Andre Greipel makes a 3D box for his claim to be top sprinter at the 2015 Tour de France

Photo by: Glory Cycles
Photo by: Glory Cycles

Greipel wins! Take that, pedals!

Back when I worked in an office alongside other humans, I’d often note down something I needed to do using pen and paper – like cro magnon man used to do. A day later, when I hadn’t done it and the job was now quite urgent, I’d underline the words to make that task stand out from all the others I’d scribbled down since.

Over a few days, I would tend to accumulate quite a few underlined tasks, so to highlight the most pressing, I’d extend the underlining up the sides and over the top to form a box. Then, once I had multiple boxes and again needed to identify my top priority, I would draw lines out from three corners of the box and join them to make it look kind of 3D. The stage after that was to add shading, kind of like this.

At no point would I complete the task. That would be ridiculous.

I rather feel that Andre Greipel reached the shaded 3D box stage in his campaign to be regarded as the best sprinter at this year’s Tour de France. Not in a prioritisation sense – just in a making-something-appear-more-obvious kind of way.

There were only a handful of sprint stages and Greipel had already won three of them as the peloton was buzzing up and down the Champs Elysées on Sunday night. Whatever the result of the final stage, no-one could have claimed more than the wide-mouthed German. But he won that one as well. Four wins out of five proper bunch sprints is pretty comprehensive.

The race as a whole

Feel free to pop any thoughts or questions in the now-fixed comments section of the site (excellent timing to have it break during the Tour de France). I’ll have a few reflections and highlights up here in coming days, but give me a bit. The Tour can be draining for a writer in a rather different way to how it’s draining for a rider.

My initial feelings are that this year’s edition was a particularly interesting race. Maybe the yellow jersey battle could have given us a bit more to-ing and fro-ing, but this writer at least felt it was ‘live’ right up to the final climb and unlike some, I have no problems with the winner either.

The route was perhaps the greatest success story – specifically the many different styles of stage in the first week, from hilltop finishes to cobbles to tough days in the crosswinds. I wouldn’t have said no to another sprint stage later on in the race, just to keep that story alive, but for a race with so much climbing to not seem like it was wholly decided in the mountains surely speaks of success.

Like I say, there’ll be stuff appearing on here in the next few days, but the Vuelta a Espana is our next major rendez-vous. I hope new readers stick around for what is, in all honesty, perhaps my favourite race of the year. A three-week race which always seems so much simpler to follow, it’s worth the time and there should also be TV highlights for those in the UK, which always helps.

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Comments

9 responses to “Andre Greipel makes a 3D box for his claim to be top sprinter at the 2015 Tour de France”

  1. A decent tour if you can ignore the pish (literally). The route seemed to reward stage hunting, which always makes better entertainment than GC.

    As good as Froome, figuratively, looked I’m not sure that he was as dominant as everybody is saying. It was definitely a team victory: had Movistar been a bit more organised from day-one I think the outcome wouldn’t have been so clear.

    Valverde and Quintana are both under contract until 2017 it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out for future Tours especially if Dayer Quintana graduates to the Tour team.

    1. Think Movistar are pretty much settled that Quintana’s graduated from his apprenticeship and that Valverde is now a very handy rider who rides, not exactly in support, but alongside him.

      It wasn’t a dominant victory. A lot of people extrapolated after the first mountain stage and imagined that it would be a cakewalk with an ever-expanding margin of victory, but actually it was narrowing as the race went on. The disappointing part was that Contador was blunted and Nibali took too long to get going.

  2. Pseudonym avatar
    Pseudonym

    A really enjoyable tour to follow and I agree that the team aspect seems to be much more important now. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the teams that sometimes went for stage wins (Fulgsang and Astana, Majka and Saxo) struggled with their leaders in GC. It wouldn’t be surprising if teams from now on decide to focus on one or the other.

    1. No, there isn’t much room for manoeuvre for the support riders in the big teams these days. I wouldn’t say that greater freedom was costly for Nibali and Contador though. I’d say those teams allowed strong support riders to go for wins at least partly because the leaders were already looking a bit off the pace.

  3. Loved the whole Tour this year – in previous years there’s always been a couple of ‘meh’ stages, but I can’t remember being bored at all this time round. Having all of the world’s best stage riders competing – and finishing – kept the interest going until the last few stages. As Sky tired Movistar got stronger and even though it was always a big ask to make up the deficit on the Alpe d’Huez stage there was enough of a doubt to make it a buttock-clenching climax.

    There were so many more stories under the headlines this year too – the constant aspersions cast upon the legitimacy of Froome and Sky; wondering if Sagan would ever win a stage; the rise of MTM-Qhubeka; Geraint Thomas emerging as a possible future GC contender; wondering if Cav’s daughter will ever get another stage winner bouquet; and our constant bewilderment that Froome’s legs could possibly support his own body weight.

    Thank you so much for your daily updates – my family got heartily bored of me quoting you as we watched each evening. I love reading your posts almost as much as I love Gary Imlach’s quips and the person who chooses the fade out music from itv4’s highlights show (the choice of ABC’s ‘Tears Are Not Enough’ after Kwiatkowski and Van Garderen retired was inspired).

    1. Honoured to be a couple of rungs down from Imlach and the fade-out music person (who I like to think is also Imlach). I hold them both in the highest regard.

      My personal favourite outro was the frankly genius use of On A Ragga Tip on the day Romain Bardet won.

      “Ay, Bardet, uh. Bar waddle-a-die day, uh.”

  4. That was indeed another inspired choice. I’m beginning to think that would be my dream job……

  5. Jefers avatar

    Re the GC battle, I actually think that Movistar were lucky to get away with such a small time gap before the start of the Pyrenees. Valverde has lost time in the 2012 Vuelta and seen his 2013 Tour wrecked because of the effects of crosswinds, so Movistar’s hanging about in the middle of the bunch rather than fighting to be at the front was inexcusable. They also seemed to be giving Quintana zero support on stage 4. If he’d lost contact with the Yellow Jersey group (and it was touch and go a couple of times) then Froome might have been looking at Valverde as his nearest rival. They need to protect their man better and not assume he can just dance his way to victory on the toughest climbs.

    Valverde is as close as we’ve got to a Hinault style ‘magnificent bastard’ these days, so I love him almost as much as I hate him. He’s pretty unlikely to add to his single GT but he’ll probably hoover up a bunch one day race podiums (I’d guess San Sebastian is next in his sights).

    And as much as I love/hate Valverde, his results worry me a bit. I don’t mean to sound like a tesco-value Vayer but he’s been in the form of his life this last year (even better than his doping days) despite turning 35. I’m hoping he’s just reaping the benefits of sports science that armchair critics like me wouldn’t understand but it’s a bit of a worry.

    1. Less than 10 mins lost on any stage with crosswinds is a proper result for Valverde, but doubt he and Quintana are deliberately hanging about mid-bunch. It’s tough to be at the front.

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