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The Explainer - Time waits for no one; Money for somethin'
Time is still marching on
Dear Explainer,
I was happy to see that the Tour de France reintroduced the team time trial to this year’s race. It raised a question that has bothered me for a long time, though.
While I understand that teams are assigned the finishing times of the fifth rider to cross the line, what happens to those riders who finish behind the fifth rider? More importantly, what happens to teams that, for whatever reason, have to start the TTT with fewer than five riders?
Jonathan Bergner
Washington, D.C.
Dear Jonathan,
I have to agree. The team time trial has to be one of my favorite events in cycling. I still can’t forgive the UCI for removing it from the list of world championship events after the 1994 worlds. In the old 100-kilometer four-man team time trial, the timing was based on the performance of the third rider across the line. Teams not finishing with three riders were eliminated.
In a grand tour, however, the rules are a little different. For one, riders who finish behind the times of their fifth teammate across the line are awarded their actual finishing times. So, if a team starts a TTT with nine riders, it can afford to lose up to four of them. Of course, it may not be in the team’s interest to lose certain GC riders along the way, which is why, for example, the entire Rabobank team slowed to wait for Denis Menchov when he hit the deck on a wet turn in Montpellier in the fourth stage of this year’s Tour. It may be less costly, however, for a team to lose a domestique or a sprint specialist whose position in the overall classification is less critical.
Once dropped by the team, a rider still has to worry about the time cut. According to the Tour’s own rules, the applicable time cut is the day’s winning time plus 25 percent. At Montpellier, the winning time was turned in by Astana, which covered the 39km course in 46:29, meaning the last of the stragglers had to finish at around 58:07.
The more interesting issue is what happens to a team that can only finish with four or fewer riders. As you might recall, Tour rules require any team to have a minimum of five riders in order to start the Tour de France itself. (In 2006, for example, the Astana-Würth team was unable to begin the Tour because five of its nine riders were ejected from the Tour based on Operación Puerto allegations that surfaced before the race started, but after team rosters had already been finalized.)
But if a team loses five or more riders after the Tour starts, the remaining competitors are allowed to continue. So that raises the possibility that a team could conceivably start a team time trial with four or fewer riders. You might notice that team time trial stages are generally scheduled early in the Tour so as to minimize that risk, but Article 24 of the Tour rule book does, nonetheless, make a provision for that possibility:
In the case where a team no longer has at least five competitors, those remaining in the race are obliged to finish the course within the cut-off time ... The time taken into account for the overall team standings is therefore the time of the last competitor to finish from this team.
And, yes, that means if your last guy somehow finishes outside of the time cut, the rest of the crew gets the ol’ heave-ho, too. Heartless as that sounds, there is an out, of sorts. The Tour’s rules do allow for a time-cut decision to be appealed and “the stewards’ committee may exceptionally allow one or several particularly unlucky riders to qualify, after informing the race management.”
That latter rule was applied this year, not in the TTT, but on stage 13, when Simon Spilak (Lampre) finished 45:45 down on stage winner Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo). Officials ruled that homeward-bound crowds on the route interfered with his forward progress making it difficult to finish within the allotted time period.
Not just in it for the money
Dear Explainer,
We all hear about the earning potential a rider has when he wins a Tour, but just how much does he actually earn by winning the Tour? What’s the prize list?
David Glasser
Ithica, New York
Dear Tim,
Well, riding the Tour ain’t exactly like playing “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” This year’s top individual prize for standing atop the podium in Paris was 450,000 Euros (or $647,842 in American greenbacks). Of course, tradition dictates that figure is divided among the among the team, with the most gracious Tour winners foregoing even their share and adding it to the pool for the rest of the crew. We’ve not heard (or read angry Tweets) about any controversy regarding prize distribution in that big happy family, otherwise known as Astana, so we have to assume that things went relatively smoothly on that front this year.
Andy Schleck, meanwhile, earned 200,000 Euros for finishing second. Lance Armstrong got a check for 100,000 Euros. The pay-out drops all the way down the final GC, with riders finishing 85th and below getting the guaranteed minimum of 400 Euros (less than what most of the guys in the press room spend on wine over those three weeks).
Astana also earned 50,000 Euros for taking the top team competition. Franco Pellizotti earned 25,000 for winning the polka-dot jersey and Thor Hushovd won the same amount for the green jersey. Andy Schleck also earned 20,000 Euros for the white jersey.
Riders can also score prize money on individual stages (8,000 Euros for first), which pay down to 20th place. A rider can also earn 800 Euros for taking an intermediate sprint, which weirdly enough is what a guy can earn for being the first over an hors catégorie climb. A rider can also score 2,000 Euros for being the day’s most aggressive rider – a largely subjective designation determined by a “jury” of race officials and journalists – and 20,000 for being the Tour’s most aggressive throughout (that went to Pellizotti as well).
As much as it seems, when you compare all of the Tour’s prize money – more than 2 million Euros in total – the payout is pretty small when you compare it to other sports. I mean, seriously, 450,000 Euros for a three-week grand tour? That’s about how much a top American baseball player earns over the course of a season just for the time he spends scratching his private parts while standing around in the outfield. Despite the relatively low prize list, we’ll opt for cycling every time, though.
