The Team Classification

The tour starts this weekend.  I will be busy following online and then watching the highlights on TV.  It wasn’t until last year that I had paid attention to the Team Classification.  This is probably no surprise because last year was Lance’s final Tour.  Since a GC podium was out of the question, Radio Shack raced for the team classification to get on stage in Paris.  So of course, Versus followed this race within a race more closely.  I’m glad they did because it added a little drama to the race as a whole and was something else to watch for.  I read the following from the Tour site which goes into the Team Classification.

28/06/2011 - Five good reasons to follow the team classification

Of all the individual sports, cycling is certainly the one in which the collective dimension plays the biggest role. As a result, the team classification, a discrete affair at first glance, is at the heart of many strategies. Here’s why…

The honour of the podium on the Champs-Elysées

It is rare that a team starts the Tour de France with the ambition of winning this secondary classification, when all eyes are understandably more focused on the Yellow Jersey for the general individual time classification. However, it is a competition in which appetite is whetted by success, once a team finds itself in a good position after overcoming some of the difficulties along the route. Last year, RadioShack triumphed, to follow on from the winners of the last ten editions: Kelme (2000-2001), ONCE (2002), CSC (2003), T-Mobile (2004, 2005, and 2006), Discovery Channel (2007), CSC-Saxo Bank (2008) and Astana (2009).

After falling twice during the eighth stage leading to the Rousses ski resort in Morzine-Avoriaz, Lance Armstrong immediately drew his source for motivation from the team classification, to replace his initial objective. Since he was taking part in his last Tour de France, he was determined to finish, in spite of everything, with the honour of being acclaimed by the crowd on the final podium on the Champs-Elysées.

Read on here.