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Jens in his own words
Hey VeloNews,
I enjoy your cycling coverage year around. Do you have any updated information on Jens Voigt following that wicked crash?
Watching him pull Andy Schleck back into a charging pack with less than 4k to go was just one of the super domestiques highlights of this Tour. He’s one day older than Lance Armstrong and as aggressive as ever.
Cheers,
Mark A. O’Neill, Ph.D.
Tallahassee, Florida
Dear Mark,
We have to agree. Voigt’s work ethic, self-less attitude and sense of humor have made him one of our favorite riders. The crash was frightening but, despite the fact that he was traveling at 70kph at the time he lost control of his bike, he’s come through with no life- or career-threatening injuries. Voigt even sent out a video postcard to fans and teammates the other day. I guess the best way to assess his condition is to see for yourself.
The value of timing en masse
Dear Explainer,
I have two questions related to the finish of stages. First, how can 180 riders, who might take more than a minute to cross the finish line be all credited with the same time? Surely, it would make sense – and add to the strategy – if riders were assigned actual finishing times.
Second, I heard frequent references to the “safe zone” or the “3km rule” in following the Tour. I always thought that the rule was 1km.
Robert H. Johnsen
Paris, Ohio
Dear Robert,
I'm really surprised how many times I received variants of your first question while doing Live Updates during the Tour this year. The answer is addressed most easily by trying to imagine a narrow finishing area were your rule to apply. The reasoning behind assigning the same time to a big group of riders is simply to avoid the risks of a 180-rider field sprint, with riders jockeying for position to avoid losing precious seconds along the way. The reasoning is self-evident when you consider the ugly alternative.
The rule simply states that a rider finishing in a group with no discernible gap in excess of one second will be assigned the same time as the first rider in the group, no matter where in that group he finishes.
The question of how large a gap qualifies for a new round of timing came up in the 10th stage of this year’s Tour de France and it underscored just how subjective application of that rule can be at times.
Mark Cavendish won a field sprint into Issoudun, leading what appeared to be a 158-rider peloton to the line. However, officials ruled that there was enough of a gap – about one second – between the 52nd rider (Mickaël Delage of Silence-Lotto) and the 53rd (Simon Spilak of Lampre) to warrant assignment of a separate time.
The problem, however, is that the timing of each group is based on the time of the first rider in that group, so by the time Spilak hit the line, 15 seconds had already passed since Cavendish crossed. So, as a result, the following 105 riders were all assigned a finishing time 15 seconds greater than the guys in that first group, despite the fact that Spilak – and those behind him – were maybe just a few meters behind the others. That, of course, made a difference for several GC contenders – including Levi Leipheimer and Bradley Wiggins – who suddenly found themselves having slipped down in the overall standings.
Officials reviewed the decision, decided that the gap wasn’t a gap – or at least a significant gap – and assigned the same time to all 158. Who says you can’t fight city hall?
You are correct in remembering that the old “safe zone” rule was only 1km for many years. In 2005 the UCI changed the rule to 3km, largely because of fairness. Again, the original idea behind the rule was to allow GC contenders to stay out of the mix when the fast-twitchers fight it out for the stage win. There are frequent mishaps near the finish and the rules are designed not to penalize riders who might be delayed by such a crash. Riders who are delayed or suffer a crash are assigned the time of the group they were with when they entered the final 3km.
Levi Leipheimer, for example, suffered a crash on the stage into Vittel and it took him a while to get up and ride to the finish. He didn’t rush, because he knew that he was already within the final 3km, so he didn’t risk losing time. Of course, the next morning he also realized that his wrist was injured more seriously than he thought and he dropped out of the Tour, but the day before, he had been assigned the same time as the main field.
Roger Ebert I ain't
Dear Explainer,
I’m actually looking for a recommendation rather than an answer. I love the Tour de France, but I haven’t seen a lot of great movies about what I believe is the world’s greatest sporting event.
I want to introduce some non-cycling friends to the sport and thought movies might be a good way to do that. I’m not all that interested in documentaries and such, but feel free to suggest a couple. What I really wonder is if there are any really great fictional films that use the Tour as a backdrop for a story?
Film Buff
Chicago, Illinois
Dear Buff,
There have been some really great documentaries, including "La Course en Tête," which focuses on Eddy Merckx in the 1974 Tour. It’s a good film, but would it draw a newcomer into the sport? I doubt it. I think I first saw it when I had already achieved full bike-geek-dom and, at the time, thought it was the best thing since “Citizen Kane” (I’ve since calmed down a bit and revised that rating).
Scott Coady’s “The Tour Baby!” is a fun film and really focuses on the downright goofy aspects of watching a three-week bike race as a fan. I’ve shown it to several non-cycling friends and they’ve actually enjoyed it. I haven’t succeeded in luring them away from American football (go figure), but at least they no longer think the Tour is “just a bunch of skinny guys riding around France trying to win a yellow shirt.” (That’s an actual quote, by the way.)
I would strongly recommend the film, "Wired to Win," which many of you might remember was supposed to be the IMAX project at the Tour that focused on Tyler Hamilton. For obvious reasons, that angle ran into trouble in late 2004 and director Bayley Silleck refocused the story on Jimmy Casper and Bayden Cooke. The film uses the Tour as way of showing how the human brain adapts to complex situations, which a three-week bike race can often throw a guy’s way.
But it's not just a movie for those with an interest in the neurosciences. The film features some of the most stunning footage of the Tour ever produced. Silleck and crew had the luxury of being able to approach the Tour without daily deadlines and with equipment far superior to that used in television coverage. The result is an absolutely beautiful presentation of the Tour and of the county itself.
Even if you aren't a documentary fan, this one is worth seeing. While it has not been released on DVD, you can find snippets on the web (which admittedly do not do it justice). Indeed, some of the pre-release "rushes" have found their way on to YouTube and are - quite accurately - labled as some of the Best Tour de France footage ever filmed.
There are other terrific documentaries - the German film "Hell on Wheels" tops my list - but, again, your interest tends toward the fictional and, sadly, on that front there isn't much out there. It really is odd that the Tour hasn’t served as a vehicle for more fictional films. There have been a few, but it’s a pretty small selection. (Given some of the post-Tour sniping in recent days, you’d think the 2009 Tour would be a good setting for a terrific murder mystery.)
Indeed, the Tour did serve as a backdrop of a murder mystery 60 years ago. "Cinq Tulipes Rouges," directed by Jean Stelli, was released in 1949 and tells the story of the mysterious deaths of five riders during the 1948 Tour. It’s not a bad film and I happen to like it – largely because the hero is a cycling journalist (hey, you take your props when you can get ‘em). I think you’ll have a tough time finding a copy. I tried a couple of years ago and found one on eBay that was even subtitled.
In my house, though, the one movie that has captured the imaginations of everyone in the family is Sylvain Chomet’s 2003 animated film, "Les Triplettes de Belleville." I won’t go off on a synopsis of the movie, but the story is something else. (I doubt you’ll ever see a stretch limo version of a Citroen 2CV anywhere else.) I’m not sure how it would entice your friends to become cycling fans, but if you love the jazz of the 1920s and ‘30s, and appreciate animation styles from that era as well, I would think you’d like this one ... although it is a little on the strange side.
The soundtrack is amazing – so good that I had to buy that as well. The cycling scenes are terrific, although I have to admit the Tour doesn't constitute a major part of the film, but for anyone who has been to – or even watched – the Tour, there are some things that just make you laugh at unexpected moments. Picky old SOB that I am, I would rarely give a film five stars. This is one of the few.
Vino', Vino' everywhere
Finally, with the return of Alexander Vinokourov to the professional cycling scene, many have written in to ask how a rider coming off a suspension can even presume to be able to ride for a time with a ProTour license.
Most of those letters are along the same lines as this one:
Dear Explainer,
Much has been told about Vino’s return focusing the worlds and the Vuelta, but he was caught on blood doping as much as Tyler or others and then I wonder what happened with that double suspension to be in a ProTour squad? He is coming back to Astana, which is a ProTour squad, he is coming to race the Vuelta, that is also one of the three major tours for which that restriction on dopers is also valid.
What has changed?
Paulo M. S. Pereira
Sao Paulo, Brasil
The Vino’ question is actually quite similar to one raised late last year when Ivan Basso inked a deal with Liquigas and one that I addressed in a column back in January. The short answer is that rules are, indeed, rules but agreements are apparently made to be broken.
