Leipheimer robbed?!

Sorry if this is a rehash: I searched before posting and found no
discussion of this.

In the final TdF stage on Sunday, Vino was 2 secs behind Levi. An
early intermediate sprint brought them even (tho it turns out Levi was
..77 secs ahead due to TT sums in earlier stages). The judges froze the
GC due to weather shortly thereafter, and Levi could rightly have
assumed he had 5th. Then Vino (brilliantly) won the stage and received
the 20 sec time bonus to move into 5th ahead of Levi.

Hunh?? How can you freeze and then unfreeze the GC? I can find
nothing about this in the press... it seems the judges changed the
rules after the stage. Had Levi known the GC was still up-for-grabs,
he might have been on Vino's wheel in the last 2km. Doesn't seem fair.

john//

wrote:
Sorry if this is a rehash: I searched before posting and found no
discussion of this.

In the final TdF stage on Sunday, Vino was 2 secs behind Levi. An
early intermediate sprint brought them even (tho it turns out Levi was
.77 secs ahead due to TT sums in earlier stages). The judges froze the
GC due to weather shortly thereafter, and Levi could rightly have
assumed he had 5th. Then Vino (brilliantly) won the stage and received
the 20 sec time bonus to move into 5th ahead of Levi.

Hunh?? How can you freeze and then unfreeze the GC? I can find
nothing about this in the press... it seems the judges changed the
rules after the stage. Had Levi known the GC was still up-for-grabs,
he might have been on Vino's wheel in the last 2km. Doesn't seem fair.




Dumbass -

Who the **** cares about 5th place?


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

a =E9crit :
Sorry if this is a rehash: I searched before posting and found no
discussion of this.

In the final TdF stage on Sunday, Vino was 2 secs behind Levi. An
early intermediate sprint brought them even (tho it turns out Levi was
.77 secs ahead due to TT sums in earlier stages). The judges froze the
GC due to weather shortly thereafter, and Levi could rightly have
assumed he had 5th. Then Vino (brilliantly) won the stage and received
the 20 sec time bonus to move into 5th ahead of Levi.

Hunh?? How can you freeze and then unfreeze the GC? I can find
nothing about this in the press... it seems the judges changed the
rules after the stage. Had Levi known the GC was still up-for-grabs,
he might have been on Vino's wheel in the last 2km. Doesn't seem fair.

Right, it isn't fair. My conjecture is that the referees wanted to
cancel the final time bonusses, but there was no way they could do it
without also cancelling the final points bonusses. Since they wanted to
preserve the points competition, which would decide who would win the
Green Jersey, they had to keep it, and so had to keep the final time
bonus.

The problem is that they failed to inform the racers. By the way, Levi
would have lost his place even on Vino's wheel. Add to this, that Levi
should have tried to be there anyway, independent of the rules. The
fact that he wasn't proves that he deserved what happened.

-ilan

-ilan

wrote:

Right, it isn't fair. My conjecture is that the referees wanted to
cancel the final time bonusses, but there was no way they could do it
without also cancelling the final points bonusses. Since they wanted to
preserve the points competition, which would decide who would win the
Green Jersey, they had to keep it, and so had to keep the final time
bonus.

The problem is that they failed to inform the racers. By the way, Levi
would have lost his place even on Vino's wheel. Add to this, that Levi
should have tried to be there anyway, independent of the rules. The
fact that he wasn't proves that he deserved what happened.

-ilan

From his comments, Levi seemed to know that he needed to stay with
Vino but couldn't:

http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/new...es/8616.0.html

LEVI LEIPHEIMER
"It was a very difficult sprint. It was 2 kilometers uphill. He (Vino)
went big. We had to accelerate to get on the wheel. He let off a
little bit, went again. He basically dropped my teammates, and I was
the only one left on the wheel. He was smart enough to go 90 percen
and then he gave it everything, and I tried to come around but there
was just no way. He was too powerful for me....I still had the same
strategy, to defend. But we were coming into Paris and there were
many crashes and it was very dangerous. I heard on the radio that
the jury had made the decision to take the time on the first line,
and tehre were no more bonuses. It's a little bit confusing, so I
tried to stay near him as much as possible. With half a lap to go
it was all together, all the sprinters teams were there, it was crazy.
Chaos. I lost the wheel. And I thought, if he gets top three now, and
gets the bonus, its pretty amazing. And that's what happened."

WhyTF did they freeze the GC? Because it was raining? That just
doesn't make any sense to freeze something like that, especially when
top-ten gc stadings are being contested.

Thanks for the excerpt. In my opinion, a GC contender should
be able to stay at the front of the race in the last kilometers.
If he can't then he is liable to crash out, as has happened in
the past to Lepheimer.

Note that in the first TdF road stage in 1993, there was a split
and 30 riders were off the front in the last kilometers and
among those riders was Lance Armstrong in his first Tour.

-ilan

Mike Bruno a =E9crit :
wrote:

Right, it isn't fair. My conjecture is that the referees wanted to
cancel the final time bonusses, but there was no way they could do it
without also cancelling the final points bonusses. Since they wanted to
preserve the points competition, which would decide who would win the
Green Jersey, they had to keep it, and so had to keep the final time
bonus.

The problem is that they failed to inform the racers. By the way, Levi
would have lost his place even on Vino's wheel. Add to this, that Levi
should have tried to be there anyway, independent of the rules. The
fact that he wasn't proves that he deserved what happened.

-ilan

From his comments, Levi seemed to know that he needed to stay with
Vino but couldn't:

http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/new...es/8616.0.html

LEVI LEIPHEIMER
"It was a very difficult sprint. It was 2 kilometers uphill. He (Vino)
went big. We had to accelerate to get on the wheel. He let off a
little bit, went again. He basically dropped my teammates, and I was
the only one left on the wheel. He was smart enough to go 90 percen
and then he gave it everything, and I tried to come around but there
was just no way. He was too powerful for me....I still had the same
strategy, to defend. But we were coming into Paris and there were
many crashes and it was very dangerous. I heard on the radio that
the jury had made the decision to take the time on the first line,
and tehre were no more bonuses. It's a little bit confusing, so I
tried to stay near him as much as possible. With half a lap to go
it was all together, all the sprinters teams were there, it was crazy.
Chaos. I lost the wheel. And I thought, if he gets top three now, and
gets the bonus, its pretty amazing. And that's what happened."

Kurgan Gringioni says...

Dumbass -

Who the **** cares about 5th place?

****, I'd settle for 20th. You'd come in your shorts for 19th, just to say you
beat me, dumbass.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Sorry if this is a rehash: I searched before posting and found no
discussion of this.


Dumbass -

Look harder. Try the thread: 'Did Vino Know?'

Gerolsteiner screwed the pooch.

I thought this was about Odessa spending his money.

RVD

Obviously Vino cared.

Bob P.

"Kurgan Gringioni" wrote in message
ups.com...


wrote:
Sorry if this is a rehash: I searched before posting and found no
discussion of this.

In the final TdF stage on Sunday, Vino was 2 secs behind Levi. An
early intermediate sprint brought them even (tho it turns out Levi was
.77 secs ahead due to TT sums in earlier stages). The judges froze the
GC due to weather shortly thereafter, and Levi could rightly have
assumed he had 5th. Then Vino (brilliantly) won the stage and received
the 20 sec time bonus to move into 5th ahead of Levi.

Hunh?? How can you freeze and then unfreeze the GC? I can find
nothing about this in the press... it seems the judges changed the
rules after the stage. Had Levi known the GC was still up-for-grabs,
he might have been on Vino's wheel in the last 2km. Doesn't seem fair.




Dumbass -

Who the **** cares about 5th place?


thanks,

K. Gringioni.