Top 100 rankings | Complete rankings
Top 100 rankings | Complete rankings
The cyclists have a day off today. They will use it for traveling by plane from Metz to Le Grand Bornand (approximately 400 km). The supporting staff and Tour equipment will be transported by road. Tomorrow, the cyclists face some tough climbs. In that ninth stage they will reach the highest point in the Tour this year, the Galibier (2645 m), and finish in Setriéres (2033 m) after another climb. Detailed information about the climbing stages in the Tour 1999 can be found on the page of Roland Holm.
After eight stages only five cyclists have dropped out. This is a record low in the history of the game. Usually about 20 cyclists have dropped out at this stage of the Tour. 1996 was the worst year with respect to dropouts. After stage eight in that edition already 41 cyclists had left the race including Cipollini, Svorada, Gotti, Robin, Armstrong and the holder of the yellow jersey Heulot.
Yesterday Bobby Julich dropped out after a crash. Julich was riding around with number one, a number which is allocated to the cyclist which was the best in last year's Tour. Julich finished third last year but winner Pantani and runner-up Ullrich did not start in this edition. It is unusual for a first-placed rider to drop out of a Tour. One of the more recent years that this has happened, was in 1980 when Bernard Hinault dropped out after having won the previous two editions.
Each year a robot team Jan Modaal participates in the game. It consists of the most popular cyclists as chosen by the game participants. It is interesting to check if players from different countries choose different cyclists. We can examine the choices of the three largest participant groups: The Netherlands, the USA and the UK. In that case we obtain the following lists:
Jan Modaal Dutch Team Team USA Team UK
1. Zabel Zabel Zabel Zabel
2. Steels Steels +Julich Steels
3. Julich Julich -Steels Julich
4. Cipollini Cipollini +Armstrong Cipollini
5. McEwen +Boogerd -Cipollini +O'Grady
6. Boogerd -McEwen +Hincapie +Olano
7. Olano Olano -Boogerd -McEwen
8. Armstrong +Svorada +O'Grady Armstrong
9. O'Grady -Armstrong -Olano -Boogerd
10. Hincapie -O'Grady -McEwen +Zulle
11. Zulle +Kirsipuu +Virenque +Virenque
12. Svorada +Minali -Zulle +Escartin
13. Tonkov -Zulle +Escartin -Hincapie
14. Escartin -Tonkov -Svorada -Svorada
15. Kirsipuu -Escartin -Tonkov -Tonkov
score:354 score:360 score:348 score:350
Four teams have been listed. They consist of the fifteen most popular cyclists among participants from the three countries plus the Jan Modaal team. A plus or a minus before a cyclist name indicates that he has advanced or dropped on the team list when compared with the Jan Modaal list. For example, the plus before Boogerd in the Dutch team means that he is more popular among the players from The Netherlands (position 5) than among the average game participants (position 6).
The lists are very similar. The top threes are almost identical. Players from The Netherlands seem to be more confident in their local star Boogerd and the sprinters (Svorada, Kirsipuu and Minali) than in the GC contenders (Armstrong, Zulle, Tonkov and Escartin). Participants from the USA also expect much from their fellow countrymen Julich, Armstrong and Hincapie but they have chosen the GC contenders (Virenque and Escartin) more often than the sprinters (McEwen, Svorada and Kirsipuu). The latter observation also seems to fit the average UK choice. Boardman is more popular than average among people from the UK but he did not obtain enough points to make the UK team.
The scores of the four teams after stage eight do not differ much. The team of The Netherlands is leading at the moment. This is not surprising given that there have been seven sprint finishes in the first week and the Dutch more often have chosen sprinters in their teams. The team positions relative to each other will probably change next week.
The time trial results of yesterday are a little bit disappointing. The winner has obtained only 59 points. The results of time trials are easy to predict because the same cyclists return on the top of the list year after year. In fact, the average score of the game winners of time trials is high: 71 points. However it seems that in the recent editions no one has submitted a special purpose time trial team to the game. The winning scores of the time trial went up from 1995 (71) to 1996 (81 and 87) but then dropped in 1997 (69 and 64), 1998 (55) and 1999 (59).
For people that are interested in a good stage result in the game, the best advice seems to be to submit a team which consists entirely of time trial specialists. This does not need to be difficult. One could, for example, submit the top fifteen of the prologue. After all, the prologue is nothing but a short time trial and the results are known before the game starts. This strategy guarantees a team with cyclists that are in good shape. This team would have obtained 75 points yesterday, an easy stage victory!
You could also put more time into constructing your team and mix the results of time trials of previous Tour editions with the recent prologue result. This might get your stage score over 80 points. Results of previous Tours can be found on Bill Mitchell's Cycle Racing Results and News Service.
After eight stages Martin Brilleman of The Netherlands is first in the overall rankings with a record score of 535 points. The previous highest overall score after the eight stage was 381 points in 1997 by Jack Habets (The Netherlands). Brilleman's team consists entirely of sprinters. Usually these teams do well in the first week of the Tour but fade away in the remaining two weeks. Never in the history of the game has a sprinting team won the game. With seven sprint finishes in the first week and probably a few more to come this might be the year of the sprint teams. At this moment two teams have already obtained a better score than the 1994 winner (520) and a lot seem to be capable of reaching the 621 points which is the average score of a game winner. Maybe we might see Dutchman Kees Winder's record score of 749 points being broken this year.
A consolidation to the participants which are not in the top of the rankings at this moment: the game winner has never been in first place after eight stages. An analysis of the game progression of the last three years shows that the 1999 winner should be expected to be come from the top twenty of the current overall rankings. However, the 1996 winner was in the group between current places 172 and 180 after eight stages so people in the top two hundred can still have some hope of winning the game.
Last year winner Tako Molanus is currently 300th, 191 points behind Brilleman. The 1995 winner Frank Koper is slightly ahead of him at 276th place, 182 points behind the current leader.
After eight stages the following team would be the optimal submission for the game:
1. M. Cipollini | 6x: 3 10 1* 1* 1* 1* 2. E. Zabel | 5x: 4 2* 2* 5 2* 3. S. O'Grady | 7x: 9 3* 3* 6 8 2 9 4. T. Steels | 4x: 1 1 4* 2 5. J. Kirsipuu | 5x: 2 5* 3 3 3 6. G. Hincapie | 5x: 6* 5 9 6* 9 7. J. Svorada | 4x: 7* 10 4 5 8. D. Nazon | 4x: 8* 9 5 6 9. N. Minali | 4x: 4 6 7 9* 10. F. Simon | 2x: 10* 10* 11. S. Martinello | 3x: 8 8 7 12. J. Casper | 3x: 5 6 8 13. C. Capelle | 3x: 7 8 7 14. R. McEwen | 2x: 7 4 15. L. Armstrong | 1x: 1
The team list contains the position of the cyclists in the team, his name, the number of times he has appeared in the top ten until now and the positions which he has obtained in these top tens. A star behind the position indicates that the cyclist has obtained bonus points for that result. This team would have obtained 598 points after the eight stage. The current leader Martin Brilleman has 535 points. His team contains fourteen of the fifteen cyclists present in this team. However, with his choice for the remaining cyclist, Jay Sweet instead of Lance Armstrong, it is also possible to construct a 598-point team.