Tour de France 2009 - Bore de France

The 2009 Tour de France, which finished today on the Champs-Elysées with Spain’s Alberto Contador in the winner’s yellow jersey, promised much but in the end has to go down as a big disappointment. This correspondent was genuinely looking forward to this year’s edition of Le Tour, with the return of seven-time winner Lance Armstrong - a major rival to and team-mate of Contador - set to make for an intriguing few weeks in the saddle. A comment attached to our original Tour curtain-raiser fuelled the enthusiasm still further, with a touch of 80s nostalgia and with it a reminder of great cycling duels past. But Roche v Delgado or Lemond v Fignon this was not. True, there was a flurry of activity in the opening stages, with potentially important seconds won or lost here and there. And a gruelling few days in the mountains in the last week of the Tour looked, on paper, a mouth-watering prospect. Unfortunately, the intervening couple of weeks were - at least as far as the overall yellow jersey classification was concerned - a non-event. Things warmed up when the Alps finally arrived but Contador, a strong climber, quickly established a decisive advantage that he never looked like relinquishing.

Far from being a ding-dong battle, the much vaunted Contador-Armstrong match-up resulted in a stifling and uneasy co-habitation of the two men within their Astana team. For the best part of a fortnight there was an awkward phoney war between them, a kind of truce that did nothing for the Tour as a racing spectacle, with constant talk of tensions behind the scenes in the Astana camp. At the same time, the Astana team was so strong all round that, until late in the Tour, other riders and teams were largely unable, or unwilling, to try to challenge their control of the race. Astana was so strong in fact that they were happy to let Nocentini, a relatively unknown Italian from another team, stay in yellow for days, as the Astana boys lay in wait for the appropriate moment to take on the leader’s mantle and for the in-team rivalries to play themselves out. This was a dose of Tour pragmatism that again did nothing for excitement levels: the prestige of the yellow jersey should mean that you try to take it and wear it as long as humanly possible, but the onus is on the team concerned to keep their man in yellow, and that takes extra effort in terms of management of the peloton - effort that Astana was happy for another team to take on.

The dominance of Astana and, ultimately, of Contador, were not the only issues in this year’s Tour. As is the case in every Tour, you could bet your bottom dollar that riders scoring plucky breakaway stage victories - exciting as this is to watch in its own right - were not a threat to the overall Tour lead, or at least not overall Tour victory come Paris. Where stage victories came down to big bunch sprints - invariably a hair-raising display of jostling and speed - there was, ultimately, little competition. Sprinter Mark Cavendish was so strong that, when it really mattered, he was to all intents and purposes unbeatable in the dash for the winning line. This was all to the great credit of Cavendish and his team. But it was another measure of this year’s Tour that, for a time, while little else was happening, significant chunks of debate were devoted to the question of “Can Cavendish be beaten, and if so how?” Answers were not easily forthcoming as Cavendish proved capable of winning even on finishes suspected not to be prime sprinter run-ins.

Another problem this year was the design of the Tour itinerary. As said, on paper, some tough days in the mountains in the last week looked a compelling prospect. This included a penultimate-day shootout on the legendarily punishing climb up the Mont Ventoux. This was in effect a last-day shootout, given that the actual last-day stage into Paris is rarely more than a ceremonial procession for the yellow jersey-wearer. But, with Contador able to resist all attacks, the first two places on the podium were already all but settled heading up the Ventoux. The battle was really only for third and the minor places. Try telling the thousands of fans lining the ascent that this year’s Tour was dull. But it was something of a denigration of the Ventoux’s great standing in the sport that, concerning the general classification, it witnessed little more than end-of-Tour minor-place manoeuvrings. The very prospect of a tough mountainous end to the Tour also arguably made it that much more anaemic earlier on, with riders reluctant to burn themselves out too early.

Can anything be done to spice up Le Tour and generate a more genuine scrap for the yellow jersey? There are no easy solutions. A shorter - perhaps two-week - Tour with fewer flat, ‘transitional’ stages? - surely a commercial no-no. Shorter and different sorts of stages on the same day? - a physical and logistical nightmare. More time trials against the clock? - well maybe, but not so many that you give too much to the time-trial specialist, and certainly not more team time-trials, which only reinforce existing disparities. Fat time bonuses awarded for sprints en route or for stage victories? - tempting, but just another incentive for breakaways to be closed down. All we can really suggest is to include more undulating medium-difficulty stages - not punishingly mountainous, but testing or technical enough to do something to split up the main pack.

In the end, you’re relying on the riders to be evenly matched enough to generate a close contest. Unfortunately, here too the signs may not be good for the future. As Contador won the individual time trial in the Tour’s final week, he underlined that he is far more than just a climber. Some even took this as a cue to whisper that he may now have it in him to win a number of Tours in a row from here.  Things have been said before about potential spells of domination that have not materialised (Jan Ullrich, anyone?) But still, Contador’s apparent ease in this Tour (Armstrong tensions aside) may not be good news for those that are only just getting over the long reigns of Indurain and Armstrong over the last couple of decades. A Schleck could fancy his chances of a Tour win at some point; Wiggins has emerged as a strong Tour rider this year; and Armstrong - an impressive third this time - may well continue to win admiration for his Tour return, prospectively as part of a different team. But, on current form, Contador is likely to have the legs on all of them next year.

Comments

[worldinmotion]

Thanks CM. The thing is, will I tune in for next year's Tour? - mais oui! Rotterdam 2010 anyone?

[Ceann Mor]

I enjoyed this years tour with the shootout on the last competitive day to decide the podium being a welcome change to previous years when the result was known a few days out or a time trial ultimastely decided the end result. Armstrong may well be stronger next year, Andy Schleck & Bradley Wiggins have improved a lot in the course of the last year but Contador is undoubtedly the man to beat - it is a disappointment that nobody was able to crack him all tour and his ride up Mont Ventoux was worthy of comparison with any of the greats, he just sat on Schlecks wheel and like Armstrong a few years ago looked like he had that extra 10% ready to release if ever he needed it.
I am a fan of the team time trial and I welcomed it's return after a few years away.

The only problem with the tour this year was that both the best Sprinter and the best climber were peerless and so I can only hope that a challenger emerges in the next year but in the meantime I choose to enjoy their brilliance rather than be disappointed in the lack of competition.