BEST and WORST team performance in 2011 tour

[Moondance]

Best: Garmin; hon. mentions for Europcar and HTC

Worst: Katusha; hon. mentions for Rabobank and Quick-Step

 

[luckyboy]

Best is pretty obvious - Europcar
Voeckler in yellow, Rolland's stage and possible white jersey.
Garmin probably second.

Worst is equally, if not more, obvious - Katusha
Galimzyanov's 4th place on stage 11 their highlight along with Silin in that break. Good thing Kolobnev tested positive or nobody would've noticed they were there.
At least we've seen Saur in breaks a lot, and QuickStep with Devenyns, Chavanel etc in breaks.

 

[The Sheep]

At least we've seen Saur in breaks a lot

we have? ...........

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Katusha have been horrible despite a big budget. One gets the feeling it's not a happy place to be. Radioshack have also had a nightmare of epic proportions given their expectations.

The hope is that Katyusha's all-Russian approach for the Tour is more about being all out for Rodríguez at the Vuelta, since anybody with a reasonable level of sense would have seen that Vladimir Karpets is not a GT leader years ago, and they should go back to targeting him for some one-week races like when he was with Abarcá. Their big problem is that the one Russian rider who could do something at the Tour doesn't ride for them.

 

[ManInFull]

Best Team: Eurocar by a mile. White Jersey. Stage Win. 10 days in yellow. Turned themselves inside out.

Worst Team: Saxobank. Other then CAS and a few seconds of Hernandez where was this team? Bla bla bla, Ritchie Porte, major lieutenant for Contador. Don't think I saw him the whole tour. Team was weak in TTT and let down Bertie completely over the 3 weeks. Truly think that AC would have been better off with Astana this race.
1 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa)
2 Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa)
3 Daniel Navarro Garcia (Spa)
4 Benjamin Noval Gonzalez (Spa)
5 Richie Porte (Aus)
6 Chris Anker Sørensen (Den)
7 Nicki Sörensen (Den)
8 Matteo Tosatto (Ita)
9 Brian Vandborg (Den)

Wow, how many of those names do you remember hearing this last month? Tosatto and Vandborg. LOL.

I would have to agree. This team certainly needs an upgrade.

 

[ingsve]

I think three teams have been above the rest.

1 Garmin
2 Europcar
3 Omega-Pharma

HTC has delivered what is expected of them with Cavs wins but disappoints in GC. Sky has had a good Tour as well despite losing Wiggins but they still had two wins and several days in the white jersey which is better than most teams have done.

Worst have been Katusha for obvious reasons. Astana has also not done anything but that is also due to losing Vino. Vacansoleil has also been disappointing. Radioshack too for obvious reasons.

 

[El Pistolero]

How does the Saur jersey look like?

 

[Damiano Machiavelli]

If Cadel wins then BMC are contenders as well.

Only if BMC is considered as a one man team.

If Evans loses then we can blame BMC for not having a man or two to help Evans chase Schleck during stage 18.

 

[gerrans for the win]

the 9 men on the norway team


Saur Sojasun wrost by a mile,thought the tour bus got lost didn't see them at all untill the 2nd week...

garmin for me was the best,winning team GC,stages, in the breaks.. pretty much what every teams aims for at the start of the tour

 

[mr. tibbs]

How does the Saur jersey look like?

Haha. It is actually pretty nondescript, though. Very 2005-2008. Reminds me of the oldAG2R kits. It's that boring.

BEST!
Europcar is the best team.
Garmin ran well.
Leopard-Trek looking at two podiums. You can't fault them that.

WORST!
BMC might be the worst, despite their captain's amazing ride. Forget Teams Thor and Gadret, Team Cuddles may just win this race single-handedly. On a side note, I had a co-worker tell me that he thought Hincapie would be a huge asset in the mountains. I actually wet myself.
Katusha had an unfortunate Tour.
Bubblegum-Derp had this race handed to them, and they still couldn't win it. I have no idea how they're looking at two podium finishers after having done something significant exactly once.

 

[benpounder]

Best team???

Obviously Dekker-Tefosi and Ryo for sabotaging Cadel Evans wheel while running down the road to Saint-Michel de Maurienne. (Hitch was perplexed whether or not to help out...)

...course, I may be mistaken.

 

[benpounder]

BMC mechanic Ian Sherburne confirmed the mechanical issue, but wouldn’t go into detail. “Cadel did have a mechanical today. There was an issue with the bike and we decided to do a bike swap. Sometimes it’s safer just to make the change. That’s all I can say right now.

Obviously!

Most successful teams:
Garmin
Europcar
Omega
HTC____, (Any dominate sprinters team is successful - that is why Cipo's teams were dis-invited during the later years...)
And SKY

There are a number of teams that have been unsuccesful, some due to really bad luck, but sucking is different. RS is a candidate for for bad luck, not failure.

 

[Damiano Machiavelli]

BMC mechanic Ian Sherburne confirmed the mechanical issue, but wouldn’t go into detail. “Cadel did have a mechanical today. There was an issue with the bike and we decided to do a bike swap. Sometimes it’s safer just to make the change. That’s all I can say right now.

This sounds like PR speak for something embarrassing happened with the bike, like a chainstay cracked.

 

[luckyboy]

Somebody said something about his brake rubbing, I recall.

 

[taiwan]

we have? ...........

+1 noticed them in fewer breaks than I expected.

1x Engoulvent
1x Mangel
1x Hivert

Others?

 

[royalpig180]

Best teams:

1. Europcar: If the TT goes well for them tomorrow, they'll have 10 days in yellow with an incredible defense of the jersey, the only French stage winner, hopefully a white jersey, and hopefully 2 riders in the final top 10 on GC.
2. Leopard-Trek: They've got a stage win and possibly another coming from Canc tomorrow, and two riders on the podium, with a possible victory. Win.
3. Garmin: They've been consistent, winning the TTT and holding onto yellow with Thor longer than anyone expected, as well as winning stages with Farrar and Hushovd.

Worst:
1. Katusha: Are they in the race?
2. Vacansoleil-DCM: They've sure tried, they've just accomplished absolutely nothing.
3. Liquigas: Epic-fail. They should have brought Sagan to liven things up. He would have been on great form for the finishes that suited him in the first week and a half too...

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Best
Team Thor - Impressive defence of yellow & two stage wins.

2nd Garmin Yellow and two stage wins for Thor

Don't forget about Farrar!

Europcar gets the edge over Garmin with Rolland's Jersey, and their general underdog-ness about them compared to the bigger teams.

Katusha and FDJ are the worst, a symptom of their novelties (for lack of better words) in the Tour as a domestic team, and an all-Russia team. Maybe Saur also

Crashes negate the under performances of many teams such as Radiashack. First, I thought there would be too many Chiefs, then thought some alternate GC guys were a good plan, and then thought only about a teams bad luck to lose so many potential top guys. OPL impressed despite and by overcoming their heavy loss. Rabobank similarly rode to par minus Gesink by similar circumstances in Sanchez's win

 

[klmorgan]

Best - Garmin (TTT, Farrar, Thor stage wins; days in yellow)
Honourable Mention - Europcar (all the work that they have done to defend the Yellow)

Worst - Katusha (where have they been!)
Honourable Mention - Saxo-Bank (no support for Contador)

For the Shlecks the strength of their team (the Core the same as their SaxoBank team from last year), has generally been missing, although O'Grady has seemed to generally do his job. If they loose, this will be their failing.

BMC always came into the tour with a generally weak team for Cuddles than the other favourites had, however their all out belief and the environment it seems to have created for him appears to have overcome much of the weakness. If he looses (and pray hoping he does not) it will be the weakness that they came with that was the cause

 

[greenedge]

Best Garmin, Europcar. I would say BMC if they had a mountain helper.

Worst Saur, Katusha, Cofidis and SBS. Euskatel deserve to be in there as well.

 

[frenchfry]

Best: Leopard, probably 2 guys in final podium and was near to win the mountain clasiffication
Worst: saur, ag2r, katusha. difficult to say

AG2R second in team classification, JC Peraud in 11th overall and consistantly in the breaks.

Are we watching the same race?

Saur isn't a top level team, so of course they aren't fighting it out with the big guns. They are, however, consistently in the breaks though and have Jérôme Coppel in 14th overall. I think they are penalised by their jerseys which aren't very distinctive and can be confused with FDJ.

I think the move with Monfort going up the road and perfectly joining Andy Schleck before the Lautaret was brilliant and the best team move of the tour.

 

[greenedge]

FDJ have been in the breaks which is good at least they try. I think Leopard have raced this perfectly ( keeping out of trouble/ helping Andy on stage 18 ), however they maybe have not fully gelled together.

 

[AussieGoddess]

FDJ have been in the breaks which is good at least they try. I think Leopard have raced this perfectly ( keeping out of trouble/ helping Andy on stage 18 ), however they maybe have not fully gelled together.

Leopard made 1 good tactical move (Adny's break). Yesterday they stuffed it totally with Andy following AC.

- If Frank had gone with AC instead of Any, and AS had worked at dropping CE on Alpe instead of trying to chase down AC then they might have been 1-2 on the podium. Instead they will (IMO) get 2 and 4

- once it all came back together if AS hadnt been so determined to chase down AC ... and concentrated on dropping evans instead of trying to get him to work with him, he would be in a substantially better place.

Fail for Leopard Trek

 

[Oreknan]

AG2R second in team classification, JC Peraud in 11th overall and consistantly in the breaks.

Are we watching the same race?

you are right, i think that roche was very far from top10 but i didnt notice that peraud was 11th , they have a good shot for top10

 

[LukeSchmid]

worst: BMC - team pulling on stages that were meaningless, disappearing when it mattered, and leaving Evans to chase the important breaks.

Absolutely totally wrong.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

FDJ have been in the breaks which is good at least they try. I think Leopard have raced this perfectly ( keeping out of trouble/ helping Andy on stage 18 ), however they maybe have not fully gelled together.

Leopard Trek did a great job on stage 18, but it doesn't excuse the truckload of fail they brought to Plateau de Beille.

They really tried hard to lose this race for two and a half weeks, then they realised they actually might, so bucked their ideas up.