Tour de France redux

Alberto Contador won the Tour de France. Contador was a 24-year-old Spaniard riding on the Discovery Channel team, and like two others before him (Laurent Fignon in 1983 and Jan Ullrich in 1997), he won both the maillot jeune (race winner) and maillot blanc (top rider under 25).

More interesting was how close the race was. Australian Cadel Evans finished 23 seconds back, becoming the first podium finisher EVER from Australia, and Contador's Discovery Channel teammate Levi Leipheimer finished another 8 seconds back in third. 31 seconds separating the top 3. Wow.

Leipheimer, America's hope, won the final time trial. He had been 59 seconds behind Predictor-Lotto's Cadel Evans and 2:49 behind Contador going into it and rode the best time trial of his life -- even better than the one that got him 3rd place overall in the last stage of the 2001 Vuelta, when he was previously riding for U.S. Postal (the team that became Discovery Channel). And, behind Contador, Leipheimer and Ukranian Yaroslav Popovich (8th overall), Discovery Channel also won the team award for the first time.

Interestingly, this was only the second time in the 94 runnings of the Tour de France that two native English speakers (Evans and Leipheimer) had placed on the podium. The first time was 1985, when American Greg Lemond finished second and Irishman Stephen Roche finished third.

Although Discovery Channel is the American team, there were only two Americans riding for it: Leipheimer and George Hincapie (24th overall). Other Americans in the race included Evans' teammate Chris Horner (15th overall) and Team CSC's Christian Vandervelde (25th overall), another former USPS rider. Only six Americans started the race this year -- three teams (Discovery Channel, Predictor-Lotto, and CSC) each had two. The two dropouts were CSC's David Zabriskie, a time trialist without enough strength in the mountains, and Predictor-Lotto's Fred Rodriguez, who developed stomach problems in the Pyrenees in stage 15.

Leipheimer becomes just the fifth American to finish on the podium in the TdF. The others were Greg Lemond (third, 1984; second, 1985; first, 1986, 1989-90), Bobby Julich (third, 1998), Lance Armstrong (first, 1999-2005), and (for now, at least) Floyd Landis (first, 2006, although he recorded a positive drug test during the race and his victory is contested).

American podium finishes in the other Grand Tours are even rarer. In the Giro, only three Americans have ever reached the podium: Lemond (third, 1985); Andy Hampsten (first, 1988; third, 1989) and the drug-suspended Tyler Hamilton (second, 2002). Interstingly, Hampsten (1986, 1992) and Hamilton (2003) are also the only two Americans to finish fourth in the TdF. In the Vuelta, the only US podium finish ever was Leipheimer's third in 2001.

Seven Americans have stood on a Grand Tour podium. That's all. Of course, no American even rode in a Grand Tour until Jock Boyer in 1981, so maybe that isn't so bad -- and, keep in mind that those seven Americans have a total of 20 podiums, even though only four of them (Lemond, Hampsten, Armstrong and Leipheimer) have more than one podium.

With Leipheimer's stage win, there are now 10 Americans who have won a stage at the TdF, beginnin with Lemond in 1985. In order, they are Lemond (1985-86, 1989(3)), Davis Phinney (1986-87), Jeff Pierce (1987), Hampsten (1992), Armstrong (1993, 1995, 1999(4), 2000-01(4)-02(4)-03(1+TTT)-04(5+TTT)-05(1+TTT)), Hamilton (2003), Zabriskie (2005), Hincapie (2005, plus TTT in 2003-05), Landis (2006, plus TTT in 2003-04), and Leipheimer (2007). TTT stands for the "Team Time Trial", where each member of the winning team that doesn't get dropped is credited with a win; the USPS/Discovery Channel team won it from 2003-05, with Armstrong, Hincapie and Landis ('03-'04) on board.

When you consider that three of the six Americans who rode in the TdF this year have actually won stages in it, it shows that the US may not be producing a lot of quantity in Grand Tour racing, but there is still a lot of quality. Maybe the addition of two U.S.-based one-week tours, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of California (which were both won by Discovery Channel riders this year) to the annual racing season will help keep the quality level up....