The Great Big Identification Quest

[tobydawq]

Can we do this? This magnificent challenge put forth by Dan Lloyd on Twitter yesterday made me spend a lot of time looking at this picture. I did get more than 38 but not much. Looking at the start list did help a little (but not much as there simply are plenty of riders I don't know what look like), and then I have seen a few responses to his Tweet, and if I can count, I have identified 59 riders now, while 68 are missing. Can we get them all? And do I have any mistakes?

I'll try to keep the known names updated in this post. It's quite difficult to make the names align (especially because repeated spaces are ignored), so you'll have to use some imagination.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1480251783188553729

View: https://twitter.com/daniellloyd1/status/1480251783188553729


? LL Sánchez ? Pliuschin Costa Samu Siutsou Horner ? ? ?
S Dumoulin Gustov EBH ? ? Löfkvist ? Moerenhout Vinokourov Kolobnev Sastre ?
Wegmann ? Renshaw ? Chavanel Gesink Bookwalter Nocentini ? ?
Elmiger ? ? Rast ? ? Oss ? Ballan ?
Popovych ? ? ? ? ? Klöden Martínez ? Gautier Vandevelde Tankink Kreuziger Moreau Petacchi
? ? ? ? Rojas Lloyd Felline ? ? Armstrong ? Flecha Hondo ? ? Rolland ?
G ? ? Purito ? Van Den Broeck N Sørensen ? ? ? ? Pauwels Taaramäe
Lloyd Roelandts ? ? Gerrans Basso ? ? Two hidden Lampre Szmyd Contador Grivko
? ? A Schleck Cummings Wiggins Tiralongo Koren Terpstra ?
? Champion Boom Iglinskiy O'Grady Cavendish Cancellara F Schleck JIGutiérrez ? Knees Barredo
? ? Moreno ? Aerts Car (with Merckx) Capecchi Cunego Bole Brajkovic

 

[Nyssinator]

Fun game! I think I spotted some you missed.
Pauwels left of Taaramäe, Quinziato right of Rolland, Wegelius Lotto rider between Van Den Broeck and Nick Sørensen. Max Iglinskiy left of O'Grady. Daniel Oss and Brent Bookwalter right of Gesink
Think it is Roelandts ahead of Geraint Thomas and maybe Matthew Lloyd left of Roelandts(he has australian stripes)?

 

[tobydawq]

Fun game! I think I spotted some you missed.
Pauwels left of Taaramäe, Quinziato right of Rolland, Wegelius Lotto rider between Van Den Broeck and Nick Sørensen. Max Iglinskiy left of O'Grady. Daniel Oss and Brent Bookwalter right of Gesink
Think it is Roelandts ahead of Geraint Thomas and maybe Matthew Lloyd left of Roelandts(he has australian stripes)?

Oss was a bad miss (I guess, I didn't think he was already riding the Tour in 2010). I also thought the one you pointed out was Iglinskiy but then somebody wrote it was someone else, and since I wasn't sure, I left him as a question mark. But let's go with him!

I agree with Pauwels and Lloyd but wouldn't be able to recognise Bookwalter, Wegelius or Roelandts if they were in my living room.

 

[Jspear]

Oss was a bad miss (I guess, I didn't think he was already riding the Tour in 2010). I also thought the one you pointed out was Iglinskiy but then somebody wrote it was someone else, and since I wasn't sure, I left him as a question mark. But let's go with him!

I agree with Pauwels and Lloyd but wouldn't be able to recognise Bookwalter, Wegelius or Roelandts if they were in my living room.

Its Bookwalter for sure. The other two no clue

 

[Blame it on the Boogie]

Rabobank left/front of Vino: Koos Moerenhout
First Lotto rider left of the car: Mario Aerts

I think.

 

[tobydawq]

Rabobank left/front of Vino: Koos Moerenhout
First Lotto rider left of the car: Mario Aerts

I think.

I'll take it. I'm also pretty sure the Caisse d'Épargne rider at the very back is Rui Costa who is making a face that makes him look like Ulissi, who I in turn am pretty sure have never ridden for Caisse d'Épargne.

 

[Koronin]

I'll take it. I'm also pretty sure the Caisse d'Épargne rider at the very back is Rui Costa who is making a face that makes him look like Ulissi, who I in turn am pretty sure have never ridden for Caisse d'Épargne.

As I have Movistar's 40th anniversary book sitting right here I can safely say with 100% certainly that Ulissi never rode for Caisse d'Épargne. It has a team photo and lists all riders from each team (with pictures) from 1980 through 2014.

 

[tobydawq]

As I have Movistar's 40th anniversary book sitting right here I can safely say with 100% certainly that Ulissi never rode for Caisse d'Épargne. It has a team photo and lists all riders from each team (with pictures) from 1980 through 2014.

Well, I kinda knew that. Ulissi has ridden for the same team his entire career.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I was going to make a joke about no one being able to spot Zubeldia until I realised he didn't actually ride the race after crashing out of the Dauphine.

I'm terrible at remembering faces, but I do believe the SKY rider to the left of Samu (from my point of view) is Thomas Löfkvist.
But of course it is actually EHB. I forgot he already rode for them in 2010.
Löfkvist could be the one to the right of Samu instead, but it probably isn't. I remembered him as having ligther hair than he actually has.

I'm gonna gamble and say that the Footon-Servetto rider behind Nicki Sørensen is Fabio Felline.
The Katusha rider coming in to shot behind EHB must be Pliuschin, due to the Moldovan championship bands on the shirt.

 

[tobydawq]

I was going to make a joke about no one being able to spot Zubeldia until I realised he didn't actually ride the race after crashing out of the Dauphine.

I'm terrible at remembering faces, but I do believe the SKY rider to the left of Samu (from my point of view) is Thomas Löfkvist.
But of course it is actually EHB. I forgot he already rode for them in 2010.
Löfkvist could be the one to the right of Samu instead, but it probably isn't. I remembered him as having ligther hair than he actually has.

I'm gonna gamble and say that the Footon-Servetto rider behind Nicki Sørensen is Fabio Felline.
The Katusha rider coming in to shot behind EHB must be Pliuschin, due to the Moldovan championship bands on the shirt.

Let's go with those. I've also added Cummings as the guy who is riding next to Wiggins.

I think Pliuschin is actually wearing the National Champion's jersey in the picture (in any event, his jersey is very different from the other Katusha riders so he must be).

 

[Nyssinator]

Cervelo rider between Dumoulin and EBH is Volodimir Gustov.
Ag2r rider left of Boom is Dimitri Champion

 

[tobydawq]

It really is quite an amazing photo. It has to be taken at just the right angle and distance for it to have more than 110 easily identifiable faces (and by easily I mean easy if you actually knew what the riders looked like).

It would be nice to see a similar photo from 2021 and see if that was easier to guess (I wouldn't necessarily think so because I think young riders are easier to spot in old pictures because you would have seen them a lot more in action after the photo was taken).

 

[McDavido]

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[tobydawq]

Boooh, I thought somebody had found more riders on the picture!