I was struck yesterday that someone, notably Dara O'briain, was complaining on twitter that Andy Schleck had not won the Tour de France despite the near herculean effort on stage 17 with his 60km attack on the Izoard before the climb up to the Galibier because his time trialling is quite so poor and he lost a lot of time. At first I was miffed because I had personally been supporting Cadel Evans courtesy of Contador's alleged misdemeanor with drugs and the poor way in which the case is being handled but I found myself wondering why two years running I'd ended up supporting the other candidate, because Schleck now has 3 runner ups to date (subject to Contador's court for arbitration for sport ruling). Usually I support the underdog with the idea of valiantly failing being a sentiment I frequently sympathise with.
What annoyed me however was not who won, because both Cadel and Andy rode solidly throughout a very strong tour and as has been the case in recent years the victory has looked for the world like it could be down to seconds coming into Paris, but that someone should contest someone's right to win a race because of their personal preference for preferred style of stage. The Tour de France is noted by the sport as the ultimate challenge purely because it is the pinnacle of the sport championing all disciplines of cycling within the road race umbrella group. It effectively starts with a team time trial (so people haven't lost riders to elimination or injury) and ends with an individual time trial, with a healthy smattering of mountain and sprint finishes in between. It is the ultimate challenge because, to win, you need to have a variety in skill base. The great winners are the all round riders. That you should complain that someone has lost yellow because a mountain finish is more crowd pleasing than a time trial is ridiculous, especially bearing in mind the one man fight back from Cadel to drag the rest of the chasers to within a manageable time difference on that stage.
Andy did not lose the Tour de France in the time trial, he lost it when Cadel stuck to his back wheel, responding to every attack on a mountain (the Schleck stronghold) for the entirety of the tour. Yes, Schleck's Galibier attack was one of the most exciting and daring of recent cycling, but should one win a tour from one stage alone? The Tour is about consistent performance, and of the overall favourites, Evans was the most consistent, coming closest to two stage victories.
Rant aside, this years Tour was also notable because the 'Manx missile' Mark Cavendish won the green sprint Jersey with the HTC highroad team, taking in his 20th stage victory at the Tour for his career, if I am not mistaken a record for a British cyclist. What is surprising however is that sprint finishes are notable because traditionally they are a team competition - the team leads out dropping back one by one till a set distance from the finish at which point the main sprinter goes as hard as possible to win the stage, with the odd exception in a couple of stages, HTC were the only organised sprint team. It is no surprise Cavendish won green. He won green despite having been impeded in one finish, unfairly penalised in another and two sets of point deductions for coming in after the elimination time in the mountains. Yet he won 5 stages, challenged for several others losing by the slightest of margins and still finishing 62 points clear of his nearest rival, all this whilst not bothering for the majority of the intermediate sprint points due to the new system limiting their value. Mark truly is an all time great rider, it's no surprise he is dating model Peta Todd (23 from Essex of Top Gear fame).
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