1999 Fantasy Tour de France

Introduction

Twelve months after the "Tour de Farce", the Tour de France sets out to re-affirm its status as the world’s biggest annual sporting event. The events of 1998’s race have echoed throughout the subsequent year, with police raids, judicial enquiries, accusation and counter-accusation. Cycling is now at a point where it needs a successful Tour to remind its fans why they followed the sport in the first place.

But now, the sport has found itself at an even lower ebb. On the penultimate day of the Giro d’Italia, Marco Pantani, the winner of both Giro and Tour last year, and on course to repeat his win in the Italian race, was disqualified for exceeding the 50% haematocrit level, the test that is intended to spot the effects of using EPO. Whilst not a definitive ‘positive’ it raises huge question marks over his credibility, and he announced that he would not be riding the French race.

But we hope that you will want to participate in Le Tour de France Fantasie, as it celebrates its tenth anniversary. The format has changed to broaden the appeal, and to prevent players from seeing their squads dwindle to below minimum levels, as happened 12 months ago when many squads pulled out in the final week. Whilst we certainly hope that nothing like last year happens again, the new format will lessen the impact of rider abandons, whatever the cause. And as an interesting by-product of this redesign, it is harder to tell what will make the ‘best’ team, making it a much more open contest!

How does it work?

Each directeur sportif has a budget of FF20 million and buys a team of 9 cyclists, made up of riders in the Tour’s peloton. As the Tour progresses, riders will score points for the team for their achievements during the race, and each rider who completes the race will score points based on their position on the classement générale (general classification, or G.C.). The winner is the directeur with the most points after the race finishes in Paris. Experienced competitors will realise that the old system of the 5 highest-placed riders has been dropped – this allows directeurs with fewer than 5 riders to continue their interest in the race, and also rewards players who manage to select a team that lasts the whole distance.

Scoring points

General Classification.

Points are now awarded for a wider range of achievements than before, but the emphasis is still on the rider’s final position on the G.C. There are three ‘ranges’ of points distribution: for the top three, the top ten, and all the other finishers:

This is slightly more complicated than the old "multiply your position by three" method, but it gives greater rewards to the higher-placed finishers. There are 189 riders in the race, but there’s no way everyone’s going to finish! (If there were a more typical 130 finishers, then last place would get 355 points) These points are all awarded after the race ends.

Bonus Points.

As well as the points for a rider’s final placing, riders are awarded points for a variety of achievements during each stage:

Stages: The winner of each stage will get 100 points. In addition, second place on the stage will score 50 points, and third scores 25. The rider who is awarded the "combativity" prize will receive 20 points. This is a daily award to the rider adjudged to have displayed the most aggressive riding style during the stage (note: throwing drinks bottles at opponents does not win you the combativity award!)

Jerseys: There are four classifications that can score points for riders in the Fantasy Tour: the yellow, green and polka-dot jerseys (for the overall leader, points leader and king of the mountains leader respectively), and the ‘red number’ for the overall leader of the combativity rankings. For each day that any of your riders leads one of these classifications, he is awarded points according to the table below, and points are also awarded for winning that classification outright.

(There are no points awarded here for winning the yellow jersey, as they are incorporated into the points for first place).

NB: if a rider is wearing a classification’s jersey because its leader is wearing another jersey and he is in second place in that particular classification (as always happens on stage 1, when the prologue winner cannot wear yellow and green), then the leader of that competition is awarded the points, not the wearer of the jersey.

Primes: These are prizes awarded along the route of each stage, whether they are intermediate sprints that count towards the green points jersey, or mountain summits that count towards the polka-dot mountains jersey. Points will be awarded according to the following table:

There is no longer any Prognostication competition. It was decided that it was too much of a lottery, and was dropped in favour of the new points system.

Tie-Breaking

In case of the requirement for a tie-break, we ask you to predict the winner’s official time. Although this is akin to picking the Grand National winner, the 1998 & 1995 Tours, which both had the same number of stages as this year, had winners’ times of 92h49m46s and 92h44m59s respectively. So you can take a good guess!

Building the Team

Each directeur has a budget of FF20 million with which to buy their team of nine riders (plus reserves – see below). There is no restriction on the make-up of the team other than that a full nine riders must be bought and that the total cost must not exceed FF20m. If a team is submitted with less than nine riders listed, the player will be required to correct it before the race starts.

As the teams’ line-ups are not finalised until the last few days before the Tour starts, players may purchase reserve riders to fill any gaps left in their squad. The cost of any reserves must come out of the total budget. If any of your first-choice riders do not start, then the reserves are ‘called up’ in the order in which they are listed on the team sheet.

Buying at least one reserve is advised, and although the team sheet has space for five, there is no limit to the number of reserves that may be bought – only their value. Bear in mind that the new points system rewards teams with large numbers of finishers, so it’s beneficial to do your utmost to fill all nine berths.

The Route

Amid the recriminations of last year’s ‘Festina affair’ was an admission that professional cyclists were being made to race too often. With that in mind, the Société du Tour de France unveiled this year’s Tour as being generally easier on the riders. For one thing, there is a second rest day, giving the racers a chance for a bit more recuperation. There are also only 3 finishes at altitude. Of course, you can’t please all the people all the time – defending champion Marco Pantani took one look at the route and said he didn’t like it and wouldn’t ride. But now he’s not for rather different reasons…

After last year’s historic départ in Ireland, the race returns to a more traditional format this time. It starts with a prologue around Le Puy de Fou – a historical theme park that also hosted the start in 1993 – before heading north on an anti-clockwise circuit of the country. The first major rendezvous of the race comes on the second Sunday, with a time trial in Metz, followed by the first rest day as the riders transfer to the Alps. The two days in the Alps both have mountain-top finishes: the Italian resort of Sestrières, where Chiappucci won in 1992 and Riis took the 1996 race for himself; followed by what is now the biennial trip to l’Alpe d’Huez, on Bastille Day. The trip across the south is not flat, however, as it passes through the hills of the Massif Central before arriving in the foothills of the Pyrenees on the third Sunday. Again, there is a rest day on the Monday before two days in the high mountains, the second of which is a ‘traditional’ stage to Pau taking in the Aspin, the Tourmalet, and the Aubisque (although the Aubisque’s summit is a full 60km from the finish line). The final week concludes with a time trial around Futuroscope (where the 2000 Tour will start) on Saturday, before the traditional parade around the Champs-Elysées on the final day.

The route is definitely easier than last year, and, as such, favours the time trials specialists more than the climbers.

The Teams

At the unveiling of the route last November, a statement made was that all teams who wanted to compete in the Tour had to agree to a ‘morality clause’. This meant that no rider or team under investigation for drugs-related offences (not just found guilty) would be allowed to start the race. The teams invited to compete comprise the top-ranked 16 teams at the start of 1999, plus wildcards and minus exclusions as decided on by the STdF in mid-June.

The automatic qualifiers were, from France: Casino, Cofidis, Festina, Crédit Agricole, La Française des Jeux and Big Mat; from Italy: Mercatone Uno, Mapei, Polti, Saeco, Lampre and Vini Caldirola; from Spain: ONCE, Banesto, Kelme and Vitalicio Seguros; Rabobank from Holland, Telekom from Germany, Lotto from Belgium, and US Postal from the USA.

The biggest name excluded from the race was four-time King of the Mountains Richard Virenque, who has consistently denied drug taking in the face of overwhelming evidence throughout the last twelve months. The entire TVM team has also been excluded, as have the French riders Philippe Gaumont of Cofidis and Laurent Roux of Casino, who are currently under investigation. In addition, the ONCE team manager Manolo Saiz, and the team doctor, have been excluded.

The initial reaction (and I write this just a few hours after the decisions were announced) from Virenque’s team Polti was that they might consider withdrawing the entire team, or take legal action. That would seem unlikely to work, as Virenque has no God-given right to ride the Tour, but, because nothing is certain, I have not removed from the price lists any rider who is, at the time of going to press, not riding the Tour.

The Riders

Here is a list of riders who are expected to be the major players in the 1999 Tour de France. They are listed in descending order by price, and then by their position in last year’s race. I have also included finishing positions in the 1997, ’96 and ’95 Tours. Note the rider’s code, as this will be required on the entry forms. I always end up missing off a rider who comes from nowhere and has a great Tour, but this year I have compiled the list using the UCI world rankings to try and get everyone I should. However, if you wish to purchase a rider not listed here, then he may be bought for a standard 500,000F fee. Obviously any unlisted riders won’t have a code.

Entering

The entry fee is the usual £5, with all monies distributed as prizes, hopefully to at least the first 3 or 4 places.

Download the entry form by clicking here It is a Microsoft Word 6.0 document that you will need to fill in. If you can't read it, then contact me by email and I'll send you a suitable entry form. You can attach the entry form to an email and send it to fantasie@ruvic.globalnet.co.uk. Emailed entries must arrive by noon on the 3rd.

For security reasons, I'd rather not post my address right here. When your team arrives in my inbox, I shall send my address for you to send the cheque to.The cheque for an emailed entry must arrive by the 7th of July.

Updates

Depending on the number of entries (i.e. unless there are too many!), I shall endeavour to give everybody a list showing them everyone else's teams, so you can see who you're up against. Mid-race updates will be available on this page, so bookmark it now!.