Friday, December 17, 2004

Enjoying another night of not riding.

News Item of the Day: Unofficial 2004 Pro Tour rankings from Cycling4all

In this ranking for 2004 he has included all races which are on the Pro Tour calendar 2005 and the new UCI point-scales for the Pro Tour competition 2005. That means that also the Deutschland Rundfahrt; the Tour de Pologne and the GP Plouay are included.

It is quite clear that in the top of this ranking again the best riders of 2004 are appearing, but in a different order. But some of the riders in the top 10 of the UCI ranking are much lower in the Pro Tour ranking, like: Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa-Kel) - 24th; Alessandro Petacchi (Ita-Fas) = 25th and particularly Belgiums "hope" Tom Boonen (Bel-Qsd) who is on place 39.

Winning one of the "monument" classics is more or less already a guarantee to end in the top 50 of this new ranking. My first impression is that "one-day flies" have much more chance to end high in this new ranking, in any case much higher than in the "former" UCI ranking.

This could mean that team managers are using "other tactics" in order to gain more points for their riders and team and pay - relatively - more attention to the 1 day races than to the stage events.

The 1st column is the ranking according to the "Pro Tour; and in the parentheses is the position of the riders on the latest UCI ranking of the 17th October 2004

1 Davide Rebellin (I-Gst) (6)
2 Oscar Freire (E-Rab) (4)
3 Paolo Bettini (I-Qsd) (2)
4 Damiano Cunego (I-Sae) (1)
5 Lance Armstrong (Eu-Usp) (7)
6 Ivan Basso (I-Csc) (11)
7 Erik Zabel (A-Tmo) (3)
8 Francisco Mancebo (E-Ibb) (14)
9 Michael Boogerd (H-Rab) (26)
10 Stuart O'Grady (Aus-Cof) (8)
11 Jan Ullrich (A-Tmo) (15)
12 Andreas Klöden (A-Tmo) (24)
13 Dario David Cioni (I-Fas) (40)
14 Tyler Hamilton (EU-Pho) (21)
15 Martin Perdiguero (E-Sdv) (13)
16 Erik Dekker (H-Rab) (18)
17 Iban Mayo (E-Eus) (23)
18 Heras Robert (E-Lst) (17)
19 Fabian Jeker (S-Sdv) (59)
20 Magnus Backstedt (Sue-Alb) (99)

Viewpoint: I usually find analysis like this to be interesting. This is no exception. There are some huge differences in a few of these guys. Namely Cioni, Jeker and Backstedt. Not on the list but interesting are some of the names not in the top 80. Among the names are McEwen (was 16th), Hushovd (was 20th), Van Heeswijk (was 30th) and Michael Rogers (was 50th)

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