Tag Archives: Alberto Contador

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 1

Dear Rouleurs,

Seriously how good was this year’s Tour De France??  It had all kinds of thrills and spills.  I never thought I would see Mark Cavenish win another spirit stage, let alone four or Michael Matthews win his first or see Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux because some motorcycle camera man collided with him and broke his bike.  I’ll have to write a proper blog about this stuff.  However,  MMT will start with the less fashionable analysis first.

As a perennial back marker in any peloton on Beach Road, I feel it is necessary to celebrate the bottom ten finishers of the Tour De France.  Lets face it.  Finishing the TDF is an incredible athletic achievement in its own right.  So this report will be provided in two blogs.  The first will present analysis about those riders who didn’t finish the race.  The second will assess the last ten that did.

So of the original 198 riders that left the Grande Departee, 22 didn’t make it all the way through to Paris.   Some left due to injury eg Alberto Contador and Simon Gerrans.  Others left to complete their preparation for the Olympic Games in Rio, in about 2 weeks time.  This is who they were, in order of abandonment:

1 MORKOV Michael KATUSHA Denmark
2 PINEAU Cedric FDJ France
3 LADAGNOUS Matthieu FDJ France
4 RENSHAW Mark DIMENSION DATA Australia
5 CONTADOR Alberto TINKOFF Spain
6 LANGEVELD Sebastian CANNONDALE-DRAPAC Netherlands
7 TULIK ANGÉLO DIRECT ENERGIE France
8 VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen  KATUSHA Belgium
9 GERRANS Simon ORICA-BIKEEXCHANGE Australia
10 PINOT Thibaut FDJ France
11 THEUNS Edward TREK-SEGAFREDO Belgium
12 BRESCHEL Matti CANNONDALE-DRAPAC Denmark
13 FRANK Mathias IAM CYCLING Switzerland
14 DEBUSSCHERE Jens LOTTO SOUDAL Belgium
15 HERRADA Jesús MOVISTAR Spain
16 BOZIC Borut COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS Slovenina
17 CAVENDISH Mark DIMENSION DATA Great Britan
18 DENNIS Rohan BMC RACING Australia
19 IZAGUIRRE Gorka MOVISTAR Spain
20 NAVARRO Daniel COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS Spain
21 DUMOULIN Tom TEAM GIANT – ALPECIN Netherlands
22 MARTIN Tony ETIXX – QUICK STEP Germany

Now MMT has been espousing the merits of infographics to communicate to the attention challenged Gen-Y. So MMT has tried his hand at a few pretty graphs to tell the story of these 22 riders. So on to the first infographic, which captures when riders decided enough was enough.

Rider abandonment by Stage TDF 2016

Rider abandonment by Stage TDF 2016

There some big name casualties none more than Alberto Contador and the seemingly cursed Simon Gerrans. Mark Cavendish managed to win with out Mark Renshaw. Tony Martin must have qualified for some kind of award for failing to finish the last stage on the Champs Elysses. What was remarkable, that no abandoned in the first week. This is the first time in the history of the TDF that has occurred.  Onto the second infographic, abandonments by nationality.

Rider abandonment by Nationality TDF 2016

Rider abandonment by Nationality TDF 2016

This is actually quite intriguing and shows how that the more strongly represented nations suffered from more abandonment, mainly from riders leaving early to complete their Olympic preparations either for track or road events. No riders from the ‘long tail’ of the graph abandoned. I note that 33% of Australians abandoned the race.  On the final infographic abandonment by Team.

Rider abandonment by Team TDF 2016

Rider abandonment by Team TDF 2016

Ignoring injuries, it becomes pretty clear that stronger teams tend to finish with all their riders. Weaker teams lose riders regularly, usually through the mountains. It’s remarkable that 6 of the 22 teams didn’t lose a single rider.  It also highlights why Team Sky has become so dominant over the last 5 years.

I’ll continue on in this theme in the next blog  race for the lantern rouge.

Until then, ride safe

Marv

Woo woo, here comes the Sky Train…

Dear Rouleurs,

In lieu of a proper blog about the shenanigans at 2015 edition of La Vuelta, for example various members of the Tinkoff-Saxo squad, most notably Peter Sagan, being struck by motorcycles and Chris Froome breaking his ankle, I thought I would provide another infographic.  Its been liberated from the rather wonderful RCUK’s Infographic Guide to Cycling .  I’ve provided the link to Amazon as shameless plug, hopefully, to ward off legal action for a blatant breach of copyright.

Woo...woo...here comes the Skytrain...

Woo…woo…here comes the Skytrain…

Here at marvmadethis.com, we’ve long identified that infographics are the preferred communication media of the attention/literacy challenged Gen Y.  For those of us not in that underachieving demographic, infographics occasionally capture something useful or entertaining.

The illustration above  does both, showing how Team Sky propel their GC rider, Chris Froome, along in a mountain stage. By keeping the tempo high, they attempt to prevent attacks from less well supported climbers, for example Alberto Contador.

I’m not sure which one of these was meant to Richie Porte 😉

Until next time

Marv

2015 Giro d’Italia Results – Where did the Aussies finish?

Dear Roulers,

This post took a lot longer to write than I thought.  In fact this could be the only list of its type on the WWW.  I had to fish through the individual stage results to figure out, who DNS and DNF amongst the Aussie contingent.

So to do a quick recap, the 2015 Giro started May 9 an finished three weeks later on Sunday, May 31.  The riders that finished completed a course of 3481km long averaging 165km a day.  It included:

  • six mountain finishes and three other testing days of climbing
  • six stages for the sprinters,
  • a 59.2km individual time trial, and
  • kicked off with a 17.6km team time trial.

Of the 196 riders that started only 163 finished.

20150619-AContadorWinner

 

The race was won by Alberto Contador (above in case you can’t recognise him) and the Lanterne Rouge, place 163, was Marco Coledan (Ita) of  Trek Racing, who finished 6:40:13 behind.

20150619-Chris-FroomeWinner

 

I wonder if Contador will be able to go the double given Chris Froome’s performance in this week’s  Critérium du Dauphiné.  I’m counting the days until the Tour de France.

 Place Name Country Team
1 Alberto Contador Spain Tinkoff-Saxo 88:22:25
2 Fabio Aru Italy Astana Pro Team 0:01:53
3 Mikel Landa Meana Spain Astana Pro Team 0:03:05
4 Andrey Amador Costa Rica Movistar Team 0:08:10
5 Ryder Hesjedal Canada Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycling Team 0:09:52
6 Leopold Konig Czech Republic Team Sky 0:10:41
7 Steven Kruijswijk Netherlands Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:10:53
8 Damiano Caruso Italy BMC Racing Team 0:12:08
9 Alexandre Geniez France FDJ.fr 0:15:51
10 Yury Trofimov Russia Team Katusha 0:16:14
 Place These guys finished
33 Michael Rogers Australia Tinkoff-Saxo 2:11:06
63 Simon Clarke Australia Orica-GreenEdge 3:20:33
77 Adam Hansen Australia Lotto Soudal 3:49:51
107 Heinrich Haussler Australia IAM Cycling 4:43:01
109 Luke Durbridge Australia Orica-GreenEdge 4:50:24
122 Sam Bewley Australia Orica-GreenEdge 5:10:21
128 Brett Lancaster Australia Orica-GreenEdge 5:18:55
151 Calvin Watson Australia Trek Factory Racing 5:56:12
160 Michael Hepburn Australia Orica-GreenEdge 6:13:16
These guys didn’t
Retired Stage 12 Simon Gerrans Australia  Orica-GreenEdge
Retired Stage 13 Michael Matthews Australia  Orica-GreenEdge
Retired Stage 15 Richie Porte Australia Team Sky