Cycling Update: 2014 In Review Part 2

It is the grand tours where the United States has made their name. Going into the grand tour season the hope was that Phinney would win stages, and that Tejay van Garderen would be able to get onto the podium of one of the tours. It was decided early on that van Garderen would be the lead for BMC in the Tour de France. Let's see how the first two grand tours played out.

Giro d'Italia
It was an odd Giro in 2014 with no real big named riders coming in as the favorites. In the cyclingnews.com preview they named Nairo Qintana as the overall favorite and he lived up to the expectation. In fact two Columbians were on the podium.

Overall

1	Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team	88:14:32
2	Rigoberto Uran Uran (Col) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team	0:02:58
3	Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team	0:04:04
4	Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar	0:05:46
5	Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale	0:06:32
6	Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo	0:07:04
7	Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team	0:11:00
8	Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team	0:11:51
9	Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin Sharp	0:13:35
10	Robert Kiserlovski (Cro) Trek Factory Racing	0:15:49
68	Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing Team	2:32:42

But of course the grand tours are about more than just the overall win. There are other jerseys to win and in the Giro 21 stages. A stage win in any of the grand tours is a big item to put on your resume. So how did the US do. Let's take a look.

Points

1	Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr	291	pts
2	Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek Factory Racing	265
3	Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Lampre-Merida	186
4	Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale	174
5	Ben Swift (GBr) Team Sky	135

Mountains

1	Julian David Arredondo Moreno (Col) Trek Factory Racing	173	pts
2	Dario Cataldo (Ita) Team Sky	132
3	Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team	88
4	Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Belisol	79
5	Robinson Eduardo Chalapud Gomez (Col) Colombia	73

So no US rider cracked the top five in the points competitions, but they never really do unless they are winning the overall. But what about stages? Well Tyler Farrar was consistently in the top 10 on sprint stages and even made 3rd on the 21st stage, and Brent Bookwalter finished top 10 on the 20th stage, but no Americans could pull off a stage win. All in all the Giro d'Italia was a non tour for the US riders.



Tour de France
As always the Tour is the big race and this year was expected to be the big battle between Chris Froome and Alberto Contador. Sad to say it was not to be as the Tour was littered with crashes and hard luck. The US were looking to Tejay van Garderen to shine and he did very well.  Sad to say Taylor Phinney got injured in a build up race to the Tour so we didn't get to see him go after stages.  Hopefully he'll be there next year.

Overall

1	Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team	89:59:06
2	Jean-Christophe Péraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	0:07:37
3	Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr	0:08:15
4	Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team	0:09:40
5	Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team	0:11:24
6	Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	0:11:26
7	Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Netapp-Endura	0:14:32
8	Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) Trek Factory Racing	0:17:57
9	Laurens Ten Dam (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling	0:18:11
10	Bauke Mollema (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling	0:21:15

The big question now for van Garderen is whether he can move onto the podium in a grand tour. It would be nice to see him take a shot at the Giro, but BMC wants their best rider competing at the Tour.

Points

1	Peter Sagan (Svk) Cannondale	431	pts
2	Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha	282
3	Bryan Coquard (Fra) Team Europcar	271
4	Marcel Kittel (Ger) Team Giant-Shimano	222
5	Mark Renshaw (Aus) Omega Pharma-Quick Step	211

Mountains

1	Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo	181	pts
2	Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team	168
3	Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha	112
4	Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ.fr	89
5	Jean-Christophe Péraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	85

Sad to say no Americans were able to win any stages at the Tour, and so we look to next year and hope.

In part three we will look at the Vuelta a Espana and the World Championships.