Team of the Tour; Week One

[tj_durrant]

Who do you think would make the 'team of the tour' after the first week? In the same way that there are 'Teams of the Six Nations', in Rugby, or 'Teams of the World Cup' in the football?

At the moment I will go for;

Sylvain Chavanel
Ryder Hesjedal
Fabian Cancellara
Jérôme Pineau
Geraint Thomas
Mark Renshaw
Alessandro Petacchi
Rafael Valls Ferri
Tyler Farrar

Picked Farrar for his courage. In no other sport would someone continue with a fractured wrist and still be good enough to compete in the sprints.

 

[Pedaaldanser]

First the obvious ones:
Chavanel (2 stage wins, 2 yellow jerseys)
Pineau (KoM Jersey)
Cavendish (2 stage wins)
Petacchi (2 stage wins)
Cancellara (yellow jerseys)
Hushovd (stage win, green jersey)

McEwen & Farrar for their performance and guts in light of their injuries

and the last one is really tough.... hmmmmmmm....
Boom for making the first attack?

 

[mr. tibbs]

No Cav? I can't really stand him, but he is finding his top speed again and it looks like he may dominate sprints from here out.

Then again, this is kind of how England chose their World Cup team, too, isn't it? Or how the US chooses their Olympic basketball team. All talent; no team: early exit.

I would definitely choose Spartacus, but not for his yellow jerseys. I'd choose him b/c, for whatever reason, Andy Schleck really benefited from looking at his big square *** on the stones a few days ago. Cancellara has proven himself time and again to be willing to use his strengths to help the team work towards its ultimately goal, and it's that kind of self-sacrifice that wins games/matches/races.

 

[ingsve]

It becomes a little straight forward when there is no restriction on the number of different types of riders. These teams usually are restricted by players having specific roles in the team.

It might be more telliing to do a best of tour team by forcing the team to have a mix of dofferent roles. For example the fantasy tour style could be a good template.

I suggest the following:

1 team leader
1 sprinter
1 sprint lead out
2 riders with a free role to attack
2 mountain domestiques
2 non-mountain domestiques

It's free to interpret each role to fit riders into a class.

 

[Thee_chisa]

cav
renshaw
chavenel
cancellara
evans
thomas
pineau
petacchi
thor

possible others EBH, contador, farrar

 

[ingsve]

If I were to make a team with the template I suggested then it would be:

Leader: Andy Schleck (Based on how he rode stage 3)
Sprinter: Cavendish (2 victories and getting over his own mental block)
Lead out: Renshaw
Free role: Chavanel
Free role: Pineau
mountain dom.: Vinokourov
mountain dom.: Hesjedal (though he is now more of a leader then domestique)
other dom.: Cancellara
other dom.: Geraint Thomas

 

[tj_durrant]

My team at the moment is unbalanced, with no real domestiques and no GC contenders (although I hope Hesjedal proves me wrong).

Didn't pick Cav or Hushovd to try and keep a balance, otherwise I would have ended up with just sprinters and Chavanel. And I thought that Petachi's achievement was better than the other sprinters.

Cancellara was amazing on Stage 3. Trying to win the stage, keep the yellow jersey AND get the Schleck's up the general classification. Also Voight was strong as ever earlier on.

I have a feeling that Kloden may have saved himself yesterday to be a stronger super-domestique today?

If so he'll get in.

Evans
Chavanel
Pineau
Hesjedal
Cancellara
Voight
Renshaw
Petacchi
Thomas

Unstoppable.

 

[Pedaaldanser]

Oh, I thought the idea was to pick 9 riders who I thought had performed the best in the first week, so I did just that. I don't think the ones I picked would actually make a good team