Criterium du Dauphine & Tour du Suisse performances as TdF predictors

[christopherrowe]

Here's some data. The first two lists show the winners of the ten most recent editions of the two big Tour de France "tune up" races. For each rider, I've listed their finishing GC position (if any) of that year's TdF.

Below that, I've listed the podium finishers of record of the last five Tours. On that list, I've amended each name with their finishing place on GC of whichever (if either) of the two tune up races they completed.

The Criterium du Dauphine has, over this period, been where the more successful Tour riders have prepared. In fact, if you throw out the Schlecks, the Tour de Suisse looks positively anemic by comparison. I also noticed, looking back over the whole 21st century, that the Criterium has been a very anglophone race in term of its podium finishers, though of course there are complicating factors to that that we can't discuss here.

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Criterium du Dauphine Winner (same year TdF finish)

2013 Christopher Froome | 1st
2012 Bradley Wiggins | 1st
2011 Bradley Wiggins | N/A
2010 Janez Brajkovič | 42nd
2009 Alejandro Valverde | N/A
2008 Alejandro Valverde | 8th
2007 Christophe Moreau | 37th
2006 Levi Leipheimer | 12th
2005 Inigo Landaluze | 100th
2004 Iban Mayo | N/A

Tour de Suisse Winner (same year TdF finish)

2013 Rui Costa | 27th
2012 Rui Costa | 18th
2011 Levi Leipheimer | 31st
2010 Frank Schleck | N/A
2009 Fabian Cancellara | 89th
2008 Roman Kreuziger | 12th
2007 Vladimir Karpets | 14th
2006 Jan Ullrich | N/A
2005 Aitor Gonzalez | N/A
2004 Jan Ullrich | 4th

Now the TdF Podiums for the last three years, with the particulars of their placements in whichever (if either) of the two races they finished.

2013
Christopher Froome | 1st at the Criterium du Dauphine
Nairo Quintana | N/A
Joaquim Rodriguez | 16th at the Criterium du Dauphine

2012
Bradley Wiggins | 1st at the Criterium du Dauphine
Christopher Froome | 4th at the Criterium du Dauphine
Vincenzo Nibali | 28th at the Criterium du Dauphine

2011
Cadel Evans | 2nd at the Criterium du Dauphine
Andy Schleck | 19th at the Tour de Suisse
Frenk Schleck | 7th at the Tour de Suisse

2010
Andy Schleck | 14th at the Tour de Suisse
Denis Menchov | 25th at the Criterium du Dauphine
Samuel Sanchez | 18th at the Criterium du Dauphine

2009
Alberto Contador | 3rd at the Criterium du Dauphine
Andy Schleck | 24th at the Tour de Suisse
Bradley Wiggins | N/A

Edited for diacritical reasons! Can't do anything about the thread title, sorry!

 

[LaFlorecita]

(2010 - Contador, 2nd at Dauphine)

 

[del1962]

(2010 - Contador, 2nd at Dauphine)

Criterium du Dauphine - What is with these titles?

(Symbol codes?)

 

[christopherrowe]

Criterium du Dauphine - What is with these titles?

You mean the question marks and other odd symbols? Apparently the forum doesn't like diacritical marks. I was able to go in and edit out the auto-generated substitutions in the text of my post but I don't see a way to edit the header/subject line, sorry.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Criterium du Dauphine - What is with these titles?

(Symbol codes?)

Not sure either.

 

[Wallenquist]

Fact: If you ride either Suisse or Dauphine and expecting to be good at TdF you have to show some signs of form in one of those prep races. Worst Dauphine/Suisse place in gc for TdF podium finisher was 28th.

 

[William H]

If you count 2010, all the winners have been on the podium. But I don't think that necessarily means much apart from the tendency of the favourites to pick the Criterium as a warm up.

I'd guess that both Froome and Contador will be on the podium at CdD and one of them will win the Tour.

 

[lenric]

Also, if someone shows very good form in Dauphine, then he won't be that good in le Tour, because that someone peaked very early.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Also, if someone shows very good form in Dauphine, then he won't be that good in le Tour, because that someone peaked very early.

Froome (and Wiggins) begs to differ....

 

[christopherrowe]

Froome (and Wiggins) begs to differ....

Right, and the guy that won before them, as well. Cadel Evans was second at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011, 1:26 off of Wiggins's winning GC time. Wiggins didn't finish the '11 Tour, of course.

 

[christopherrowe]

I also noticed, looking back over the whole 21st century, that the Criterium has been a very anglophone race in term of its podium finishers, though of course there are complicating factors to that that we can't discuss here.

You know, I may have been unfair in my subtext in this sentence. While it's true that since 2000, fully half of the 42 podium finishers have been from the anglophone world (10 from the USA, 7 from Australia, 4 from Great Britain), the phenomenon isn't frontloaded to the first five or six years of the century. It's just that now the English-speaking podium finishers are coming from Great Britain and Australia instead of from the USA (the outliers are Tejay van Garderen coming third in 2010 in the more recent half of the period and David Millar coming third in 2003 in the first half).

The Tour de Suisse, on the other hand, looks to have consistently been a much more international affair, at least since around 1970 or so (Swiss riders dominated the podium for most editions before that). The anglophone podium presence this century is almost exclusively confined to riders with the initials LA and LL (with Michael Rogers third in 2005 the sole exception). There is an interesting anglophone "bump" in the Tour de Suisse podiums in the mid-eighties, when Phil Anderson, Andrew Hampsten, Robert Millar, and Greg Lemond all achieved success there. Sean Kelly won in '83 and '90.