Lanterne Rouge 2013

skylla

Been meaning to put some faces to the names for a while now. Here we go.

skylla

Kazakh Valeriy Dmitriyev

skylla

Hard-ass Svein Tuft cycled for Garmin 2009-2010:

skylla

Canadian TT and RR (2011) champ Tuft Svein also was a Nat TT champ in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012. So pretty much since the dawn of age.

No_Ta_Doctor

Cheers Skylla.

If that's Kazza's racing weight then I reckon he's got to be favourite.

skylla

oh dear. exactly my thoughts...

skylla

Another aspect of being a successful Lanterne Rouge contender is the ability to dodge cameras. Hence it is actually quite difficult to find decent and recent pictures. My money is therefore on camera shy Valerie.

confused@BR

Is there an Anonymity Award?






Oh.

Bo Duke

No tA Doctor wrote:

Cheers Skylla.

If that's Kazza's racing weight then I reckon he's got to be favourite.

I saw Kazza take half a dozen musettes a few days back, I had assumed they were for his team mates...... :shock:

No_Ta_Doctor

Bo Duke wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Cheers Skylla.

If that's Kazza's racing weight then I reckon he's got to be favourite.

I saw Kazza take half a dozen musettes a few days back, I had assumed they were for his team mates...... :shock:

Were any of them a different colour, looked a bit like this?:



Note: the word "backwards" has for some reason been left off the bag.

Pross

confused@BR wrote:

Is there an Anonymity Award?






Oh.

Cofidis would have it sewn up if they were at the race.

skylla

Exactly that. A contract with cofidis.

Robert Millar: "With nobody for the General Classification race and no big sprinter it's difficult to see what Cofidis are going to do. Most of the team will get dragged round France for three weeks and if it wasn't for the bright red kit you wouldn't notice they were there. One of them might sneak a breakaway win but that's crediting them with getting in an escape in the first place."

No_Ta_Doctor

As was mentioned in another thread (or was it above?) Cofidis have been anonymous, but I hadn't even realised Lampre were at the race. I seriously had to go and check up. The absence of Cofidis at any meaningful part of the race has been noticable, but Lampre have been so invisible we didn't even realise they should be in line for an award.

skylla

Due to an unfortunate incident and incredible bad luck Valerie became an unsuspected bottom-of-the-pile loser of the 2005 Greek Lantern Rouge. His dishonoured team understandably refused him permission to collect the anti-trophy and to this day, and true to form, not a single picture of the incident survived or any of the whole hapless event for that matter. If anyone has any "Tour de Greece" images of that year in their private collection, please post. In the mean time, here's a goat precariously balanced on a cliff top - in Greece.

skylla

Ok, moving on to the current third placed rider Assan Bazayev. Now he really is a cool dude, a dedicated team joker and without a shadow of doubt popular with "the girls" both on and off the bike. Like Valerie, Assan also hails from Kazakhstan and his family is said to run a successful business exporting potassium. L'Equipe claims his uncle invented toffee, but that might be an unfortunate mistranslation if you ask me. A practical joker, he cunningly "advised" room mate Valerie with his tactical nous in the 2005 TdG leading to the latter inheriting the anti-trophy Assan himself reluctantly took home a year earlier through ill-advice of Nursultan "behind-the-scene DS" Nazarbayev.

He was the 2009 Kazakh Nat RR Champ and was temporarily suspended by Astana for incorrectly reporting his whereabouts. Yes, by Astana.

skylla

Here's he.
simon keitch
AFP

skylla

skylla

bettini

skylla

It just makes you wonder, can anyone be simply too cool for the LR? I don't think so.

Bo Duke

KAZZA's downhill style impressed Astana scouts in the recent Tour of Kazakstan when he swopped his usual mankini skinsuit to the latest generation lyrca Speedos.

No_Ta_Doctor

Gentlemen, and ladies, I fear we are being sidetracked into an Interesting Facts About Lanterne Contenders thread. While some rest day shenanigans is both inevitable and amusing, let us not forget the bravery, character and fortitude of these riders who battle with mountains, crosswinds and 8 bidons on the days that they race. The spirit of the Lanterne is a salute to those race across savage terrain for our pleasure. Please join me in a moments quiet reflection. Thank you.

cedargreen

After reflecting silently, I think this is probably as good a time as any to apologise for having caused a 'team lanterne' detour with my comments about Argos-Shimano. This was in no way intentional; I merely wished to point out that with three riders in the top ten, including the incomparable Ned Veelers, the chances of an Argos-Shimano rider winning the lanterne rouge (which is and always has been an individual trophy) are extremely high. Should Veelers falter, through failing to drift into a sprinters path for example, a concerted effort by Kittel would put him in contention.

And while the lanterne is essentially an individual award, and everyone likes a plucky lone effort, you have to admire the way the whole Argos-Shimano team has worked together- witness their unassailable losses in the team time trial.

Ned Veelers is still my favourite, but the Alps could be a gift for Kittel who has made incredible progress since wearing yellow in Corsica.

edhornby

thinking about it, the alps may not be the place for him to snatch the lanterne as most of the contenders will have the autobus times unless there are multiple groups up the mountain.... maybe an echelon will be the reverse breakaway he's hoping for

having worn the MJ in the early part of the race and a Champs Elysee contender , he could use that to drop out of the back with a 'mechanical' and get a dispensation, these have been cracked down on this year tho

cedargreen

Agreed, just sitting in the autobus will not be enough to put Kittel in red, but it's too early to write him off- just look at the way he slipped unobtrusively away from the yellow jersey, cleverly disguising his precipitous descent with a few stage wins in the bunch sprints. Still time for him to pull something out of the bag.

No_Ta_Doctor

The autobus is no more the route to the lanterne than the peloton is the route to yellow. You have to do more.

The danger of the high mountains is that the autobus may only just scrape in within the time cut. If you try and get dropped by it your race could be over.

Which makes today's middle mountain stage and the TT to come the key days here.

No_Ta_Doctor

Update after stage 16

With a big strong break going early and the peloton taking a snooze there was little opportunity for the Lanterne contenders to get away at the back. The one major opportunity was the last climb of the day, Cat 2, but with Mark Cavendish suffering a poorly tummy and the rest of the sprinters not looking forward to the mountains yet to come you can bet they were taking it easy. Ineed, the only way to drop off the back of le autobus here would have been to turn round and ride back down the hill.

Our only change in the top ten today is a place swap between Jeremy Cousins and the Belgian Kris Bonckedmans.
Cousins apparently failed to make a split (possibly on the descent, too far forward as another rider lost a wheel) and lost nearly a minute to almost all his competitors. Bonckedman somehow managed a solo bonk to finish in last place by 15 seconds. Chapeau Kris.


170. NED TIMMER Albert 198 TEAM ARGOS-SHIMANO 68h 01' 27'' + 02h 45' 51''
171. BEL WILLEMS Frederik 29 LOTTO-BELISOL 68h 02' 20'' + 02h 46' 44''
172. GER KITTEL Marcel 197 TEAM ARGOS-SHIMANO 68h 03' 12'' + 02h 47' 36''
173. FRA COUSIN Jérome 53 TEAM EUROPCAR 68h 10' 20'' + 02h 54' 44''
174. NED VEELERS Tom 199 TEAM ARGOS-SHIMANO 68h 10' 25'' + 02h 54' 49''
175. FRA HIVERT Jonathan 214 SOJASUN 68h 10' 48'' + 02h 55' 12''
176. BEL BOECKMANS Kris 202 VACANSOLEIL-DCM 68h 10' 49'' + 02h 55' 13''
177. KAZ BAZAYEV Assan 62 ASTANA PRO TEAM 68h 11' 24'' + 02h 55' 48''
178. KAZ MURAVYEV Dmitriy 69 ASTANA PRO TEAM 68h 12' 16'' + 02h 56' 40''
179. CAN TUFT Svein 189 ORICA GREENEDGE 68h 13' 06'' + 02h 57' 30'

Geraint watch:
Keeps in touch and maintains his top twenty placing.
163. GBR THOMAS Geraint 9 SKY PROCYCLING 67h 55' 19'' + 02h 39' 43"

No_Ta_Doctor

Stage 17 mountain ITT Live update

What a ride from Ned! What. A. Ride!

Absolutely SMASHED Kazza for 1'24"

This race is going to the line!

Kazza himself took more than a minute on Tufty, grabbing the virtual lanterne by a handful of seconds.

This could really not be closer :-)

No_Ta_Doctor

There will be some nervous checks of the time cut today though. Some of these riders may well have done far too much.

Bo Duke

You can't doubt the commitment, these lads are there day after day rolling their eyes and grimacing as though in pain.

Tommy V will make a superb LR contender in the near future.

No_Ta_Doctor

Ladies and gentleman, if the yellow jersey is looking done and dusted, I can tell you that the fight for the lanterne rouge is most definitely NOT!

We have a race!

Ned Veelers astounding soft pedal for second place, a whopping 10'27'' after Chris Froome has blown the competition wide open. With all the other contenders making a good show of getting round slowly the podium is now separated by a mere 27 seconds. This is going to go to the wire, and these riders are taking this seriously.

Also worth a mention was today's winner, William "Car" Bonnet, who managed to move into 14th with a marvellous display of nonchalance at 10'39" A top ten finish is on the cards for him.

168 Brett Lancaster (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 2:51:23
169 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Team Argos-Shimano 2:51:53
170 Frederik Willems (Bel) Lotto Belisol 2:54:09
171 Jonathan Hivert (Fra) Sojasun 2:59:35
172 Jerome Cousin (Fra) Team Europcar 3:00:46
173 Kris Boeckmans (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 3:01:29
174 Assan Bazayev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 3:03:34
175 Tom Veelers (Ned) Team Argos-Shimano 3:05:16
176 Svein Tuft (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 3:05:31
177 Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 3:05:43

Geraint Watch: The G managed to slip out of the top twenty, a little too much effort today. No doubt Brailsford will be having words. Teammate Ian Stannard set the standard for Sky with a 6th place 8'48"