Glutbusters

July 14, 2006

Why I Have Been Away #3

More sport. This time the Tour de France.

My friend Tom has been kind enough to compile this explanatory memorandum for those of us who have no idea how the whole thing works.

As suspected, there are several races within the race. These have an order of importance and leaders are identified as follows:
- Yellow Jersey - General individual time ranking (otherwise known asthe General Classification or GC)
- Green Jersey - Individual points ranking (sprinters' jersey)
- Polka dot Jersey - General best climber ranking
- White Jersey - Young rider ranking
- Black numbers on Yellow background - General Team Ranking - no jersey for this one
- White numbers on Red background - General most aggresive rider (awarded after each stage - not cumulative)

Presentations are given to the following aftereach stage:

- The stage winner;
- The leader of the general ranking on time, who receives the yellow jersey;
- The leader of the general ranking on points, who receives the green jersey;
- The leader of the general ranking of best climber, who receives the red polka dot jersey;
- The leader of the general ranking of the best young rider, who receives the white jersey;
- The winner of the competitiveness prize for the stage.

So no presentation for the best team.

OK, so the Yellow Jersey, or race leader is determined by their overall time. This is taken from group and individual stages and most importantly, includes time bonuses for doing clever things. So, for example, the first three riders to cross the finish line at the end of each stage (not including time trials) get a time discount of 20" 12" and 8" respectively.

For 'intermediate sprints' (sprints set up along the days route), the first three get 6" 4" and 2". So your basic yellow jersey wearer is usually the quickest bike rider across all disciplines - that's why you see the likes of Robbie McEwen wearing yellow in the early stages (before individual time trials and hills come into it) and your Lance Armstrongs at the end (cos they may not be sprinters, but they overtake everyone eventually).

The green and polka dot jerseys are done purely on points - time has nothing to do with these ones. The closer you finish to first at each sprint or climb banner, the more points you get.

So why do all the unglamorous ones slog their guts out for the famous ones like Lance and Robbie? Pretty much the cash. Prize money is usally shared among the team. So if you finish the tour with the Yellow jersey you get 450,000 Euros to share, the Green jersey = 25,000 and the polka dot = 25,000. If you finish a stage first = 8,000, second = 4,000, third = 2,000. Best team overall gets 50,000 euros and an additional 2,800 for a stage win.

So there you go. Tom's easy to follow guide to the Tour de France.

What more could you POSSIBLY need to know!?

Filed under Sport