Top 100 rankings | Complete rankings
Top 100 rankings | Complete rankings
This is the second day of rest at this year Tour. Many cyclists are tired after the Alp stages and the subsequent long stages which each day contained some hills. Tomorrow the cyclists will enter the Pyrenees. It will be a tough stage with five first category climbs including the finish climb to Piau-Engaly. On Wednesday there will be three tough climbs including the Tourmalet (2115 m). The Tour will finish next Sunday.
After fourteen stages only 28 cyclists have dropped out. This again is a record low. In the previous five editions of the game on average 50 cyclists had dropped out after fourteen stages. The best year was 1998 with 42 dropouts at this stage and the worst 1996 with 62.
Still the dropouts have caused some problems for the teams of the game participants. There is currently only one player with a complete team: Atletico Bintang (Italy, now at place 788). One other player has not lost a cyclist, Jaime Garcia (Spain, 809), but he has started the game with a team of fourteen cyclists. He is is one of the twelve players that are just one cyclist short of a complete team. The participants which have suffered most are Joao Pedro Mendonca (Portugal, 670), John Chapman (USA, 485), Justitian (The Netherlands, 139) and Mart Vrijmoed (The Netherlands, 390). They have already lost eight cyclists. The participant with the smallest team is Rui Silva (Portugal, 727). He has started the game with five cyclists and lost one.
At the previous rest day I presented three average country teams and examined their scores with the overall average team Jan Modaal. After fourteen stages the results of the teams would be as follows:
place points 212. 457 Team UK 230. 452 Team USA 252. 444 Jan Modaal 272. 439 Dutch Team
After eight stages with many sprint finishes the Dutch Team was leading but now this team has dropped to fourth place. Team UK is currently the best of the four. However, the score differences are still small.
Apart from the yellow jersey rankings the Tour knows many other rankings. I am currently considering adding extra rankings to the game. This will not affect the daily stage results and the overall rankings. These should be kept the same so that results of earlier editions can be compared with the current edition. It also gives players the opportunity to use the knowledge they have obtained from earlier participations in later editions.
One extra ranking which could be added is a ranking which is based on the standings in the yellow jersey ranking. Participants will obtain points if they have cyclists from the current top ten in these standings in their team. This ranking could be updated daily. Results of earlier days will not be taken to the next stage so the goal is to predict the final yellow jersey result in Paris. The same could be done for the green and the polka dot jersey. Here are top ten examples for these rankings after stage 14 of this edition of the game:
Top ten yellow jersey rankings after stage 14
1. 73 Boet Kokke (The Netherlands)
2. 71 Tony Tullio (Canada)
3. 70 Oliver Choo (Canada)
4. 67 The Toumaster (The Netherlands)
5. 64 Jacob Andreasen (Sweden)
64 Kris Stapleton (USA)
64 Matz Arriba (The Netherlands)
8. 63 Dirk Kissing (The Netherlands)
9. 62 Peter van Gils (The Netherlands)
62 Steve Peyton (USA)
Top ten green jersey rankings after stage 14
1. 82 Gosse Darbe (The Netherlands)
82 Jeroen Van Koert (Australia)
3. 79 Jose Maria Olazabel Da Silva Smith Jr. (Mozambique)
4. 78 Mike Johanson (USA)
5. 77 Anton Cozijnsen (Australia)
77 Herman Klaassen (The Netherlands)
7. 76 Angelo Colombo (Italy)
76 Martin Brilleman (The Netherlands)
9. 75 Carlos Girao (Portugal)
75 Christian Hoffellner (Austria)
75 Eric van Balkum (The Netherlands)
75 Rien Post (The Netherlands)
75 Wim Reidt (Germany)
Top ten polka dot jersey rankings after stage 14
1. 55 Kris Stapleton (USA)
2. 53 Boet Kokke (The Netherlands)
53 K. van Hoof (The Netherlands)
4. 52 Robert (USA)
5. 51 Henrik Andreasen (Sweden)
6. 50 Tony Tullio (Canada)
7. 48 Peter van Gils (The Netherlands)
8. 46 Dirk Kissing (The Netherlands)
46 Remco van Veenendaal (The Netherlands)
10. 45 Carrotman (The Netherlands)
45 Ken Eato (USA)
45 Mark Biggs (USA)
45 Oliver Choo (Canada)
45 The Toumaster (The Netherlands)
In order to obtain a good place in the green jersey ranking the task will be to compose a team of good sprinters that are able to finish the Tour. A sprinter like Mario Cipollini, who wins four stages but does not arrive in Paris, will not provide any points.
The current leader after fourteen stages is Michael Botzet of Germany. His current score of 597 points is a small improvement of the previous highest score after fourteen stages: 593 points of René Leerdam (The Netherlands) in 1997. The results of the previous editions bring good news for Michael Botzet. In all but one case the participant that was in the lead after fourteen stages turned out the be the winner of the game. The only exception was 1997 when René Leerdam was overtaken by another Dutchman Kees Winder two stages before the Tour finished. In that year and in 1995 the distance between number one and two after fourteen stages was small (three points) as it is now (seven points). Winder was second after fourteen stages in 1997. The current number two is Erix Schokker (New Zealand/The Netherlands). Closely behind him is Dutchman Martin Brilleman. These three will probably battle for first place in the remaining six stages.
Last year winner Tako Molanus is currently 304th, 169 points behind Botzet. The 1995 winner Frank Koper is ahead of him at 184th place, 132 points behind the current leader.
After fourteen 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 | 7x: 4 2* 2* 5 2* 8 7 3. S. O'Grady | 8x: 9 3* 3* 6 8 2 9 8 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. C. Capelle | 4x: 7* 8 7* 9 8. D. Nazon | 4x: 8* 9 5 6 9. N. Minali | 4x: 4 6 7 9* 10. F. Simon | 3x: 10* 10* 2 11. J. Svorada | 4x: 7 10 4 5 12. L. Armstrong | 3x: 1 1 5 13. A. Zulle | 3x: 2 2 4 14. R. McEwen | 3x: 7 4 9 15. J. Casper | 3x: 5 6 8
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 656 points after stage 14. The current leader Michael Botzet has 597 points. His team contains ten of the fifteen cyclists present in this team.