End of Tour Grades and Team of the Tour

RichN95.

I do this every Tour. Feel free to add your own views

A GRADE

UAE: Started well with old man Kristoff and continued with young man Pogacar. Four stages, KOM and the white jersey. And of course the Yellow Jersey. The next dynasty starts here.

DECEUNINK-QUICK STEP: Only Lefevere’s second Green Jersey and very much a team effort. Stages for Bennett, twice, and Alaphilippe and two combativity awards. Morkov added to his reputation.

SUNWEB: You would have predicted a D. But they came together like Fagin’s gang from Oliver Twist, with Roche as Fagin marshalling his young opportunists pickpocketing everything they could. Three stages with several near misses. Most people’s favourite team of the Tour.


B GRADE

JUMBO VISMA: The impregnable fortress with added sprints. But ultimately the team is only as good as the leader and it’s hard to give an A when the dominance of the team wasn’t converted to victory despite three stage wins

ASTANA: Two flashy stages from Lutsenko and Lopez and a 6th place. Probably couldn’t have hoped for much more given Lopez’s time trialling

MOVISTAR: It’s unusual for an entire team to ride A La Zubeldia. But here they are. Winners of the team competition they so love and fifth place Not the stuff of a Netflix doc though.

TREK: Getting Richie Porte to the end without a calamity deserves a C. Getting him on the podium deserves a B. Did little else though Pedersen showed the rainbow the best he could and Elissonde provided good support.

BAHRAIN: Two top tens and they conspicuously tried to improve themselves, which deserves credit, moving Landa from 7th to 4th and Caruso into the top ten. Bilbao also excellent.


C GRADE

LOTTO: All in for Ewan. He won twice. Job done, but not as good as last year.

INEOS: Three leaders went to one and then none. The Giro tested KOM escape plan almost worked again. A popular stage win for Kwiatkowski.

EF EDUCATION: Got a stage win and a top ten. Challenged for the team competition. Par for their course.

BORA: Got a stage via Kamna, which gets an automatic C. But Sagan was off key

MITCHELTON: Came for stage wins and failed. But Yates’s days in yellow and top ten compensate.

AG2R: Peters got a stage win and Cosnesfroy had two weeks in the Dots. Bardet looked decent until he didn’t.


D GRADE

CCC: Trentin gave the Green Jersey a try. Schar got a combativity award. A team waiting to die

DIRECT ENERGIE: Jeremy Cousin was fun

ISRAEL SUN: Just being involved was a victory. Got a combativity award. Eyes on next year.

B&B: Rolland was visible. Which is nice.


E GRADE

ARKEA: One of the strongest wildcard teams for a long time. Quintana is an enigma. He’s not reborn, but they rest couldn’t salvage anything.

GROUPAMA-FDJ: Leaving Démare at home seems a huge mistake in hindsight. Won some forgettable. Only 10 months until the next round of ‘Is this Pinot’s year’. Two combativity awards.

COFIDIS: Martin promised much but it faded. Maybe they should have brought Viviani for the sprints

F GRADE

NTT: It stands for Nothing To Tell. Maybe they should get back to being Africa’s team and go Pro Conti.


TEAM OF THE TOUR

Tadej Pogacar
Søren Kragh Andersen
Damiano Caruso
Marc Hirschi
Sepp Kuss
Michael Mørkøv
Wout Van Aert
Sam Bennett


Honourable mentions: Bilbao, De Clercq, Oss, M.Pedersen, Laengen, Carapaz, Ewan, Roche

Lanterne_Rogue

Would probably move Movistar down - only screen time was right at the end as they awkwardly shuffled onto the stage for the prize nobody apart from them cares about.

Would shuffle Lotto up a grade - two stage wins was possibly more than they could have hoped for given Ewan's struggles on the hills.

tailwindhome

Yup. 100%

Feels like Bennett stepped onto the top tier of sprinters, albeit the top tier isn't what it was in previous years.

andyp

Movistar were anonymous, bar a brief sight of Mas on the final mountain stage. A D at best as no-one, except them, give a tinker's cuss about the team classification.

bobmcstuff

Sunweb obviously had a good tour but I think their rubbish lead outs which Bol couldn't finish off deserves a mention.

Movistar do not deserve a B!! They did absolutely nothing, may has well have stayed at home... The team competition is stupid, and weren't EF leading it for a while? Movistar performance was about as forgettable as Arkea, surely.

bobmcstuff

Actually even more forgettable than Arkea because I remember seeing Quintana going out the back a few times.

bobmcstuff

If NTT deserve an F then Movistar at best an E. NTT were in the break a few times, I genuinely don't remember seeing Movistar do anything besides Mas name being mentioned a couple of times.

Lanterne_Rogue

Damn, I've been sitting on a joke about it needing an Einstein to tell Movistar how to turn Mas into energy all this time and now the Tour's over.

No_Ta_Doctor

Measured against expectations going into the tour, I'd suggest that's a touch harsh on Cofidis. I know they've improved from recent years, but Martin nearly cracked the top ten, which would have been pretty big for them.

RichN95.

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Measured against expectations going into the tour, I'd suggest that's a touch harsh on Cofidis. I know they've improved from recent years, but Martin nearly cracked the top ten, which would have been pretty big for them.

You're probably right. I was balancing that against the complete invisibility of Viviani, who was only in the top ten 3 times.

mididoctors

Bahrain were all about coming good in week 3 they just fell short with landa. They were really giving it a go . Made the Alps

Lanterne_Rogue

It was only when Viviani was jokingly mentioned as a potential winner today that I realised he was even at the Tour.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95. said:

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Measured against expectations going into the tour, I'd suggest that's a touch harsh on Cofidis. I know they've improved from recent years, but Martin nearly cracked the top ten, which would have been pretty big for them.

You're probably right. I was balancing that against the complete invisibility of Viviani, who was only in the top ten 3 times.

True. I'd have expected more of him if I'd remembered he was in the race.

RichN95.

It maybe it's because you didn't bother to read to the end, but I'm surprised no-one has asked who Laengen is and why he gets an honourable mention for team of the Tour - I almost put him in the team itself

Dorset_Boy

Viviani's move to Cofidis must rank as one of the worst ever career decisions.

We were trying to spot who were wearing the yellow lids today, and I half joked it was Movistar, the only team who think it is THE competition to win at a GT. The fact they target it (5 of the last 6 at the Tour?) should be a double downgrade.

tailwindhome

RichN95. said:

It maybe it's because you didn't bother to read to the end, but I'm surprised no-one has asked who Laengen is and why he gets an honourable mention for team of the Tour - I almost put him in the team itself

Skimmed over it without noticing...

Did he hand a bike to Pog.

RichN95.

tailwindhome said:

RichN95. said:

It maybe it's because you didn't bother to read to the end, but I'm surprised no-one has asked who Laengen is and why he gets an honourable mention for team of the Tour - I almost put him in the team itself

Skimmed over it without noticing...

Did he hand a bike to Pog.

He's a 6'5" Norwegian who did most of the work minimising Pogacar's loses in the crosswinds. Possibly the single most important contribution by a domestique. The counter argument of course is that better domestiques didn't let their man get caught out in the first place.

bobmcstuff

Dorset_Boy said:

Viviani's move to Cofidis must rank as one of the worst ever career decisions.

We were trying to spot who were wearing the yellow lids today, and I half joked it was Movistar, the only team who think it is THE competition to win at a GT. The fact they target it (5 of the last 6 at the Tour?) should be a double downgrade.

I'm genuinely angry that Rich has given them a B

They're rubbish! They've done nothing!

Most of the Cs did better than them.

RichN95.

bobmcstuff said:

I'm genuinely angry that Rich has given them a B

They're rubbish! They've done nothing!

Most of the Cs did better than them.

They came 5th on GC. And while we might not like the team competition it's a big goal for them and they succeeded.

bobmcstuff

If I set myself a shitty goal and achieve it, does that make me worthy of praise?

Didn't think so.

bobmcstuff

The team competition, like the green jersey competition, is only a competition if people are actually competing for it.

If the green had been another Sagan processional then it would have been rubbish as well. But at least it comes with a jersey and a few appearances on the podium. The team competition is worthless because Movistar are the only team who care about it and it is therefore never a competition. If a few teams were really going for it, and anyone else outside the tour cared, then maybe it would be interesting.

No_Ta_Doctor

Maybe, but they got 5th on gc and 2nd in white Jersey, which is better than many

Lanterne_Rogue

Lots of people criticise the team competition (though nowhere near as many as ignore it totally), but I've not seen any suggestions to improve it. Any thoughts?

No_Ta_Doctor

Lanterne_Rogue said:

Lots of people criticise the team competition (though nowhere near as many as ignore it totally), but I've not seen any suggestions to improve it. Any thoughts?

I was actually wondering if a team points competition would work.

RichN95.

Who had a Movistar rider in the top 5, pre-Tour? What about top 10?

takethehighroad

The team competition is big for Movistar as a company, as it means they can boast about it in corporate team building circles.

Sky did something similar when they won it a few years ago.

And also, 5th on GC ain't bad really, when you think about it

No_Ta_Doctor

Just for the record, that's a decent team of the Tour selection. Few that can be argued with, though possibly missing a pure workhorse on the flatter bits (yeah, I know WvA did a share). Tony Martin and Asgreen both did loads of work, especially in controlling who got in the break.

mididoctors

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Lanterne_Rogue said:

Lots of people criticise the team competition (though nowhere near as many as ignore it totally), but I've not seen any suggestions to improve it. Any thoughts?

I was actually wondering if a team points competition would work.

giro had a team point competition back in the day
no one noticed it was going on
I think there is some room for the team competition to be modified thou

No_Ta_Doctor

mididoctors said:

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Lanterne_Rogue said:

Lots of people criticise the team competition (though nowhere near as many as ignore it totally), but I've not seen any suggestions to improve it. Any thoughts?

I was actually wondering if a team points competition would work.

giro had a team point competition back in the day
no one noticed it was going on
I think there is some room for the team competition to be modified thou

The Giro used to have so many competitions it was difficult not to win at least one though. I'm sure there was one year they had at least 3 different versions of the points comp, with different sponsors. Not surprising a team points comp might get a bit lost

RichN95.

mididoctors said:

giro had a team point competition back in the day

So did the Tour de France from 1973-1988

coopster_the_1st

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Measured against expectations going into the tour, I'd suggest that's a touch harsh on Cofidis. I know they've improved from recent years, but Martin nearly cracked the top ten, which would have been pretty big for them.

I agree and I'm normally heavily critical of Cofidis with their automatic TdF entry.

Martin was 3rd on GC between stages 4 & 13 until his bike problem knocked him out of the GC group at the bottom of the last climb on stage 13.

They definitely did as much as other teams rated D

Apart from that, all other rankings are in agreement.