To get everyone excited about the 2007 TDF Pool, I have compiled all the top-10 Pool results since the inaugural Pool in 2001. You will note that there are two sets of results from 2006, one with Landis, and one without. The one with Landis is official; the one without is for bragging rights only.
You will note there is only one two-time winner: Peter Metuzals. But his form has been a little off for the last five years ...
Please feel free to circulate info on the Pool to anyone you think may be interested. Also, please let me know if you want your email taken off the notification list -- I don't want the Pool to be a Pain for those not interested.
-- Kris Westwood
Past winners of the Cyclery Tour de France Pool:
2001 (17 entrants)
1. Peter Metuzals
2. Stephen Proulx
3. Dave Shirley
4. Greg Varney
5. Julian Hine
6. Bill and Annie
7. Mike & Lisa
8. Jaime Bryan
9. Ian Dalling
10. Rupert St Consortium
Lanterne Rouge: Kiwi Mike
2002 (43 entrants)
1 Metuzals Peter
2 Hadfield Tim
3 Letourneau Annie & Hurley Bill
4 Field Kevin
5 Hinan Paco
6 Kerr Rob
7 Smith Duane
8 Di Cyclismo Stefano
9 Cathcart David
10 Davey Lisa/Dalling Ian
Lanterne Rouge: Marco Penna
2003 (50 entrants)
1. Stephano DiCyclismo
2. Lisa Larochelle
3. Metuzals Peter
4. Drew McCutcheon
5. Mhairi Gilmore
6. Duane Smith
7. Steve Proulx
8. Field Kevin
9. SuperFan
10. Kiwi Mike
Lanterne Rouge: Wilby McKnight
2004 (78 entrants)
1 Sheri Jay
2 Mike Larochelle
3 Storm Russell
4 Julian Hine
5 Mhairi Gilmore
6 Boat Boyz: Tried and True
7 Team BARNET CYCLING CLUB
8 Markus Chiang
9 Donneli
10 Tim Hadfield
Lanterne Rouge: Superfan
2005 (91 entrants)
1. Gunter Hauschildt
2. Blaine Penny
3. Chris Holzauer
4. Team Damdom
5. Matt Toulouse
6. Remi Berube
7. Alex Lai
8. Christopher & Katherine
9. Marc Boudreau
10. Lisa McMurray and Alex Kolodziej
Lanterne Rouge: Donneli
2006 (87 entrants)
1 Chris Holzauer
2 Julie Deschenes-Furry
3 Vicki Thomas
4 Tyler Lawlor
5 Meylina Kandoy
6 Grimpeur George
7 Paul Crowley "Team Blood Wash"
8 Peter Metuzals
9 "Mr. Stevens Picks"
10 Nat Faulkner
Lanterne Rouge: Phil Brun del Re "The Lucky Lucky Nine"
or ... 2006 if Landis had tested positive:
1 Grimpeur George
2 Stefan Sander
3 Rob Grondin
4 Chris Holzauer
5 Vicki Thomas
6 Julie Deschenes-Furry
7 Tyler Lawlor
8 Chris & Storm
9 Eva Ortega "VillaEva"
10 "Mr. Stevens Picks"
Lanterne Rouge: Phil Brun del Re "The Lucky Lucky Nine"
2007 Tour Pool – how to enter.
So, you ask yourself, how do I enter this Tour Pool thingy? It couldn’t be simpler: pick nine riders, a team and guess the total number of finishers for this year’s Tour. Send your picks to tdf2007@magma.ca, and pay your entry fee in cash at the Cyclery (to Kiwi Mike) or via PayPal to tdf2007@magma.ca. Please note there’s a $1 fee for PayPal.
You can enter the team under a pseudonym or your own name, but please tell us who you are if you use a pseudonym, and don't forget to give us your email address too. Feel free to tell your friends to enter the Pool, as well.
Those of you familiar with the Tour Pool need only note some minor changes to the rules. The newbies among you, pay attention.
The biggest change in the rules is in keeping with the ongoing drug scandals. Teams in the Tour are periodically raided by police and subjected to unannounced morning blood tests. Every time this happens to your team you will get 5 points as a reward for the scrutiny they are under. But there's a catch! For every team member who is "busted", you will lose 10 points. This is on top of the 25 points you would lose if you had also picked that individual rider and he tested positive (or 50 points if he was arrested ...)
The 2007 Tour de France Pool rules:
Entries:
• You must pick the following:
o Nine riders
o A team
o Your guess of the total number of finishers
• You may make as many entries as you want, providing you pay the entry fee each time
ENTRY DEADLINES:
• You may enter at any time before the final day of the Tour, but once the Tour has started you may not pick a rider who has earned any Pool points
• If you enter before the Tour starts and one of your riders fails to start, you may pick a replacement providing he has not earned any Pool points to date
• Your entry is only official once your $10 entry fee has been received
• Each participant must pay the $10 entry fee.
• There will be no reserve picks this year, so do your research and find out who is starting.
• Participants will be awarded points based on the performance of their riders and team in each stage and in the final overall standings (see points scales below).
PRIZES:
• The winner of the Pool will receive 25% of the Purse; 2nd will receive 15% and 3rd will receive 10%. The remainder will be donated to the Seenite Sports young rider bursary.
• Other prizes will be announced once they have been received at the Cyclery. Thank you in advance to the generous donations of prizes to the Pool.
BASTILLE DAY RULE: a French rider’s points scores will be doubled on July 14.
• The winner of the Pool is the participant who scores the most points.
• In the event of a tie, best GC rider decides, followed by number of stage wins, number of second places etc.
• In the event that two participants pick identical riders and teams, the tie breaker will be the participant whose guesses closest to the total number of finishers. If there is still a tie, the participants will share whatever prize they have won.
• In the event of the Tour being canceled due to a drug scandal, all entry fees will be returned minus a 5% administrative fee, which will be funneled into a beer fund.
• In the event of a dispute, the Tour Pool administration’s rulings are as God's law, and damned be all who take them lightly!
• Scoring for the Pool is administered by Kris Westwood and his pool of trustworthy assistants. Daily updates will be available on the Tour Pool blog
• Tour Pool results will be considered “official” one week to the hour after the finish of the final stage, and distribution of prizes and kudos will begin. Any subsequent disqualifications will not affect the Pool result
PAYMENT OF ENTRY FEES:
• You can pay in cash at the Cyclery (please address yourself to Kiwi Mike)
• You can also pay your pool entry through Paypal, but there’s one catch: it’ll cost you one dollar more. Paypal does not do this service for free and after it’s gone through their hands and have taken their cut, an 11$ entry ends up being 10$.
So, if you go this route, here’s what you do:
1. Log into www.paypal.com
2. Make a payment of $11CAN to this address: tdf2007@magma.ca
3. In the comments box please tell me your name! If we get an email from, say, lancecheats@hotmail.com we have no idea who this is. Please include your entry with the payment email.
That’s it, you’re done. Time to sit back and enjoy the tour.
If you have any questions email Richard Thomas at that address.
HANDICAP SYSTEM
• There will be no handicaps this year.
THE CYCLERY 2007 TOUR DE FRANCE POOL POINTS SCALES
After each stage, points will be awarded according to the following scales:
• Winner: 15 points
• 2nd = 12
• 3rd = 10
• 4th = 8
• 5th = 6
• 6th = 5
• 7th = 4
• 8th = 3
• 9th = 2
• 10th = 1
• Best team = 3
• Mountains = 2
• Young rider = 1
• Most aggressive = 1
• Abandon = -5
• Positive drug test = -25
• Arrest for drugs or abandoning to avoid arrest = -50
• Team subjected to blood test or police raid = 5
• Team member ejected as a result of above = -10 (per member)
Classification leaders (per day):
• Overall (yellow jersey) = 7 points
• Points (green jersey) = 5
• Mountains (polka dots) = 5
• Team = 7
• Young rider = 5
At the end of the Tour, points will be awarded according to the following scales:
Final overall GC:
• Winner = 25 points
• 2nd = 24
• 3rd = 23 etc.
• … 25th and all other finishers = 1
• Team classification winner = 25
• Team classification 2nd = 15
• Team classification 3rd = 10
• Team classification 4th = 6
• Team classification 5th = 3
• Team classification 6th = 1
• Points classification winner = 20
• Points classification 2nd = 10
• Points classification 3rd = 5
• Points classification 4th = 2
• Mountains classification winner = 20
• Mountains classification 2nd = 10
• Mountains classification 3rd = 5
• Mountains classification 4th = 2
• Young rider winner = 15
• Young rider 2nd = 7
• Young rider 3rd = 3
Special awards:
• Any team that finishes with all 9 riders = 20
• Biggest gap to second place on a stage = 20
• Lanterne rouge (last placed finisher) = 15
• Winning 3 or more stages = 10
2007 The Cyclery Tour de France Pool Preview
Despite drug scandals and legal disputes with team sponsors and the UCI, the monument of cycling – Le Tour de France – is back for 2007, and so is The Cyclery Tour de France Pool.
It’s been a particularly bleak 11 months since the last Tour, with the Floyd Landis drug case still up in the air, continuing fallout from Operation Puerto, and, as if that weren’t enough, an ongoing legal dispute between Tour organizers, ASO, and the UCI over the status of the Unibet.com team (anyone not up to speed on this one can easily find the tiresome details online).
But wait! There’s more!
In a collective orgasm of conscience brought on by the Operation Puerto revelations, a number of former Tour stars have decided to spill their guts about past drug use. Six-time green jersey winner Eric Zabel isn’t welcome at the Tour this year after admitting to using EPO back in 1996, and the retired Rolf Järmann – a stage winner in 1992 – said he freely used EPO back then, but then again, wasn’t everybody?
But it was 1996 Tour winner Bjarne Riis who expectorated the most profusely in the collective soup by admitting he used EPO for six years of his career, including during the Tour that he won. Now, it’s not like anybody in the know didn’t suspect this to be the case already, but it was a bit of a shock to hear it from the Danish horse’s mouth. What makes things worse is that it isn’t like the other riders on the podium back in ’96 deserve the title any more than Riis: second-placed Jan Ullrich retired last year for his intimate involvement in Operation Puerto; and third rider Richard Virenque – the darling of French housewives – became infamous two years later for his involvement in the Festina Affair, subsequent denials, tearful admissions to the French police, suspension, rehabilitation in the Polti team and return to stage-winning and mountains-classification-winning form in subsequent Tours.
So what does this all mean for 2007?
Well, for the second year in a row, there are no favorites. Lance Armstrong, who won from 1999 to 2005, has been retired for two seasons, of course. 2006 winner Floyd Landis is still trying to convince the drug enforcers that he has a third testicle, or whatever new excuse he has found for his testosterone positive last year, before he is inevitably officially stripped of his title. Perennial runner-up Jan Ullrich is persona non grata in cycling thanks to Operation Puerto. Ditto for Ivan Basso, who finally broke down and admitted his indiscretions to the Italian Olympic Committee. The closest there thing to a favorite is 2006 runner-up Oscar Pereiro, but he has had no significant results to date this year as he waits to find out if he’ll be promoted to winner of the ’06 Tour. Third place Andreas Klöden has been mentioned in the revelations around the T-Mobile team …
Now the UCI has stepped in and said that all riders must sign a declaration saying they are drug-free and will forfeit a year’s salary if they test positive. Predictably, many riders have jumped in and signed up immediately, but others refuse to do so. So professional cycling looks set to become mired in yet another controversial and ultimately inconclusive quasi-legal wrangle.
But road cycling is still the most beautiful sport in the world. The majestic sight of the peloton in full flight through the French countryside is unmatched, and without a doubt there will be 198 motivated and well-prepared riders lining up on July 7 in London to give their all for the next three weeks.
The second-most beautiful thing in sports is the 2007 The Cyclery Tour Pool: a wide open contest that pits the intense intellectual strivings of the analytical types against the scatterbrained musings of the more whimsical among us, with no discernable advantage between them.
So, sign up for the Pool and may the luckiest player win! Details on how to enter are on the next message.
-- Kris Westwood
Hey everyone,
I know many of you have been besides yourselves with anticipation, so I may as well let you know that the Cyclery Tour Pool is back for 2007!
The Tour will set off from London on July 7th this year despite all the doping scandals. All this will do is make the race even more exciting, with no clear favorites to pick from.
The Pool will have the same rules, same $10 fee as last year, with half your entry going to the Seenite Sports U23 bursary.
More info is coming; in the meantime, brush up on your stats 'coz you'll need nine riders, a team and a guess of the total number of finishers to play, not to mention your ten clams.
Thanks from the outset to our faithful Tour Pool Management Team: Mhairi Gilmore, Chris Holzauer, Kevin Field, Vince Caceres, Richard Thomas and Mike Leach.
I hope to get your entries soon ...
-- Kris Westwood