Today the good guys won.
Garmin-Cervelo was victorious today in the Team Time-Trial.
Their first Tour victory ever and their first yellow jersey.
I hoped they would win, but worried about HTC-Highroad and the Sky teams. Both of them were close (finishing 3rd and 4th respectively), but it was Cadel Evans’ BMC team that took second place, finishing just 4 seconds back from Garmin-Cervelo.
I was surprised that Evans apparently wanted the yellow jersey this early. Last time he took it early he lost it the next day. When you have the yellow jersey you have to defend it – that means racing in the front and burning a few of your limited matches.
Garmin-Cervelo isn’t competing to win the overall Tour, they are after stage wins and have two of the top sprinters. They can defend and most likely keep the yellow jersey for the next several stages since they are sprint stages. It didn’t make sense for Evans to take it so early and fortunately for him (in my humble opinion) he didn’t get it.
Garmin-Cervelo is known for being the “clean teamâ€. Although many teams profess to be clean, it is widely believed that Garmin-Cervelo actually is.
Jonathon Vaughters, Team Director, told Andrew Hood of VeloNews that he believes more teams are riding clean:
“I am confident that clean riders can win big races,†Vaughters said. “The proof is in the pudding. I believe a broad majority of the peloton is riding clean. There’s no way we could achieve what we’ve done if that were not the case.â€
I hope he’s right. I’m not naïve enough to think all riders are racing clean but if the majority is that would mean that professional cycling has turned a corner. That would be a great victory for the sport and fans.
*pictures are from Sky Sports
For the Love of Bikes Tour de France Fantasy Challenge team, “4loveofbikes†scored 100 points for stage 2. The points came from Garmin-Cervelo’s Ryder Hesjedal.
Although we are still in the “practice round†meaning team rosters are not locked and you can change at will, however I stayed with my original guys.
Stage 3 is a pure sprint stage so all my sprinters are moved up to the starting roster. Had to bench the climbers, have 15 riders but just like a real team we can only have 9 guys race.
Kind of liking this team director stuff…
