Best Teams. It seems unclear how this should be measured, but accomplishing the goals set out for the team at the beginning of the Tour seems a good tool for assessment.
1) Garmin-Cervelo: Won four stages, the overall team competition, and placed a rider in the top 10 overall. They also had the yellow jersey for a week. It's difficult to ask for much more than that.
2) BMC: They did only one thing, but that one thing was winning the Tour de France.
3) HTC-Highroad: They didn't manage to have either Peter Velits or Tony Martin challenge for a high overall place, but they did win six stages, 5 with Mark Cavendish and 1 with Martin.
4) Europcar: They're higher up than they might otherwise be because they're a small team with a small budget, which they exceeded to the maximum. 10 days in yellow, winning the stage to Alpe d'Huez, and 4th and 11th overall. A good Tour by almost anyone's standards.
5) Leopard-Trek: They finished with two men on the podium and went one-two on the queen stage. They also had the yellow jersey for a day, and all nine riders finished the race.
6) Omega-Pharma-Lotto: Even without team captain Jurgen van den Broeck, the team managed three stage wins, a day in the yellow jersey, and runs in both the king of the mountains and green points jerseys. The unknown Jelle Vanendert, sprinter Andre Greipel, and classics specialist Philippe Gilbert all did their part.
Five worst teams.
22) Saur-Sojasur: They were totally anonymous. They made a few breaks, but never came close to winning anything. The fact that Jerome Coppel made the top 15 overall is something of an enigma because he was never with the leaders on the climbs, so it's not totally clear how he managed such a high finish.
21) Radioshack: They had the worst luck of any team in recent Tour memory, losing four riders (including three contenders for the podium) in the first week and a half.
20) Astana: Astana also had a bit of bad luck, with Vinokourov crashing out early on, but they accomplished nothing without him.
19) Quick-Step: Kevin de Weert did finish in the top 15, but that was the only success for Quick-Step. Sprinters Tom Boonen and Gert Steegmans both withdrew, but even before they withdrew, they hadn't challenged for stage wins.
18) Katusha: Mikhail Ignatyev had a good crack at winning out of a breakaway one day, but that was as close as they came to accomplishing anything of note.
Best individual rider performances:
1) Thomas Voeckler: He played the role of The-Little-Frenchman-Who-Could to perfection.
2) Cadel Evans: He did that little thing called winning the race.
3) Andy Schleck: Inspired fans with an old-attack that almost won the Tour.
4) Mark Cavendish: 5 stage wins gets you on this list.
5) Thor Hushovd: 2 individual stage wins plus the team time trial and a week in yellow... good Tour, Thor.
Most enigmatic riders:
1) Jerome Coppel: Nobody is quite sure how he made the top 15.
2) J. J. Rojas: Nobody is quite sure how he was only 15 points back of Cavendish riding onto the Champs-Elysees.
3) Thomas Voeckler: Why have we never seen this before?
4) Jelle Vanendert: Where did he come from in the Pyrenees, and where did he disappear to in the Alps?
5) Vladimir Karpets: Did he knock Contador off the road or was it an accident? And why didn't he do better overall?
Award for effort most resembling a Greek god:
1) Thomas Voeckler: Any man who will hurt himself that much for a yellow jersey deserves his own masseur; fortunately Voeckler has one.
2) Andy Schleck: The attack to the Galibier will live on in Tour legend for some time to come.
3) Cadel Evans: Clawing back two minutes on the best climber in the world on the way up to the highest summit finish in Tour de France history is no small feat. To ride the best time trial of your life two days later is even more impressive, and it might just win you the Tour.
Riders to look for in the future:
1) Andy Schleck: This was the first year he was ineligible for the best young rider competition. He's still got a long career ahead of him, and everyone will be surprised if that career ends without a Tour de France victory.
2) Pierre Roland: Every young French rider who can climb is touted as the next Bernard Hinault these days, but Rolland IS the first Frenchman to win at Alpe d'Huez since Hinault did 25 years ago. Maybe, just maybe he's the real deal. Of course if he's not, there's always
3, 4) Jerome Coppel and/or Arnold Jeannesson: Both finished in the top 15, and both are young Frenchmen.
5) Rein Taaramae: Not too many Estonians have ridden the Tour de France, but Rein Taaramae looks like he might just threaten for overall victory some day. He finished 12th this year, and he looked good throughout the race.
The "Thanks-Now-Please-Leave-Award" for riders who should retire:
Ivan Basso: Congratulations on your top 10, now please go. Will be 35 by next year's Tour.
Andreas Kloden: Will be 37 by next year's Tour.
Tom Boonen: Just doesn't seem to have it anymore, and will be 32 by next year's Tour - a bit old for a sprinter.
Cadel Evans: You've soured the Tour with your surly personality for long enough. Now that you've won the thing, please just go back to rural Australia and leave the rest of the cycling world alone.
Most invisible rider award (I didn't hear these riders mentioned once in 21 days of racing):
Romain Zingle (Cofidis)
Jemerie Galland (Saur-Sojasur)
Alessandro Vanotti (Liquigas)
Brian Vandborg (Saxo-Bank Sunguard)
The seven riders on Lampre who aren't Damiano Cunego or Alessandro Petacchi, the latter of whom did nothing but was still talked about a lot.
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