Monday, October 6, 2014

Cycling Update: 2014 In Review Part 2

It is the grand tours where the United States has made their name. Going into the grand tour season the hope was that Phinney would win stages, and that Tejay van Garderen would be able to get onto the podium of one of the tours. It was decided early on that van Garderen would be the lead for BMC in the Tour de France. Let's see how the first two grand tours played out.

Giro d'Italia
It was an odd Giro in 2014 with no real big named riders coming in as the favorites. In the cyclingnews.com preview they named Nairo Qintana as the overall favorite and he lived up to the expectation. In fact two Columbians were on the podium.

Overall
1Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team88:14:32 
2Rigoberto Uran Uran (Col) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team0:02:58 
3Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team0:04:04 
4Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar0:05:46 
5Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale0:06:32 
6Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo0:07:04 
7Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team0:11:00 
8Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team0:11:51 
9Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin Sharp0:13:35 
10Robert Kiserlovski (Cro) Trek Factory Racing0:15:49 
68Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing Team2:32:42 

But of course the grand tours are about more than just the overall win. There are other jerseys to win and in the Giro 21 stages. A stage win in any of the grand tours is a big item to put on your resume. So how did the US do. Let's take a look.

Points
1Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr291 pts
2Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek Factory Racing265 
3Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Lampre-Merida186 
4Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale174 
5Ben Swift (GBr) Team Sky135 

Mountains
1Julian David Arredondo Moreno (Col) Trek Factory Racing173 pts
2Dario Cataldo (Ita) Team Sky132 
3Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team88 
4Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Belisol79 
5Robinson Eduardo Chalapud Gomez (Col) Colombia73 

So no US rider cracked the top five in the points competitions, but they never really do unless they are winning the overall. But what about stages? Well Tyler Farrar was consistently in the top 10 on sprint stages and even made 3rd on the 21st stage, and Brent Bookwalter finished top 10 on the 20th stage, but no Americans could pull off a stage win. All in all the Giro d'Italia was a non tour for the US riders.



Tour de France
As always the Tour is the big race and this year was expected to be the big battle between Chris Froome and Alberto Contador. Sad to say it was not to be as the Tour was littered with crashes and hard luck. The US were looking to Tejay van Garderen to shine and he did very well.  Sad to say Taylor Phinney got injured in a build up race to the Tour so we didn't get to see him go after stages.  Hopefully he'll be there next year.

Overall
1Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team89:59:06 
2Jean-Christophe Péraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale0:07:37 
3Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr0:08:15 
4Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team0:09:40 
5Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team0:11:24 
6Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale0:11:26 
7Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Netapp-Endura0:14:32 
8Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) Trek Factory Racing0:17:57 
9Laurens Ten Dam (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling0:18:11 
10Bauke Mollema (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling0:21:15 

The big question now for van Garderen is whether he can move onto the podium in a grand tour. It would be nice to see him take a shot at the Giro, but BMC wants their best rider competing at the Tour.

Points
1Peter Sagan (Svk) Cannondale431 pts
2Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha282 
3Bryan Coquard (Fra) Team Europcar271 
4Marcel Kittel (Ger) Team Giant-Shimano222 
5Mark Renshaw (Aus) Omega Pharma-Quick Step211 

Mountains
1Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo181 pts
2Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team168 
3Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha112 
4Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr89 
5Jean-Christophe Péraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale85 

Sad to say no Americans were able to win any stages at the Tour, and so we look to next year and hope.

In part three we will look at the Vuelta a Espana and the World Championships.

1 comment:

  1. I read both parts, and I'll have to say these weren't the most promising reports for us Americans.

    ReplyDelete