So Angel Madrazo takes the overall win. It was entirely up in the air until the time trial but he absolutely dominated that and it allowed him to take his first Tour de France, perhaps the first of several in years to come. That isn’t to say that he only won it thanks to a strong TT – his win on stage 19 was as dominant as could be expected in this sort of field and shows that this win was that of a true all-round champion.
Damiano Cunego had some questions asked of him as he came into the race – were his TT skills up to scratch and would he be beaten in the mountains? The answers were a mixed bag – his TT skills lost him the race but he was magnificent in the mountains and of course on his home hills. This is the first time where he has entered a GT and not come out as the winner in ManGame history.
Andy Schleck is the final podium getter. He had a strong race with an Alpine win and enough consistent riding to see him into third place. Throughout much of the first part of the race it looked like he would be riding for fourth place but then the crash took out Pluchkin as a podium contender and Schleck was able to take advantage.
1
Angel Madrazo
Santander
91h26'36
2
Damiano Cunego
Lotto - Cervelo
+ 1'16
3
Andy Schleck
Vesuvio - Accumalux
+ 3'41
4
Beñat Intxausti
Team Bacardi
+ 6'09
5
Justo Tenorio
Santander
+ 7'46
6
Andrei Amador
UBS - BMC
+ 9'01
7
Janez Brajkovic
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
Angel Madrazo doesn’t just win the overall, he also takes out the points jersey. It was an incredibly tight contest and could have gone to a number of riders. Oscar Guerao deserves an honorary mention in third place. If it hadn’t been such a mountainous route he would most likely have won the jersey and perhaps a couple more stages along the way.
1
Angel Madrazo
Santander
178
2
Damiano Cunego
Lotto - Cervelo
166
3
Óscar Guerao
Festina-Canal+
145
4
Aleksandr Pluchkin
Team B&O
141
5
Andy Schleck
Vesuvio - Accumalux
137
6
Daniele Bennati
Team Puma - SAP
129
7
Simone Ponzi
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
114
8
Andrei Amador
UBS - BMC
107
9
Raúl Granjel Cabrera
Koenigsegg
107
10
Janez Brajkovic
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
87
11
Romain Vanderbiest
Pearl Adidas
72
12
Erik Mohs
Pokerstars.com
72
13
Justo Tenorio
Santander
70
14
Romain Sicard
Pearl Adidas
61
15
Beñat Intxausti
Team Bacardi
59
16
Walter Pedraza
Koenigsegg
45
17
Daryl Impey
Aker - MOT
42
18
Jacob Fiedler
Koenigsegg
37
19
Peter Velits
Project 1t4i
35
20
Mikhail Ignatiev
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
35
Mountain Classification:
Thanks to his constant fighting in breakaways and his stage win Jocelin Maillet takes out the mountain jersey. He finished with 130 points – a narrow win over Ricardo Van der Velde’s 126. Of course some will see Thibaut Pinot as the rider who should rightfully have won this – he crashed out with a total of 125 before the Alps and could well have taken even more points there. Of course we will never know what might have happened.
1
Jocelin Maillet
Pearl Adidas
130
2
Ricardo Van der Velde
Team Bacardi
126
3
Mikhail Ignatiev
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
117
4
Angel Madrazo
Santander
88
5
Florian Morizot
Pearl Adidas
83
6
Jonathan Castroviejo
Project 1t4i
79
7
Andy Schleck
Vesuvio - Accumalux
78
8
Aleksandr Pluchkin
Team B&O
76
9
Brent Bookwalter
Wikipedia
75
10
Damiano Cunego
Lotto - Cervelo
73
11
Dmitri Medvedev
Vesuvio - Accumalux
62
12
Lars Petter Nordhaug
Aker - MOT
62
13
Johann Tschopp
UBS - BMC
61
14
Teodoro Costagli
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
57
15
Jaroslav Kulhavy
Milka - AVG
55
16
Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy
Milka - AVG
54
17
Andrei Amador
UBS - BMC
53
18
Matthieu Sprick
Wikipedia
50
19
Thomas Peterson
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
48
20
Simone Ponzi
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
47
Team Classification:
Absolutely no one will be surprised to see that Santander won here. It wasn’t even a competition for almost the entire race. They just have a huge strength in depth and almost always had at least three riders in the peloton until the final selection. Pearl have Maillet to thank for their second place here. Without his break they probably wouldn’t have ended up in second overall in this category.
1
Santander
273h39'24
2
Pearl Adidas
+ 1h19'42
3
Lotto - Cervelo
+ 1h24'31
4
Vesuvio - Accumalux
+ 1h26'35
5
Team B&O
+ 1h44'55
6
Pendleton's
+ 1h45'14
7
Team Bacardi
+ 1h45'24
8
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
+ 1h46'49
9
Team CSC-Orbea
+ 2h24'25
10
Koenigsegg
+ 3h27'41
11
Milka - AVG
+ 3h32'41
12
Project 1t4i
+ 3h47'55
13
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
+ 3h55'55
14
UBS - BMC
+ 4h19'28
15
Pro Team Venchi - Sugoi
+ 4h22'06
16
Aker - MOT
+ 4h31'28
17
Wikipedia
+ 5h01'17
18
Simply Red Bull
+ 7h59'48
19
Festina-Canal+
+ 8h11'41
20
Pokerstars.com
+ 8h50'50
21
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 9h46'14
22
Team Puma - SAP
+ 10h35'21
Youth Classification:
Given that he won the overall in the race it is sometimes easy to forget that Angel Madrazo is also still able to qualify for the young rider’s classification. As such he takes that out comfortably and in fact wore the jersey for almost the entire race.
1
Angel Madrazo
Santander
91h26'36
2
Justo Tenorio
Santander
+ 7'46
3
Romain Sicard
Pearl Adidas
+ 9'27
4
Teodoro Costagli
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
+ 50'17
5
Rasmus Guldhammer
Team B&O
+ 52'56
6
Tyler Brandt
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
