TdF Stage 20 Recap – Lance Armstrong, Final Tour Podium

This 102.5-kilometer (64-mile) last stage of the Tour de France was the final in many respects.  Starting in Longjumeau and heading north to the heart of Paris, it was the final stage of the decade, the final of the year, and the last time we shall see the only 7-time champion of this race, Lance Armstrong contesting it on a bicycle.  He may contest it as a team owner or in some other capacity in the future, but today, Sunday 25 July 2010, he cranked through his last competitive pedal rotation on the Champs Élysées, in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe at about 5:20 pm Western European Time.

As is tradition, and perhaps equally important, because of the format of this last course, the rider in the maillot jaune after the previous stage is usually uncontested for the overall victory on the final day.  With a flat course, and a 9-lap circuit at the end in Paris, it is nearly impossible for a general classification contender to gain time on his rivals so for all but the sprinter’s teams it turns into a ceremonial jaunt through the suburbs of Pairs until about the last 60 kilometers when the race starts.  This year was no exception.  It would be straightforward and predictable, except for a slight altercation before the race even started.  International Cycling Union officials determined that Team RadioShack was not in proper uniform!

The Black Jersey
Thinking it okay to ride in a different jersey design on the day, paying tribute to the 28 million people worldwide who are living with cancer, Shack riders showed up wearing all black uniforms with a bold number 28 inscribed on the back.  After they had commenced pedaling in the neutralized zone up to the official start line, word came to them that UCI officials would not let them take the start and they would be disqualified if they didn’t wear their approved cycling jerseys.  At that point, either the oddest wardrobe incident since Janet Jackson’s, er… unveiling, or one of the best advertising ploys in the history of cause-related marketing occurred.  Maybe both. Team RadioShack riders stopped pedaling, took off their tops, and pulled on their regular jerseys with hundreds of fans and cameras crowding around to witness the entire wardrobe change.  One of the stranger images of this Tour has to be that of Yaroslav Popovych and several team mates, sitting on a curb, grinning, while they put their bib numbers on with safety pins, all the while with Tour organizers biting their fingernails and holding things up for about 15-minutes.  It probably gave more attention to Lance’s passionate work on behalf of cancer survivors, than wearing the jerseys throughout the entire race, let alone the day.

When the stage finally got started, there were the usual pats on the back, smiles, toasts with champagne, handshakes and rolling photo ops for approximately 40 laid back  kilometers.  The riders deserved this slight respite after pedaling more than 3500 kilometers (2174 miles) in the last 20 days over this year’s grueling route.  As soon as they got into Paris, after allowing Astana to lead the peloton as is custom, up out of the tunnel into the Place de la Concorde, escapes started, sprinter’s teams started cranking, and the pace jumped from about 20 kilometers an hour to 55 in a heartbeat.

The Stage Win
A break almost succeeded, but they were caught at about 2 kilometers to go and then it was all the big sprinter’s teams pushing the pace over 60 kilometers an hour positioning their men for a possible stage victory in the bunch sprint to come.  Sky, Lampre, Cervélo, and others keep doing everything right, executing their strategies perfectly, but no team or individual has yet found the formula to get to the line quicker than HTC-Columbia’s Mark Cavendish.  He doesn’t seem to need much strategy, or help – just a bike and a small opening to pedal through. In this type of finish, in the Tour’s last two years, he has become an inevitable force.  If Tour organizers used a better stage-win time bonus allocation towards the point’s jersey (which many argue for), there would have been no contest for the green jersey this year with Mark’s 5 stage wins.  Mark won the stage handily with Lampre’s Alessandro Petacchi coming in second and Garmin-Transition’s Julian Dean third.

The Yellow Jersey
Astana’s Alberto Contador today won his 3rd Tour de France, winning a hard fought battle with his main, and at the end, only rival, Saxo Bank’s young Andy Schleck.  Had Astana not been excluded from the 2008 running, this could well have been his 4th win, truly placing him in some rarified air of former multiple Tour winners.  At just 27-years old, he’s likely to have many more opportunities.  He was really put to the test in this year’s race, particularly in the mountains leading many to surmise that his earlier training routine may need some tweaking.  He beat Schleck by 39 seconds, and after yesterday’s 11th place finish in the time trial, Rabobank’s Denis Menchov found his way to 3rd place overall, 2 minutes and 1 second back.

The Green Jersey
Alessandro Petacchi had an excellent Tour this year, winning 2 stages and amassing 243 points enough to win green in the overall standings this year.  It was a seesaw battle between him and Hushovd throughout July, but in the end, Mark Cavendish came in second (232 points) having never donned the green jersey throughout the entire Tour. Thor, who had traded the jersey several times with Alessandro, ended up in 3rd place for with 222 points.

The Polka Dot Jersey
With the many talented climbers in this year’s event, likely very few would have picked Bbox’s Anthony Charteau to win the mountain jersey, but that’s what he did getting 143 points in a tenacious display of uphill perseverance against some heavy hitters.  He ended up besting Caisse d’Epargne’s Christophe Moreau who finished with 128 points.  It was understandable, with so many mountains tossed in the rider’s path that the GC contenders would likely place high in this competition as well and sure enough, Andy Schleck was 3rd with 116 points and Alberto Contador came in 4th with 112 points.

The White Jersey
Many teams recruiting for the future watch the young rider’s competitions pretty closely all year long.  The young rider’s competition in the Tour has been won by some of the most promising names in the sport and it was no different this year with Andy Schleck taking the award for the 3rd consecutive year, tying the record held by the former cyclist Jan Ullrich.  If math serves, Andy still has one more year of eligibility and could conceivably take yellow and a record breaking 4th white in 2011, however it won’t be for his current team Saxo Bank.  The Schleck brothers reportedly will be going to a new Luxembourg based team for their 2011 campaign.  Andy beat out Rabobank’s Robert Gesink for white by approximately 9-minutes and Liquigas’ Roman Kreuziger by more than 11-minutes.

The Overall Team Standings
Always a goal for Team RadioShack this year, but becoming a more focused objective after Lance dropped back in the GC placement, was the competition for the strongest team.  This prize is calculated by adding the combined times of each team’s best 3 riders on every stage.  With many strong teams assembled for this event the field was very competitive.  Caisse d’Epargne was the main challenger for most of the final stages, but Team RadioShack pulled out the victory over them by 9 minutes and 15 seconds.  Third place went to Rabobank 27 minutes and 49 seconds back.

The Final Podium
They say that there are close to 120 television channels devoted to covering the Tour de France.  In addition, there are nearly 80 radio stations, 400 newspapers, hundreds of websites, and approximately 2480 journalists dedicated to covering the goings on at this event.  For many years, every one of them have been handed mountains of entertaining copy through the exploits and achievements of Lance Armstrong.  He’s made a lot of good headlines and helped sell a lot of media.

In his 13 appearances at the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong has stepped up on the podium in Paris 8 times, tying the record for individual performance at this event.  Having won more than 2 dozen stages and been in the yellow jersey a total of 83 days, second only to the great Eddy Merckx, you’d think we’d have all become accustomed to seeing him up on a stage, in the middle of the Champs Élysées, waving to the crowd of cheering onlookers, with the big grin of a pleased champion.  Maybe we have.  Maybe that’s why when he stood up there today with all of his RadioShack mates, accepting the best team award, it all seemed so normal, almost a time-honored Tour-de-Lance tradition that would go on forever.  You had to mentally slap yourself to realize, it’s over.  We’ll not see this again.  Oh, Team RadioShack will continue to be in the news and it will be fun to witness their ongoing successes, but they’ll be doing it without Lance Armstrong on a bike.

Each year when the Tour is over, many cycling fanatics go through slight withdrawals, feeling sad that the great competition has to come to a close.  This year, for Armstrong fans, it’s doubly saddening to now that in addition, this great competitor’s Tour de France appearances have come to a close.  It’s been one long, thrilling ride that we knew had to come to an end.  Just didn’t want it to end today.

By George Hurst, staff writer