FINAL RESULTS

Final results have been tallied, congratulations to ... well me, for winning with 2010 points. This comes down to pure luck, having been the only team to include Philippe Gilbert, Jose Rojas and Thomas Voeckler, 3 of the highest scoring riders in the league.

Cadel Evans was the highest scoring rider of the league, gaining 835 points, closely followed by Gilbert and Thor Hushovd.

There were riders, such as Jeremy Roy, who scored an equally high number, but none that were chosen by league teams.

Final Results:

1- Team Heeead 2010 points

2- Team M&M 1777 points

3- Team Mucho Mucho Caliente 1637 points

4- Team Type 2 1522 points

5- Team Blood Doping 1481 points

6- Team Dutch Riley 1431 points

7- Team Peak Contenders 1311 points

8- Team The Retirees 1214 points

9- Team Money 1050 points

10- Team Fast and Random 1025 points

11- Team Hanan/Thompson Cycling 994 points

12 - Team 23 days, 23 sexy days 978 points

13- Team Grease 961 points

14- Team My Boys 929 points

Stage 18

The first time the Tour de France has ever finished atop of the legendary Col du Galibier, today should have been a day for the favourites to come together and attack.

However today was decided by 1 man alone, the champion in waiting Andy Schleck took the race by the horns almost 60km from the finish and attacked on the 2nd HC climb of the day solo to come very close to now winning his first Tour de France.

His victory, finishing alone atop of the highest ever finish in Tour history, marks the coming of a true champion and (I would guess) future victor of many Grand Tours.

The day started with a large break getting away containing many riders from the teams of the GC contenders. The 2 Leopard riders in this break ended up helping Andy gain his huge 4 minute advantage as he rode toward the finish.

It was also his brother however who continually stalked the 3 time Tour winner Alberto Contador, shutting down any chance of an attack and intimidating the Spaniard to just stay back, that allowed Andy to get his lead and take the win. Contador ended up however falling considerably back in the final km's of the last climb to lose even more time and finally fall out of contention.

In the last 2km Cadel Evans, desperately pushing to hold on to his tour hopes, rode his way back into contention and in turn dragged Frenchman Tommy Voeckler back into the yellow jersey. Voeckler has now held the jersey for 10 days and in doing so has proven himself as one of the top French riders of the past 15 years.

It all comes down to the next 2 days where tomorrow, still in the Alps, the riders have to scale the Galibier once more and finish on the Alpe d'Huez. No doubt Andy Schleck will be very tired and will have to defend his 60 second advantage over Evans...who will look to crawl it all back the day after in the 42km ITT.

Fantasy League:

The fantasy league teams who had Schleck have all gained serious points today. His breakaway 60km from the finish gained him an extra 50 points for winning from a break, plus his award for most combative rider gained him another 40. In total he earned 198 points today, the third highest achieved by any rider in this years league, bringing his total up to 373 points for the race.

A lot of teams made up serious ground on their league competitors, with team "My Boys" who after having been in last place since Stage 1 are edging ever closer to not being in the final position. They are now only 49 points away from 13th position and if Nicholas Roche can have another strong day tomorrow they may move that important place up.

The final 4 teams in the league look pretty stable otherwise with over 100 points between 10th and 11th place.

The brother sister fight taking place between 9th and 10th is coming down to the wire. Team Grease strode ahead yesterday after the impressive showing by Bauke Mollema. However if Sylvain Chavanel can perform strongly tomorrow Team "23 days, 23 sexy days" may overtake and move into 9th.

Positions 5th-8th are all up for grabs heading into the final big day in the mountains. Exactly 100 points separate the 4 teams all lining up for a strong final day to try and secure positions heading to Paris. These teams are relying on strong showings by Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans, Frank Schleck, Nicholas Roche and Thomas Voeckler in tomorrows stage.

The 2nd/3rd and 4th spot are all held within 140 points so there is definitely room for movement there also, however these teams are relying on riders such as Chavanel, Voeckler and Cunego to make up their points and tomorrow probably isn't a day for them. That said Voeckler and Cunego could surprise us all.

1st spot, as it has been from the start, is still held on to by Team Heeead. After today's stage Team Heeead's lead is the narrowest it has been over the course of the tour and though the lead has been reducing steadily it looks as if they may just hold on and win in Paris. With Jose Rojas likely to do well in the final stage it looks as if luck may be on their side. After losing the 3 main GC contenders on their team roster, Horner, Van den Broeck and John Gadret they have done exceptionally well with Philippe Gilbert and in the past week have been holding on by the skin of their teeth through Voeckler and the surprise performances of Julien El Fares in the breaks.

Tomorrow will be the day to decide it all, can the league teams make up any final ground before the time trial? And can Andy Schleck make up a few more seconds on Evans before the final deciding Time Trial on Saturday.

It all kicks off tomorrow, so keep watching.

Stage 12

Dust has started to settle on top of Luz Ardiden after the explosive stage that finished today on top of the first Pyreneean mountain of the 2012 Tour de France.

Favourites were thrust out of their comfort zones and out of the protection of their teams, Cadel Evans, Frank and Andy Schleck, Ivan Basso, Samuel Sanchez, Damiano Cunego and Alberto Contador all ended up doing neck and neck on the final 10km of the 13.1km to Luz Ardiden.

Sanchez got off to an impressive start getting into a break building up around 2 minutes on the chasing favourites. They were all stalking each other (Sanchez no immediate threat to the GC today) with the Schleck's lining up to start toying with the field.

First Andy went, swiftly covered by Cadel and Basso - Contador slightly on the backfoot. But then Contador rose to the front and the Schleck's began discussions. Then it was Franks turn, surging from the front, the move covered again by the 3 time Tour winner and Australian former World Champion. Once again Andy surged, this time less convincingly and up the outside Frank was fired toward the top of the mountain, unchallenged.

Frank Schleck rode to the top without strain or upset from the riders behind, swiftly closing in on the 2 riders still up the road - Sanchez and Vanendert.

The chasing GC pack of Basso, Evans, Schleck, Cunego and Contador were following but not without Basso, Evans and Schleck putting some time into Contador. The Spaniard dropped 13 seconds on the closing slopes of Luz Ardiden to the elite front group, something no one has seen from the usually unshakable Contador in recent years.

Fantasy League:

Unfortunately for fantasy league players no one had selected Samuel Sanchez for their team, so the 123 points he earned today goes unclaimed. Though this has been a common theme throughout the league with Rui Costa taking an unclaimed 204 points on stage 8 and Jeremy Roy so far racking up well over 300 points unclaimed in this years fantasy league.

The highest scoring fantasy league rider was Geraint Thomas picking up 93 points and Frank Schleck the second highest scoring picked rider at 55 points.

Tomorrow the riders travel from Pau South to Lourdes cresting the HC category climb of the Col de l'Aubiqsue 110km into the stage. No uphill finish however I wouldn't count on a sprint finish. Undoubtedly there will be pushes on the descent and riders trying to get to the finish in a break from the climb - look for Thomas Voeckler doing his utmost to stay in yellow and guys like Sandy Casar, Anthony Charteau and Jerome Pineau doing their best to get a stage win the day after Bastille day.

Stage 11

The day before the fireworks for many. Tomorrow marks the start of the mountains and with it the true tests of the race will begin. However today's shorter 168km stage took the riders through torrential rain that almost allowed the break to stay away.

In the end however a slightly less organised than usual HTC lead out train took Mark Cavendish to yet another Tour victory. He is now sitting at 18 tour stage wins, in 8th place of all time, only 4 behind that of Lance Armstrong and 16 behind the all time record of 34 set by Eddy Merckx.

Most fantasy teams have lost riders this week, with all but 3 (Team Money, Peak Contenders and Mucho Mucho Caliente) down at least 1 rider. Some have lost 3 and 4.

Going into the mountains I would expect serious mix ups in the leaderboard. Many teams who currently have high points have been propped up this week by their sprinters, having lost their GC riders to accidents. Hopefully the mountains will prove an exciting test for both the riders and the fantasy teams.

It all starts tomorrow!

Riders out

Today on this, the first rest day of the 2011 Tour de France, the race has lost yet another cyclist.

Up until this point 18 riders have either withdrawn, missed the time cut off or been removed from the race by the doctors. However today, Russian national champion Alexandr Kolobnev looks to have been removed due to doping offences.

He failed a drugs test in the first week of the tour for a diuretic and known masking agent used in blood doping.

His Katusha squad is now down to just 7 riders, though as you can see from the list below some teams are worse off heading into the first week in the mountains.

Astana - Alexandre Vinokourov/Stage 9/Fractured Femur

Euskaltel Euskadi - Amets Txurruka/Stage 9/Broken Collarbone

Euskaltel Euskadi - Ivan Velasco/Stage 5/Broken Collarbone

FDJ - Remi Pauriol/Stage 7/Broken Collarbone

Garmin Cervelo - David Zabriske/Stage 9/Broken wrist

Katusha - Alexandr Kolobnev/Rest Day/Drugs

Katusha - Pavel Brutt/Stage 9

Movistar - Benat Intxausti/Stage 8/Elbow

Movistar - Vasil Kiryenka/Stage 6/Time Limit

Omega Pharma - Jurgen Van Den Broeck/Stage 9/Collapsed Lung, broken ribs

Omega Pharma - Frederick Willems/Stage 9/Broken Collarbone

Omega Pharma - Jurgen Van De Valle/Stage 4/Broken Collarbone

Quickstep - Tom Boonen/Stage 7/Broken Collarbone

Rabobank - Juan Manuel Garate/Stage 8

Radioshack - Christopher Horner/Stage 7/Broken Nose and concussion

Radioshack - Janez Brajkovic/Stage 5

Team Europcar - Christophe Kern/Stage 4/Knee injury

Team Sky - Bradley Wiggins/Stage 7/Broken Collarbone

Vacansolei-DCM - Wout Poels/Stage 9

Many teams will be down men heading into the mountains, some down team leaders. The only thing we can say for sure is everyone is tired and most teams, even if riders did not have to abandon, still suffered injuries during the first week.

The Schleck's, Nicholas Roche and Cadel Evans might be the only riders in the whole peleton who have a full strength team still behind them heading into the Pyrenees.

Stage 9

What a day.

In fact, today with it's crashes and incidents one after the other, seemed to be the perfect summary of the first 9 days of the tour. A first week filled with crashes and top riders feeling the force of the French roads on their bikes and bodies, one which saw many top contenders lose all sight of the victory in Paris, has now come to a close with a magnificent day in the Massif Central.

Tomorrow is the first of 2 rest days and the peleton will sure be reeling from today's effort. A rest is certainly what they need.

The first crash of the day came early claiming Euskaltel-Euskadi's Amets Txurruka and Vacansolei's Wout Powels. The second came on the descent from the Cat 2 Pas de Peyrol claiming the tour chances of Alexandre Vinokourov (broken femur and elbow), Jurgen Van den Broeck (collerbone), Fredrik Williems (collerbone) and Dave Zabriske (wrist).

It was then 36km from the finish where in the highly effective breakaway group of Sandy Casar, Thomas Voeckler, Luis Leon Sanchez, Johnny Hoogerland and Juan Antonio Flecha where a French TV car attempted to overtake the group. Half way through the manoeuvre the car violently swerved into the group sending Hoogerland and Flecha careering into a barbed wire fence on the opposite side of the road. Amazingly however both survived and finished the stage within the cut off time, Hoogerland however suffered severe wounds to his lower legs...though regained the Polka Dot jersey and took the Combativity prize along with Flecha.

Leon Sanchez went on to take the stage, finishing ahead of the remaining breakaway riders of Voeckler and Casar. Gilbert took the first spot out of the dwindling peleton of favourites who came in some 5 minutes in arrears.

Tuesday sees the start of the "run to the Pyrenees" with the mayhem beginning on Thursday with the climb up to Luz-Ardiden.

Stage 6

The first rainy stage in the Tour today. After yesterdays amazing sprint finish, Cavendish took a back seat at HTC Highroad today to allow for Australian Sprinter Matthew Goss to have a go at the win. The 3 short climbs coming into the finish allowed the final break riders to be caught and good ole Thomas Voeckler to have a go before the big boys lined up for a sprint finish.

Jose Rojas, Thor Hushovd, Romain Feillu and Philippe Gilbert all lined up at the line with team Sky rider Edvald Boassen Hagen just getting there first - his first stage at the Tour.

The break of the day included Lieuwe Westra and Johnny Hoogerland who must have only just recovered from their previous breakaway rides in stages 1 and 4. Their gap strengthened to 10 minutes at one point before being pulled in towards the final km's of the day.

Most of the classifications remain the same with Thor Hushovd still in yellow, Philippe Gilbert in Green and Geraint Thomas in White. Johnny Hoogerland however takes his first career jersey and will ride in polka dot tomorrow.

Tomorrows stage takes the riders south from Le Mans for 218km arriving in Chateauroux for a sprint finish. No categorised climbs feature tomorrow so expect a long break and a bunch sprint, watch out for Mark Cavendish.

Fantasy League

Some big movers today as the teams featuring Boassen Hagen make big gains. It was his first win at the tour so he picked up the 50 point "first stage win" bonus. Team M&M moved from 7th to 2nd and Team Type 2 (even after losing Janez Brajkovic yesterday) moved from 8th into 3rd.

Team Heeead is still out front due to the successes of Philippe Gilbert and Jose Rojas and Team "My Boys" is still in the lantern rouge spot after Andy Schleck, Fabian Cancellara and Nicholas Roche have yet to score serious points.

League stats

Stage 6 scoring riders: 48

Stage 6 high scoring rider: Edvald Boassen Hagen - 110

Highest scoring rider in single stage: Philippe Gilbert - 195

Highest scoring rider total points: Philippe Gilbert - 391

Second highest scoring rider: Jose Rojas - 241

Third highest scoring rider: Thor Husvhod - 226

Stage 4

Cadel Evans took his first true win at a stage in the Tour today. Though he was awarded a win in stage 13 of the 2007 in retrospect upon Alex Vinokourov's doping ban - today was his first outright stage victory.

The stage finished with a sharp 1.7km Cat 3 rise to the finish, known as the "wall" of Bretagne for a reason. It was an incredibly elite group who finished together after the 172km stage. Contador initially attacked with 1.4km to go, followed by Philippe Gilbert and Evans. Thor Hushovd was in the mix all the way to the line even taking over the attack at one point. Because of his efforts he will retain the yellow jersey - quite a feat for the world champion seeing as those attacking on the climb included Evans, Contador, Frank Schleck and Sammy Sanchez - some of the best climbers in the world.

It was certainly a good day for Thor, there is little doubt that he will now retain the yellow jersey for the remainder of the first week.

Evans was also a surprise winner, though very close to the yellow jersey going into the stage it was tipped as Gilbert's stage. When Contador attacked, clearly with something to prove, few doubted he (or the following Gilbert) would win. So for the Australian to have matched everyones wheel, move for move, is a very good sign heading into the mountains next week.

Fantasy League

Today saw the highest number yet of riders to receive points in a stage. A total of 50 riders achieved points today from 76 points going to breakaway instigator and the stage's most aggresive rider Jeremy Roy all the way down to 1 point for Maciej Paterski, currently ranked 10th in the White Jersey classification.

Those with Evans on their team picked up big points today. The BMC rider netted a total of 75 fantasy points, Thor Hushovd and Frank Schleck also picked up quite a few.

Team Heeead is still way out front, thanks largely to the success of Jose Rojas and Philippe Gilbert in the first few stages. Both were first time wearers of their respective jerseys and have finished high up in each of the first 3 road stages. Both of these riders however should, if all goes as is expected, fall by the wayside in the mountains as the true climbers come to form, so it will be very interesting to see how the leader board changes over the next 10 days.

Tomorrow is a shorter 164km stage with another bunch sprint to finish. The final 70k are all coastal though with high winds expected. Expect peleton splits and riders attacking in the final 10-15km...look for those classics guys and expect Hushovd to be right at the front.

Stage 3

A sprinters stage today in the Tour took the riders 198km from Olonnes-sur-mer to Redon further North. The only "climb" of the day, a short Cat 4 bridge crossing caused some serious problems for the peleton as a major split occured leaving favourites such as Sylvain Chavanel and Ivan Basso with some ground to make up.

The breakaway got off to a good start within the first 3km of the stage and built up a lead of no more than 5 minutes. They lasted well and went through the intermediate sprint taking the top 5 spots of the points classification. The riders, none of which are featured in any of the fantasy league teams this year, finally broke down with around 20km to go, though Jose Gutierrez (former Spanish TT champion) pushed on until 8km to go.

Into the final 2km and the sprinters teams who had been working hard for the 8km prior began to seriously ramp up the pace. HTC seemed to have things under control though with 1km to go Cavendish lost the wheel and their train fell apart. It was Garmin-Cervelo who stepped up to take over with yellow jersey wearer Thor Hushovd taking a huge turn on the front to slingshot Tyler Farrar to his first ever Tour de France stage victory.

Fantasy League

Today's win for Farrar sent shockwaves through the fantasy league leader board. Team M&M gained a huge 132 points from the success of Farrar and Edvald Boassen Hagen amongst others and shot from 8th to 2nd place. Team Type 2 also rocketed into 3rd position.

Yesterdays lantern rouge winner, Hanan/Thompson Cycling, went from last to 8th place today just showing how much difference one rider can make to a teams points haul - especially early on in the race.

Most teams have now picked up a good level of points from one of their riders with Thor Hushovd, Jose Rojas, Philippe Gilbert and Tyler Farrar each netting over 100 points each at this stage. The lagging teams, perhaps more suited for the mountains, will undoubtedly gather some significant points once we hit the Pyrenees.

Tomorrows stage is another sprinters day though with the deceivingly tough Mur-de-Bretange to get over I think there may be some fireworks on the horizon.

Stage 2

Stage 2 and the Team Time Trial over and done with today in France. A good result for Garmin-Cervelo sees Thor Hushovd pick up his 3rd career yellow jersey who will hope to now carry it throughout the first week.

With 3 flat stages next on the agenda Hushovd will undoubtadely (barring any crashes or serious mechanicals) be in the yellow for a while. Even up until the race hits more mountaineous stages 8 and 9 both with tougher uphill finishes, I suspect Thor will remain in yellow. He is a tough rider who can roll through the hills unlike some of his other Sprinter counterparts.

Unfortunately for Alberto Contador his Saxo Bank Sungard team did nothing to help his time losses in today's stage. After his relatively large losses of 01' 20" in yesterdays events he lost a further 00' 22" to the lead today and is now sitting 01' 38" behind most of his main competition.

After Andy Schleck staying exactly with Contador in the mountains in last years race and only losing by the 00' 39" margin Contador put on Schleck when the Luxembourger dropped his chain - I would think the Spaniard will be getting nervous about this years race...especially considering the Giro already lingering in his legs.

Tomorrow holds a day for the sprinters, with no doubt HTC's Mark Cavendish looking for his first win of the Tour. The mainly flat 198km will take the riders from Olonne-sur-Mer to Redon further North.

League Rankings:

Some more movers and shakers today in the league rankings, many points were gained with the overnight calculation errors (see below) having been addressed. But also due to Garmin's win today and Thor Hushovd's move to the top of the GC many teams picked up points.

Team My Boys moved off the bottom spot and joined Team Fast and Random in a tie for 11th. Hanan/Thompson Cycling is now in the lantern rouge spot! An interesting intrafamily battle is happening already for 4th spot where the 3 Akeroyd siblings are within 4 points. No doubt things will shake up again tomorrow with the allocation of more sprint points and no doubt another breakaway...who will be picking up most of the intermediate sprint points.

Some initial calculation hurdles have been overcome in the fantasy league in the past 24 hours, much to be expected seeing this is the first edition. Firstly the points yesterday weren't accurately calculated for the breakaway riders, some missing out on their 15 point breakaway bonuses. Then today it was decided to award the riders in Garmin-Cervelo the 5 point "Team mate stage winner" bonus as the Tour does not award points for finishers in the TTT. Also there was some confusion as to the validity of the Polka dot Jersey classification yesterday and today.

Overnight no leaders had been posted or points awarded for riders in the top 10 of the mountains classification - however after consideration and an emergency officials meeting it was decided today, seeing as Gilbert is listed as leader of the Mountains Classification and Thor Hushovd today was de facto wearer of the polka dot jersey (as Gilbert was in yellow and Evans de facto wearer of the Green) points will be applied in retrospect for yesterdays Polka Dot leaders.

All updated points and rankings can be find to the right and left hand side of this post.

Stage 1 GC confusion

With the crashes that occurred at both 8km and 3km to go there was initial confusion as to who finished where and who had lost time. I can confirm the main GC contenders and their overall GC positions and time gaps after day 1 below:

2nd Cadel Evans - 00' 03"

5th Jurgen Van den Broeck - 00' 06"

7th Andreas Kloden

10th Chris Horner

12th Frank Schleck

15th Damiano Cunego

17th Alexandre Vinokourov

19th Nicholas Roche

33rd Andy Schleck

38th Levi Leipheimer

39th Janez Brajkovic

44th Ivan Basso

50th Bradley Wiggins

75th Robert Gesink

79th Samuel Sanchez - 01' 20"

82nd Alberto Contador

96th Ryder Hesjedal - 01' 55"

99th Roman Kreuziger

Those numbers may look significant, especially the 01' 17" gap from Evans to Contador but with multiple bumpy stages between here and the mountains where team tactics and peleton breaks are likely...not forgetting more crashes PLUS tomorrows team time trial, I think the leader board might be changing a lot before we hit the Pyrenees.

Stage 1

The race got off to an explosive start today with world number 1 and by far best performing rider of 2011 Philippe Gilbert darting away on the final climb to claim his first TDF stage victory and first ever yellow jersey.

The race went to plan up until 8km to go with a small 3 man break consisting of:

Jeremy Roy - FDJ

Lieuwe Westra - Vacansolei-DCM

Perrig Quemeneur - Team Europcar

forming after just 53 seconds of official racing. They went on to hold a lead of around 4 minutes until the gaps started to drop nearer the finish. With around 20km to go they were caught at the team of former French Champion Thomas Voekcler went to work at the front.

With 8km to go a major crash mid pack took down around 40 riders and split the peleton in 2, with Team Europcar still pushing on the front this gap opened up quickly. Alberto Contador, Robert Gessink, Sammy Sanchez, Andy Schleck and Levi Leipheimer were among those caught out.

Onto the final Cat 4 climb to the finish and with the gap now approaching 1 minute to the second group it was Alexandre Vinokourov who initiated the attack, being quickly chased down as passed by a charging Fabian Cancellara. With 500m to go Philippe Gilbert who had been positioning himself for the win throughout the finishing stages surged past Cancellara to victory, his first ever in the tour. Cadel Evans finished second, putting valuable time into his rivals.

Fantasy League:

Gilbert was the big fantasy points winner of the day, picking up 20 for being top of the GC and Points classifications, 50 for his first ever stage win, 40 for being in the yellow jersey for the first time and 40 for being in the green jersey for the first time (though it will be worn by Evans tomorrow due to also being in the yellow). His total points haul was 195, the most by more than 120 points.

Due to winning the combativity prize, plus being present in the break and picking up 15 points at the sprint it was Europcar's Perrig Quemeneur who picked up the next most points at 70. Though he is not included in any of this years fantasy squads.

The leading team by a large margin heading into day 2 is Team Heeead with a staggering 294 points, 220 points more than the team in 2nd place. This was hugely down to this team being the only in the league to include Philippe Gilbert but also picking up points for Team Heeead were Chris Horner, Jose Rojas and Jurgen Van den Broeck.

I am happy to say that all teams picked up points in the opening day, with the lantern rouge on day 1 going to team "My Boys" who thanks to Linus Gerdemann's 11th place finish picked up 10 points.

It will definitely be interesting to see how things shape up tomorrow at the team time trial.

Hope you all enjoyed the first day, it was more explosive than we all thought, get some rest and wake up early for stage 2 tomorrow.

Enjoy the weekend!

The Tour

Well ladies and gentlemen the race is upon us.

Entries are in for this, the first annual Tour de France Fantasy League, and in just a few short hours the 191km first stage of this years race will begin. The first 2 days of this years race will be 2 of the most decisive in recent years. Day 1 holds a cat 4 climb finish where all the tough "finisseur" and Classics riders will be up for the fight. Day 2 holds the Team Time Trial and will no doubt put some valuable time between the main contenders.

The 2011 Tour de France Fantasy League in numbers...

Total Teams: 13

Nations represented: 4

Most picked rider: Fabian Cancellara (chosen by over 50% of players)

Most picked team leader: Andy Schleck

Most picked team: Leopard Trek (21 total picks)

Least picked teams: FDJ and Saur Sojasun (zero picks between them)

It will be interesting to see how the race pans out for the leagues most picked rider Cancellara. The dominant yellow jersey wearer in the first week in 3 of the past 4 TDF's he will undoubtedly struggle more in this years race, with only 1 shorter time trial and no prologue.

It was no surprise to see Leopard Trek emerge as the most picked team. The new "Schleck" brothers outfit hosts a plethora of tour favourites including, of course, both Schlecks, Cancellara, Jens Voigt and Stuart O'Grady - it will be interesting to see how the team fairs in the overall team standings against the possibly stronger teams of Radioshack and Garmin-Cervelo.

Quickstep with its incredible showing in 2010 thanks mainly to the efforts of Sylvain Chavanel have also faired well in the Fantasy League selection process. Chavanel was selected in 4 teams and his team-mates picked up another 7 selections.

Good luck to all who entered, this is hopefully the first year of many future leagues so bare with me, I've hopefully got everything set-up to make this process fun, fair and fast.

Enjoy!

Useful links

If you haven't already picked your team...

Here is a link highlighting the top 10 contenders - CLICK HERE

Here is a link for the official Tour start list, if any riders are on here that aren't included in my lists please let me know and I will amend the pdf's - CLICK HERE

Plus here is an official stage preview - CLICK HERE

All major rider changes are listed below:

In Team Garmin-Cervelo Johan Van Summeren has been replaced in the line up by veteran David Millar. There categories and points will remain the same.

Christophe Riblon and Edvald Boassen Hagen, both riders who could have good showings this year are still "unsure" as to their condition. Riblon is getting over a back issue and Hagen stuggling with Shingles. I will keep everyone up to date with the situation.

On the Team Katusha line up Pavel Brutt and Egor Silin have been added to the roster replacing Arguelyes and Ovechkin. Both new riders will be classified as 6 point domestiques.

And finally HTC have added sprinter Bernard Eisel to their squad who will act as another leadout man for leader Mark Cavendish. Eisel is ranked as a 12 point sprinter.

Rider updates and the National Championships'

A few rider updates heading into the final Pre-Tour week.

FDJ climbing guru Pierrick Fedrigo has decided to pull out of his teams line up for this years race due to an on going back injury. The veteran Frenchman won a stage at last years race and this year would be his 8th consecutive start.

FDJ will line up with other French veterans Sandy Casar and Anthony Roux and will hope to have a successful year as one of the 4 wild card teams in this years race.

A pre race illness seems to have the race chances of Team Sky wonder boy Edvald Boassen Hagen on the ropes after he was diagnosed with shingles last week. The 24 year old Norwegian is a 5 time national time trial champion and finished 6th in the points classification at last years Tour de France. His withdrawal is not yet official and I will update as things are announced.

This weekend past was that of the National Cycling championships around the world. This can often be the ideal indicator as to pre Tour de France form for many of the top riders. Here is a link to the results summary (http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/2011-national-champions-summary) but shake ups of note include the pre race favourite in France - Tommy Voeckler of Team Europcar being out ridden by Sylvain Chavanel and Anthony Roux with Chavanel just clinching the victory. All 3 were in an aggressive mood and broke from the pack with 27km to go finishing well in front of the remaining field.

In the Spanish Road championships pre tour favourite Alberto Contador broke away on the final climb along with Movistar sprinter Jose Rojas and was out sprinted by 1 second to steal the national title - which Contador has never won. Rojas will be a hot contender in the points classification at this years race following his 4th place finish in the Green Jersey competition last year.

There were no surprises however in the Belgian nationals when UCI world rankings leader and 2011 show stopper Philippe Gilbert finally stole his first national championship after 4 times finishing second. He broke the field in 2 with 100km to go and pushed hard from the front, with 2km to go on a cobbled section he made his move and went on to win. He will be a hard man to beat in some of the up and coming stages of this years Tour de France.

Also some additional information the Team Europcar riders: Yohan Gene, Vincent Jerome, Perrig Quemeneur and Sebastian Turgot have all been added to this years line up. They are free to be added to your squads with all being classified as "Domestiques" and all will be worth 3 points, excluding Turgot who will also be a "Domestique" but valued at 9 points after his 7th place Points Classification finish at last years race.

Good luck in choosing your squads and remember to get the forms back asap,

Mike

Rider Lists OUT

The official Fantasy League riders lists have been released. If you haven't received the email with the entry form, rule summary, riders points and riders categories fire me an email : mikaadams@hotmail.com

Do your research!

Mike

Shake Ups!

Plenty of shake ups in the world of cycling over the weekend.

With only 12 days to go until the start of the 2011 Tour de France teams are frantically shuffling and reshuffling their provisional start lists before the cut off date for team rosters passes next week. However the task is proving ever difficult this season with the emergence of some new and very genuine threats to what has become in recent years Alberto Contador's race.

In the Tour de Suisse an all but wrapped up race for Lampre-ISD's Damiano Cunego was taken away from him on the final ITT by the veteran Radioshack rider Levi Leipheimer. Levi stormed the final 32km ITT to pip Cunego to the top spot of the podium by a sliver of 4 seconds. There were other shuffles in the final GC also as Rabobank's young Bauke Mollema falls to 5th and pre race favourite Frank Schleck to 7th.

This has also put a spin on the pre tour UCI world rankings with Cunego and Leipheimer shooting up the rankings to 20th and 18th respectively. Andreas Kloden, Kruijswijk, Fuglsang and Mollema have all climbed up to higher positions within the top 50 also.

All you have to do is look at the preparation of some of these riders in the past few months to see that they are clearly aiming for victory, or at least a podium in Paris. Though not a new threat but still a huge one, BMC's Cadel Evans has gone through all the necessary pre tour steps and races to get himself in the best shape possible - BMC also announced yesterday a highly "Cadel" focussed team for this years race that will sacrifice everything they have to try and get their team leader the top spot on the podium. However it is in riders such as Robert Gesink, Jurgen Van Den Broek, Nicholas Roche, Benat Intxausti and of course Andy Schleck who I believe will be the real challengers in this year's race. They have all been put in teams that are almost entirely centred around putting them in the best position for victory and they have all been through rigorous pre tour training and race sharpening events throughout Europe.

That said I wouldn't count out the old boys yet. As I mentioned Cadel Evans is in the form of his life heading into this years race, put that alongside a very much on form Bradley Wiggins, Ryder Hesejdal, Andreas Kloden and Levi Leipheimer and you have yourself a race.

This years tour could be the best in decades. Count on attacks, aggression, team tactics, fighting, crashes, sprints and breakaways - it's going to be a fight to the death out there.

Tour de Suisse

This years Tour de Suisse, while not coming to a close until after Sunday's 32km ITT, already looks - baring any crashes - wrapped up by Lampre ISD's Italian superstar Damiano Cunego. This looks to be good news for the Lampre squad who have been supporting Cunego since he joined in 2005 after his Giro D'Italia win in 2004 at the young age of 22.

He has since had a relatively quiet career always placing well in overall standings but baring 2 more top 10 finishes in the Giro, a win at the 2008 Amstel Gold race and best young rider in the 2006 Tour, has yet to rack up another major victory.

This year however he has been performing well and is now back inside the UCI world top 75 after picking up a stage at the Tour de Romandie. After now looking to have wrapped up the definite "pre Tour fitness" race at the Tour de Suisse it will be very interestng to see how he fairs against Lampre's newest addition - 3rd ranked in the world this year - Michele Scarponi come the Tour next month.

The stages thus far at this years TDS have turned out in the following fashion:

Stage 1 prologue: Cancellara 1st - 9 seconds in front of Tejay Van Garderen in 2nd

Stage 2 149km mountains: Movistar's Juan Moricio Soler breaks from Cunego, Frank Schleck and Danilo Di Luca to take the win

Stage 3 107km mountains: Peter Sagan from Liquigas pips Damiano Cunego to the finish in a very close few meters

Stage 4 198km rollers: Thor Hushovd finally picks up his first stage win of the year to outsprint Peter Sagan from Liquigas

Stage 5 204km flat: Vacansolei's team work paid off for Borut Bozic as they outsmart the sprinters teams to beat Oscar Friere and once again...Peter Sagan to pick up the win

Stage 6 157km mountains: After his impressive top 10 in the Giro D'Italia Rabobank's Steven Kruijswijk outclimbs the rest of the field to take an impressive win atop of the HC Triesenberg/Malbun ascent

Stage 7 222km mountains: Large 17 man break propels Andy Schleck and Vacansolei's Thomas De Gendt to a final attack - De Gendt took the win with Schleck a further 35 seconds back.

Tomorrow is the final full stage of racing before the final 32km ITT on Sunday. The GC, as mentioned, is currently looking well wrapped up by Cunego and I have summarised the top 50 below. Assuming all things stay the same Damiano will take the win and himself along with Frank Schleck, Bauke Mollema and Steven Kuijswijk will all be heading into the Tour with some confidence.

GC Summary

1st - 27:09:49 Damiano Cunego

2nd - 0:01:23 Bauke Mollema

3rd - 0:01:36 Steven Kruijswijk

4th - 0:01:41 Frank Schleck

5th - 0:01:59 Levi Leipheimer

12th - 0:05:15 Maxime Monfort

20th - 0:16:18 Andy Schleck

22nd - 0:19:30 Ryder Hesjedal

41nd - 0:34:52 Andreas Kloden

UCI rankings, Cadel Evans and the French team line-up

UCI World Rankings

With the Criterium du Dauphine officially finished and GBR's Bradley Wiggins taking his first major race win of his Pro Tour career the UCI World Rankings have shuffled around considerably from this time 2 months ago pre Giro D'Italia.

Not only are they used by the world governing body to decide how many rider's each nation will be able to field at the World Championships but they are a very useful tool for cycling buffs who want to evaluate rider's performances across a season.

Since wrapping up the Dauphine in France yesterday Wiggins, Cadel Evans and Alexandre Vinokourov have all moved up the rankings - now sitting in 12th, 4th and 7th positions. Early season classics start Philippe Gilbert of Belgian team OmegaPharma-Lotto is in the narrow lead of Giro winner Alberto Contador. The convincing winner and clearly in good form Joaquin Rodriguez of Team Katusha is sitting in 5th with other TDF GC rivals Sammy Sanchez and Robert Gessink in 13th and 14th.

UCI World Rankings top 20

1 Philippe Gilbert - 356 points

2 Alberto Contador - 349 points

3 Michele Scarponi

4 Cadel Evans

5 Joaquin Rodriguez

6 Fabian Cancellara

7 Alexandre Vinokourov

8 Vincenzo Nibali

9 Tony Martin

10 Matthew Goss

11 Andreas Kloden

12 Bradley Wiggins

13 Samuel Sanchez

14 Robert Gessink

15 Christopher Horner

16 Tom Boonen

17 Roman Kreuziger

18 John Gadret

19 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga

20 Marco Pinotti

Cadel Evans

After winning the early season Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour de Romandie races yesterday Australian Cadel Evans added a third solid result to his 2011 palmares of 2nd place in the Tour du Dauphine. Evans was quoted as saying he was "happy with second...for once" maybe shedding some light on his less than aggressive riding in the mountains of France over the past week, hinting to the fact that this race may have purely been used for training.

The 34 year old still has a few more attempts at Tour victory though some may think this might be his last real shot with youngsters such as Jurgen Van Den Broek, Robert Gessink and of course Andy Shleck rapidly ascending the ranks.

French team rosters annouced

With less than 3 weeks to go before the start of the tour teams have already began to announce their rider line ups for the race with the French teams of AG2R, Cofidis, Europcar, FDJ and Saur-Sojasun announcing their roster's today.

While not fully confirmed and with most roster's including more than the regulation 9 riders, it is clear there are still some decisions to be made.

AG2R

Team Leader - Nicholas Roche

Blel Kadri (recovering from injury)

Christophe Riblon

John Gadret

Cyril Dessel

Jean-Christophe Peraud

Maxime Bouet

Sebastian Hinault

Mathieu Perget

Hubert Dupont

Anthony Ravard

Lloyd Mondory

Cofidis

Team Leader - David Moncoutie

Rein Taarame

Samuel Demoulin

Julien El Fares

Nicholas Vogondy

Mickael Buffaz

Leonardo Duque

Romain Zingle

Aleksejs Saramotins

Europcar

Team Leader - Thomas Voeckler

Cyril Gautier

Pierre Rolland

Anthony Charteau

Christophe Kern

Sebastian Chavanel

Yukiya Arashiro

FDJ

Team Leader - Sandy Casar

Pierrick Fedrigo

Jeremy Roy

Anthony Roux

Remi Pauriol

Yauheni Hutarovich

Anthony Geslin

Saur-Sojasun

Team Leader - Jerome Coppel

Arnaud Coyot

Jonathan Hivert

Jimmy Engoulvent

Yannick Talabardon

Pre Tour racing update

All the races running up to the Tour each year are always used by the top riders to hone their pre tour fitness/sharpness. The 2 big ones are of course Le Criterium du Dauphine and Le Tour de Suisse, both of which are currently ongoing.

Le Dauphine ends tomorrow with a final day in the mountains and Le Tour de Suisse just kicked off today with another 8 days of racing to go.

Janez Brajkovic of Team Radioshack won the Dauphine last year but this year has failed to impress. Currently in the lead heading into the final day is Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins with an impressive margin of 0:01:26 over a dwindling Cadel Evans.

The race this year has featured some excellent climbing (as is expected) to test the rider's legs and those of note certainly include Cristophe Kern of the newly formed Team Europcar, who rode to an impressive win yesterday in the mountains and is now sitting 5th in the GC. Team Europcar has featured heavily throughout this year's Dauphine and are leading the team standings by 12 seconds over Astana. Centered around French heavyweight Tommy Voeckler I suspect they will be an aggressive force at this years tour.

Leading the points classification heading into the final day is Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez, who after a mighty Giro D'Italia where he finished 5th and an impressive 8th place at last years tour is showing strong form. He took today's stage in the high mountains with a strong ride up the final 11.2km HC climb to Le Collet d'Allevard finishing 31 seconds ahead of an almost as strong looking Robert Gessink and Jurgen Van Den Broeck a further 8 seconds back.

Further East at the start of the 75th annual Tour de Suisse reigning time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara took the win in the opening 7.3km prologue of his home event. Reigning champion Frank Shleck is also returning this year alongside his younger brother and tour favourite Andy Shleck - it is guessed Andy will be riding in support of his older brother this week, with the tables being turned at next months Tour. That said I wouldn't count out a strong but rudderless Team Radioshack (now without their heroic leader Armstrong) but with a mighty group consisting of Andreas Kloden, Christopher Horner and Levi Leipheimer all vying for top spot heading into next month's race I suspect quite the battle with the Shleck's over the next few days.

The final piece of news for the day is that reigning Tour and Giro champion Alberto Contador, the newly crowned leader of Team Saxo-Bank SunGard, has announced today that while still not fully recovered from last month's challenging Giro D'Italia he will be on the start line of the tour next month. Though with continued controversy surrounding his last year's failed TDF drug test it is unsure how long his current racing licence will last before a possible ban is imposed. If so all win's from that date back to and including the 2010 Tour de France will be forfeit.

While some teams are beginning to announce tentative tour rosters I suspect most will not be released until after June 19th, with most coming around the week of June 20th. Until then I will continue everyone up to date with the current happenings in the important pre Tour races.

Mike

2011 Tour de France Fantasy League

No one cares about the Vuelta or the Giro – it’s ALL ABOUT THE TOUR.

The tour is right around the corner so I thought I’d let you all know about my 2011 TDF fantasy league. Become your own directeur sportif and hand pick your team of 9 riders who will go head to head with the other teams in the league, the team with the most points come the Champs-Elysees will win, both the competition and the right to boast about it for the next 11 months.

There are some interesting Fantasy League rules as well to try and make it as fun and exciting as possible over the race, breakaways, virgin stage winners and those who attack will all be rewarded – not just those leading the GC.

The rules have been inserted below so you can all brush up on the league guidelines and once the team rosters have been released the rider list will be sent out so you can start picking your players.

Mike

2011 Tour de France Fantasy League RULES

Each team must have 9 riders.

1 rider from each of the 4 categories (Overall/Sprinter/Climbers/Domestiques) must be chosen with a limit of 1 from the Overall and Sprinter categories (these will be specified in the rider list)

Riders will be assigned points and each team will have a total budget of 150 points.

All Tour de France issued race points apply to each rider – these are inclusive but not limited to green jersey points/KOM classification points and all intermediate sprint points.

Extra Fantasy bonus points will be applied after each stage for the following criteria:

Daily General, Points and KOM classifications
1st - 10 points

2nd - 9 points

3rd - 8 points

4th - 7 points

5th - 6 points

6th - 5 points

7th - 4 points

8th - 3 points

9th - 2 points

10th - 1 point

Teammate stage winner – 5 points

Riders in the daily breakaway* – 15 points

Riders in a successful breakaway* (doesn’t get caught) – 25 points

Rider wearing a jersey (Yellow/Green/Polka/White) for the first time in career – 40 points

Rider who is awarded the daily combativity prize – 40 points

Rider who goes on to win the stage from a breakaway* he was in – 50 points

First stage win in rider’s career – 50 points

Final overall standings

GC - 1st-20th (100 points for 1st down to 5 points for 20th at 5 point increments)

Points - 1st-10th (50 points for 1st down to 5 points for 10th at 5 point increments)

KOM - 1st-5th (50 points for 1st down to 10 points for 5th at 10 point increments)

* Breakaway – The league definition of “breakaway” is any group of 15 riders or fewer who split from the peleton at any stage of the race up to the final 40km. They must achieve a time gap of at least 2 minutes and sustain this for a minimum of 39.9km.

In the case of there being 1 breakaway that then gets caught by another breakaway group, so long as this is done before the final 40km and done before the gap to the peleton decreases past 2 minutes, then as long as the total riders in the new group does not exceed 15 riders then all riders will be awarded points. If the group is formed within the final 40km only the riders from the initial breakaway will gain points.

If the larger group forms at a gap smaller than 2 minutes but then stretches to more than 2 then all riders will gain points. At no point can a group stretch past 15 riders and still be considered a breakaway.

If the league officials cannot watch the live Versus coverage of each stage then the daily CYCLINGNEWS.COM play by play race report will be taken as final.

League officials (ME) – daily points will be calculated by the league officials, official tour points being taken once the results are posted by tour officials and official league points being applied thereafter. Daily rankings will be posted on the blog as soon as all results are in and calculations have been completed. Any complaints or queries about calculations or the application of points must be submitted via email to the league officials within 24 hours of the stage finish.

Extraordinary circumstances – In the case that any catastrophic event or act of god takes place that in turn effects the result of a stage then the league officials reserve the right to alter points awarded. For instance if a rider is involved in a serious or fatal accident that results in the rest of the peleton acting in a ceremonial or respectful manner, for instance neutralising a stage or sprint, then the stage points may be disregarded. If a rider is disqualified due to unsportsman like behaviour or a postitve clenbuteral test then all points for said rider will be disregarded. If in doubt though the group will be consulted and a consensus reached by the officials.

Bring on the tour!