CEBU, Philippines – There are four jerseys given out during the Tour. They are the yellow jersey, the green jersey, the polka-dot jersey and the white jersey.
The yellow jersey signifies the overall leadership of the Tour. The cyclist with the least amount of time after every stage and the race gets to wear the yellow jersey. The current yellow jersey is Rinaldo Nocentini.
The green jersey is the sprinters jersey and is determined by accumulated points at the finish line and at designated sprint areas along the race. The rider with the most points gets to wear the jersey. The current green jersey is Mark Cavendish.
The polka-dot jersey is called as the King of the Mountain. Just like the green jersey, it is determined by points. The first rider to cross a mountain top finish or designated KOM areas along the route gets maximum points followed by the next rider. The more the difficult the mountain, the more points are given out. Sometimes, the KOM is not really the best climber in the Tour the reason being that the best climber usually wants the yellow jersey, not the polka-dot.
The white jersey is given to the rider under 25yo who has the least accumulated time after the stage and after the race.
In the history of the Tour, only one man won all the classification jerseys in one year- yellow, green, polka-dot and white, the great Eddy Merckx. The 1969 edition was utterly dominated by Merckx, who wore the yellow jersey from beginning to end. I doubt that there will be another rider who can duplicate what the Cannibal did in the Tour. To a lesser degree, Laurent Jalabert also won all the classification jerseys, but he did it in the Vuelta a Espana in 1995.
Mountains Classification
Mountains in the Tour or in any bicycle race are classified according to steepness and length. The least difficult is called category 1 to the more difficult category 3. However, there are monster climbs that defies classification and they are called as, “hors category”, meaning, it can’t be classified. The Tourmalet, the last climb during stage 9, is a hors category climb.
Never mind the monopoly of the cable provider but if you have a high speed internet connection, you can go to www.steephill.tv and www.cyclingfans.com to get a link to a “live” video streaming of Le Tour.
Word of the day: FLAMME ROUGE, aka red flag. It is a red, triangular flag, used to designate the last kilometer of the race. – THE FREEMAN