In Your Travels

Landis Aside, Did Americans Fail at the Tour de France?

With the Tour win of Landis in doubt due to a positive drug test, some have said this tour was then a failure for American Cycling. Is that true?

Chris Horner did well supporting Robbie McEwen, as did Fred Rodriguez until his crash. Neither one of them was expected to do more than be a domestique. You saw Horner covering breaks for McEwen on the final stage. Expectations were very high for Levi Leipheimer, and in that context he disappointed, but he was runner up on a high mountain stage and was the most aggressive rider who featured in a break near the end of Le Tour. Obviously his GC (Yellow Jersery Classification) was a disaster compared to previous years. It was a mistake to expect George Hincapie to turn French Cols into Belgian Bergs. Some years, we would have been happy just to have him in Yellow for a stage. He has been chasing that for a long time and in the context of his career that was good. If he had bothered to shift down in the last 300 meters of the prolouge he would have had a stage win. Instead he lugged his gear and lost by under a second to an energized Thor Hushvod. Christian Vandevelde rode his best tour ever, looking like a totally different rider, back out from under some nagging injuries. Third on a stage and a provider of great support to Carlos Sastre, and 24th on GC, he helped Team CSC to a high team GC placing, and they nearly won that competition, falling out in Stage 17. He was the third best placed American in 24th. On first look Dave Z's tour was a failure. He performed below expectations in both long time trials (he didn't win - but I think he was top ten in both) and failed to win the prologue. However, he did finish third place there. However, he rode a great Giro and Dauphine (with stage wins there) and it isn't a surprise he seemed tired. But he also made two breaks. One that he made along with Jens Voight provided us with arguably the most tactically dominating performce of the Tour, where CSC had two riders hammering in the break on the road to L'Alpe D'Huez to give it a sustainable lead, while their intended stage winner sat in the break and didn't pull. Frank Schlenk didn't disappoint his mates and broght it home over Cunego. With just a 1:10 second advantge over the chasers, Zabriske made a critical differnce in helping his teammate win the most prestigious stage of the Tour. Zabriske worked hard on his climbing and it showed as he did well there when it counted.

At the moment I set aside any commentary about Landis. I will say that dope or no dope, his ride on stage 17 was inspiring and unforgettable.

So, while it wasn't as rousing a sucess as many expected, that says much more about people's expectations than it does about the quality of the riding done by the Americans at this year's Le Tour.

posted by Mark @ 11:24 AM