Jan Becker from Germany (fifth) and Rene Marechal from Canada (eighth) are the only non-Dutch players that finish in the top 10. Reint Jan Renes takes fourth place, Hans and Ans Dekker finish on sixth and seventh spot, B. Kroon joins Marechal on position eight and Barry Wobbes completes the top 10.
No player of the top 20 of last year managed to finish in the top 20 in 1997. Last year winner Dutchman Wieger van Brug finished at 393th place and the runner up of last year, Klaas Reijne from the same country, became 285th. Fellow countryman Erix Schokker is 718th but no one in the 1997 edition of the game has been able to improve his all time stage high score of 97 points set in 1996. Frank Koper from The Netherlands is the best of the players that have been sucessful in previous editions of the game: he finished on an excellent 14th place. Erik Teeuw is the best of the players that have competed in all four editions of the game: he became 54th. Our artificial competitor Jan Modaal also had a good year. He took 28th place.
The 59 dropouts in the Tour have had an effect on the teams of the participants. Our winner Klaas Winder arrived in Paris with 12 of his 15 cyclists and runner up René Leerdam only had 10 cyclists left. No one managed to get a complete team in Paris but there were five players that finished with fourteen cyclists: Bas Zwaan (UK; England), Jeroen van den Broek (The Netherlands), P. Veldman (The Netherlands), Rene Marechal (Canada) and Rob Hiddinga (The Netherlands). Keith Vize from the United Kingdom is the most unfortunate player this year when it comes to dropouts: he arrived in Paris with only three cyclists left in his originally eight men team.
This has been an exciting Tour de France and an exciting edition of the game. Thank you all for participating. I hope to see you all back next year!
More detailed stage report by Velonews. More detailed stage results by Nando SportServer.
1. 51 Johannes Homan (The Netherlands)
2. 50 Frank van Hinsberg (The Netherlands; Wessem)
50 Jack Habets (The Netherlands)
4. 48 René Lammers (The Netherlands)
5. 46 Ruud van de Wetering (The Netherlands)
6. 44 J. Andersen (Denmark)
44 John Boog (The Netherlands)
44 Oei wat gaan ze hard! (The Netherlands)
9. 42 Edxwasz (The Netherlands)
42 Henk van Faassen (The Netherlands)
42 Marc Peeters [1] (Belgium)
12. 41 Kees Verweij (The Netherlands)
41 Reinald Huizenga (The Netherlands)
41 Stephan Mathieu (The Netherlands)
15. 40 Geert van Offeren (The Netherlands)
40 Jørgen Andersen (Denmark)
40 Klaas Reijne (The Netherlands)
40 Koen Hanemaaijer (The Netherlands)
40 Ruud de Wolf (The Netherlands)
40 Stephanie Chiotakis (The Netherlands)
21. 39 Arie Hordijk (USA)
39 HHTX (Spain)
39 Marcel Spanjer (The Netherlands)
39 Marcello Mancini (The Netherlands)
39 Pieter Geluk (The Netherlands)
39 Rob Spaans (The Netherlands)
27. 38 André-Jan Oldenkamp (The Netherlands)
38 Barry van der Haar (The Netherlands)
38 Jules van der Horst (The Netherlands)
38 Marcel Luyckx (The Netherlands)
38 Rene Mieremet (The Netherlands)
32. 37 Arie Koster (The Netherlands)
37 Karim Fatih (UK; England)
37 Rien Post (The Netherlands)
37 Rik van Seccelen (The Netherlands)
37 Rob McEwen Will Win a Stage (Australia)
37 Søren Mortensen (Denmark)
37 Wieger van Brug (The Netherlands)
39. 36 Carlo Bredt (The Netherlands)
36 Carmen Leerdam (The Netherlands)
36 Dave Vranken (The Netherlands)
36 G. Temmink (The Netherlands)
36 Jeff Ronge (The Netherlands)
36 Melanie Dunne (Australia)
36 Wilhelmijntje Moring (The Netherlands)
46. 35 B. Kroon (The Netherlands)
35 C. Martini (The Netherlands)
35 Gertjan Kunnen (The Netherlands)
35 Hemeryck Piet (Belgium)
35 Jelmer Suwijn (The Netherlands)
35 John Silkens (The Netherlands)
35 Phausto (The Netherlands)
53. 34 Albert van der Meij (The Netherlands)
34 Bas Plaut (The Netherlands)
34 Fransesco (The Netherlands)
34 Han W. Driessen (The Netherlands)
34 Joop Vermeulen (The Netherlands)
34 Martin Derksema (The Netherlands)
34 Sebastiaan Laponder (The Netherlands)
60. 33 Bas Grondhuis (The Netherlands)
33 Jong elan (The Netherlands)
33 Jos Droste (Belgium)
33 Logic Papersystem (The Netherlands)
33 Pia Harbers (Belgium)
65. 32 Anthony Forsyth (UK; England)
32 Bas Zwaan (UK; England)
32 Christoph Kündig (Canada)
32 Dano (USA)
32 DocFlow Development Team (The Netherlands)
32 E. de vries (The Netherlands)
32 Eeuwe Zijlstra (The Netherlands)
32 Francesco van Harlingen (The Netherlands)
32 Jurgen Jeurissen (The Netherlands)
32 Luis Garcia Delgado (Spain)
32 Michel Christianen (The Netherlands)
32 Michiel Janssen (The Netherlands)
32 Patricia Elskamp (The Netherlands)
32 Terry Hamley (UK)
32 Th. Kramer (The Netherlands)
32 Wim Hoefs (The Netherlands)
32 Zoestbergen (The Netherlands)
82. 31 Adriaan Martens (USA)
31 Adrie van Geffen (The Netherlands)
31 Bas Paumen (The Netherlands)
31 Curatola Cheyenne (Italy)
31 Göran Sporre (Sweden)
31 Lars Graulund (Denmark)
31 Laurence Frelin (USA)
31 Luis Varona (USA; Spain)
31 Marc Maas (Germany)
31 Mathijs (The Netherlands)
31 Monique Schellekens (The Netherlands)
31 Odix (Italy)
31 Olivier Depuydt (Belgium)
31 Sander Kaspers (The Netherlands)
96. 30 Freek Burger (The Netherlands)
30 Marc Schramm (The Netherlands)
30 Peter Toftsoe (Denmark)
30 Pieter Luijendijk (The Netherlands)
30 Principles (The Netherlands)