TDF: Landis wins? But...what about tomorrow?!
Category: Sports (Pro/College/HS)...
Posted Saturday, July 22, 2006 at 11:23 AM [GMT-6]

If you're relatively new to the Tour de France, you may be wondering how I can be awarding Floyd Landis the yellow jersey when there's still one more stage to be contested tomorrow. It's a good question and one that it took me a while to understand when I started following the race.

The final stage -- which always ends in Paris -- is essentially a victory lap, a ceremonial ride for the overall leader following the traditional individual time trial the day before. It's considered poor etiquette to attack the general classification leader (the official title of the overall race leader) in the final stage. It's one of those European things that adds a certain amount of dignity and charm to the event.

That's not to say that there won't be some serious racing going on tomorrow, because even if the yellow jersey is decided, there's yet another major award to be won: the green jersey for the overall points leader.

Points are awarded throughout the race for finishing place in each stage. Points are also earned by being the first, second or third rider across intermediate timing zones placed along each stage's route. Prize money is awarded for those intermediate sprints, as well as for placement in the overall points totals. That's one reason why you'll see relatively unknown riders racing ahead of the peloton throughout each stage; they're going for their own bit of glory, even if it doesn't figure into the overall race lead.

In most years, the green jersey -- which is worth 25,000 Euros -- is still up for grabs going into the final stage into Paris. This year, as near as I can compute, the points race has already been decided, with Australian Robbie McEwen having built an insurmountable lead. So that's not likely to be a factor.

There is one final and not insignificant motivator for racing for the finish in the final stage and that's the chance of getting into the record books as a TDF stage winner. Again, this honor is likely to be contested by the lower-tier riders, but no one begrudges them their moment in the sun. In addition, the 8,000 Euros for winning the stage isn't chickenfeed for those riders.

Trivia note: If it seemed like Floyd Landis won in spite of his team, rather than because of it, the numbers seem to support that conclusion. In the overall team standings, Landis's Team Phonak is in 10th place (out of 20 teams), almost 3 hours behind the leading team. That, ironically, is Team T-Mobile, which would have been riding in support of Jan Ullrich, who didn't make it to the starting line due to his inclusion in the highly publicized drug investigation. Incidentally, I read this morning that Ullrich has been fired by T-Mobile, bringing about a sad end to a sad situation.