Week 1 of the 100th Tour de France came to an end yesterday with Sky’s Chris Froome wearing the Yellow Jersey.
This first week had its peak during the weekend. If in Saturday’s stage Froome and his team-mate Richie Porte, and the Sky team dominated the hill, yesterday’s stage showed a strong Movistar pack demolishing Sky and leaving Froome on his own up hills.
Valverde, Quintana (White Jersey holder, as best younger rider) and Portuguese Rui Costa are now 2nd, 7th and 10th, and this trio promises to be a permanent headache for Froome’s expectations to win the Tour after his team-mate Wiggins did it for UK for the 1st time in the 2012 edition.
Froome leads Valverde by 1:25 minutes. Quintana is 2:02 behind and Rui Costa 2:45.
Rui Costa seems to enjoy number 10. Last year he was 10th in the UCI Ranking – the best for a portuguese rider – and he is also in 10th spot in the 2013’s UCI Ranking due to his recent win in the Tour de Suisse. That grant him 116 UCI Points and he now totals 199 points.
https://sportsworldintel.com/amazing-portuguese-rui-costa-wins-tour-de-suisse-2-years-in-a-row/
The Tour de France awards the following UCI Points:
• 200-150-120-110-100-90-80-70-60-50-40-30-24-20-16-12-10-8-6-4 to the first 20 riders of the final general classification;
• 20-10-6-4-2 points will be assigned to the first5 riders of each stage.
More details can be checked on the Tour de France Website on:
http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2013/docs/TDF13_reglement_BD.pdf
The current UCI ranking is led by Fabian Cancellara with 351 points followed by current Tour de France’s Green Jersey Peter Sagan with 329.
Froome is 4th with 311 and should move into first should he finish the Tour within Top 6. Valverde is 12th with 192 and even if wins the Tour he would stay behind Froome. Quintana is 13th with 182.
Should Rui Costa finish the Tour inside Top 10 or even better – and we bet he could be in Top 5 – then he may ascend to 8th or even 7th in the UCI Ranking.
A table with all the races that count for UCI Ranking, including the ones already held and the points won by riders then, is available on:
http://www.uciprotour.com/Modules/BUILTIN/getObject.asp?MenuId=&ObjTypeCode=FILE&type=FILE&id=ODQxMzc&LangId=1
The Tour enjoys its rest day today and interesting action will follow especially next Wednesday with a 33 Km individual Time Trial.
Apart from glory, the winner of the Tour de France will be entitled a Prize Money of € 450.00. If Froome wins he will receive only one fifth of the amount that his country fellow earned by winning Wimbledon Yesterday (almost € 2 Millions)
