Arguments over the point of the green jersey still rage: should it reward speed or consistency? ASO have changed the rules for the second time in five years to favour the sprinters. Will it work? Procycling takes a closer look at the Tour de France's points classification. This feature was taken from the July issue of Procycling, which you can pick up online, here.
What's changed?
On the nine flat stages last year, there was a 10-point gap between the first rider over the line (45pts) and second (35pts) and a sliding scale for riders down to 15th place. This year, however, the six most sprint-friendly stages of the nine designated flat stages are subject to a steeper drop-off in points. We'll dub them 'super-sprints'. So the winner of these super-sprint stages into Zeeland (stage 2) Amiens (5), Le Havre (6), Fougères (7), Valence (15) and Champs-Élysées (21) will take 50 points while second place takes 30, third place 20 and so on all the way down to 15th place. On the three remaining flat stages that feature cobbles or a puncheur's uphill finish at Mur de Huy (3), Cambrai (4) and Mûr de Bretagne (8), the winner takes 25 points, second 22 points, third 17 and so on. The points structure for the single intermediate sprint where the first over the line takes 20 points remains and could be crucial.
ADVERTISEMENT
What does it mean for the green jersey competition?
When ASO altered the green jersey rules in 2011 it was to favour the pure sprinters, notably Mark Cavendish who was particularly dominant in the bunch gallops in 2009/10 but still didn't win green. The 2011 changes had the desired effect and the Manxman won by a margin of 62 points over Jose Joaquin Rojas. In the years that followed, however, Peter Sagan, the prototypical sprinting all-rounder, was able to hoover up points on such varied terrain that he was untouchable. As an illustration, he never finished lower than fifth in the first seven stages of last year's Tour, though he didn't win a stage either.
So the changes to the points do favour Cavendish, Nacer Bouhanni and Marcel Kittel but as the intermediate sprint structure remains so Sagan, Michael Matthews and John Degenkolb (depending how he is deployed by Giant-Alpecin) will still have a back door into the green jersey competition. Why? Because last year Sagan took 153 points at the mid-way primes. That's only a rate of some seven points a day, or ninth at the intermediate sprint but, crucially, first from the bunch behind the break.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://ift.tt/1LvY8by
No comments:
Post a Comment