An even 156 riders came home in the 2014 edition of the Giro d’Italia, and so no Point d’Appui could be awarded.
Leonardo Fabio Duque of Colombia and Eros Capecchi of Movistar shared les Cuspides, finishing in 78th and 79th place, respectively.
Drobny Mushes into Iditarod Fulcrum
Musher Paige Drobny of Fairbanks won the Point d’Appui in the 2014 Iditarod, finishing 25th among 49 finishers.
Twenty racers abandoned the race before reaching Nome in the 1,049-mile dog sled race
Drobny, 40, finished the 2013 Iditarod seven places behind the fulcrum, but improved her overall time by more than 13 hours this year to gain the Point d’Appui.
Dallas Seavey of Willow, Alaska, won the Iditarod, finishing in a little over 8 and a half days and claiming a $50,400 prize.
Marcelle Fressineau of White Horse, Yukon Territory, was the Lanterne Rouge, finishing in more than 13 days.
Katherine Keith of Yes Kotzebue had the time closest to the median, finishing in 10 days, 20 hours, 43 minutes and 15 seconds.
Drobny moved to Fairbanks for graduate studies in fisheries oceanography in 2005. She is a fisheries biologist, and she and her husband build dogsleds for their company, DogPaddle Designs. For her finish, Drobny won $6,800.
America’s Bjornsen Nab’s Fulcrum of Women’s Olympic Skiathlon
Sadie Bjornsen
Sadie Bjornsen, an accounting major at the Alaska Pacific University, found the median placement for the Winter Olympics women’s Skiathlon to win the Halfnium Medal for finished at the Point d’Appui.
The top American finisher in the 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race, Bjornsen placed 31st among all 61 competitors, finishing 2 minutes, 36 seconds and 1/10th of a second behind the winner, Marit Bjoergen of Norway. The Lanterne Rouge was won by Kelime Cetinkaya of Turkey.
Kateryna Grygorenko of the Ukraine had the time closest to the median time.
Dolidovich Takes Olympic Point d’Appui in Men’s Skiathlon
Sergei Dolidovich
In a photo-finish for the Point d’Appui in the Winter Olympic men’s Skiathlon, Sergei Dolidovich of Belarus successfully fended off a challenge from Noah Hoffman of the United States to win the middle. Dolidovich wins the Halfnium Medal as a result.
The field of competitors totaled 68 at the start of the race, but Jun-Ho Hwang of South Korea was eliminated after being lapped, leaving 67 to come home safely. Dolidovich finished the 30-kilometer course in 34th place and posted a time of 1 hour, 11 minutes, 28 seconds and 1/100th of a second, about 3 minutes and 12 seconds behind the leader.
First place in the event went to Dario Cologna of Switzerland, and the Lanterne Rouge was taken by Vytautus Strolia of Lithuania. Chris Freeman of the United States posted a time of 1 hour, 14 minutes, 34 seconds and 6/100ths of a second, the time closest to the median time of the race.
The 2013 Tour de France Placement Vortex
The 2013 Tour de France placement of riders on a stage-by-stage basis.
The 2013 Placement Vortex shows the placement of each rider in relation to the grey Point d’Appui winner, Manuel Quinziato. The finishing colors simply help differentiate each block of 10 riders, from first place at the top to 169th place at the bottom, except that the middle tan color is nine riders, including the Point d’Appui.
The heavier black lines denote riders who eventually abandoned the race, eventually leaving only 169 riders to finish, hence the slow narrowing of the field from left to right. Track the yellow line of Christopher Froome at top, the red lantern line of Svein Tuft at bottom, or the plain gray line of Manuel Quinziato, who finished at the center of the peloton.
The first stage on Corsica finished with the entire peloton coming to the stage finish together and thus receiving the same time. Their individual placement, however, was happenstance for the most part, save the sprinters who wanted the stage win. On the more rugged Stage 2, many of the sprinters fell back and the GC contenders moved up, creating a chaotic leap in many of the placements.
The Team Time Trial of Stage 4 catapulted a few riders into higher placement while others fell as a result of their team’s ability. Then, except for the effect of crashes, placement began to consolidate until the entry of the peloton into the Pyrenees, when the chart was thrown into the “jackstraws.” As might be expected, the climbers moved up in placement while the sprinters fell.
Again, the graph shows that placement turned to relatively static strata during the flat stages through Brittany as well as the route south across the Loire River Valley and toward the Alps. An exception is that heavy cross winds splintered the peloton on Stage 13 and sent the graphic back into the “jackstraws.”
Although the mid-Alps individual time trial changed placement much, the rest of the Alps wreaked havoc on placement with some riders gaining more than 40 spots.
Download a PDF of the 2013 Tour de France Placement Vortex courtesy of Point d’Appui.
Wyss, Kiryienka Finish on Cuspides of 2013 Vuelta
The 2013 Vuelta a España finished without a Point d’Appui, an even 144 riders coming home to Madrid, but two strong contenders for the Point d’Appui in earlier races this season finished on the cusp of the fulcrum.
Danilo Wyss of BMC and Vasil Kiryienka of Sky Procycling shared the dubious honors of finishing as Les Cuspides at 72nd and 73rd place. Wyss held the fulcrum in the 2013 Giro d’Italia near the end of the race, but an abandon put him on the cusp at the finish. Kiryienka, who won the Point d’Appui in the 2012 Tour de France and the 2012 Tour de Romandie, was on track to win the 2013 Tour de France Point d’Appui as well, but finished outside the time limit on Stage 9 and was dropped from the race.
Overall, the 2013 Vuelta a España resulted in a nominal number of stage finishes — only six of 21 — with a general classification Point d’Appui.
Wyss finished 2 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds behind the winner of the Vuelta, Christopher Horner of RadioShack Leopard, and 2 hours and 10 minutes ahead of the Lanterne Rouge, Massimo Graziato of Lampre-Merida. The rider with the median time on the race was Matthew Busche of RadioShack Leopard.
The state-by-stage general classification results for the 2013 Vuelta a España:
- Stage 1 – Maciej Paterski of Cannondale
- Stage 2 – No fulcrum
- Stage 3 – No fulcrum
- Stage 4 – No fulcrum
- Stage 5 – Alexandre Geniez of FDJ
- Stage 6 – Kevin De Weert of Omega Pharma-Quick Step
- Stage 7 – Fabian Cancellara of RadioShack Leopard
- Stage 8 – No fulcrum
- Stage 9 – No fulcrum
- Stage 10 – No fulcrum
- Stage 11 – Andrey Zeits of Astana
- Stage 12 – Alex Howes of Garmin-Sharp
- Stage 13 – No fulcrum
- Stage 14 – No fulcrum
- Stage 15 – No fulcrum
- Stage 16 – No fulcrum
- Stage 17 – No fulcrum
- Stage 18 – No fulcrum
- Stage 19 – No fulcrum
- Stage 20 – No fulcrum
- Stage 21 – No fulcrum
Quinziato Wins Point d’Appui in 100th Edition of Tour de France
Manuel Quinziato, winner of the Point d’Appui for the 2013 Tour de France.
Quite sadly, an abandon by Lieuwe Westra of Vacansoleil-DCM on the last stage of the 100th edition of the Tour France, on its way into Paris, left the tour with 169 finishers. We would have been much happier to see Westra finish the tour and not to proclaim a Point d’Appui for the race.
Alas, we do have a 2013 Point d’Appui, but it is well deserved. Manuel Quinziato of BMC Racing finished 2 hours, 39 minutes and 34 seconds behind the winner, Christopher Froome of Sky, to win the 2013 Tour de France maillot gris.
Quinziato started the race with a good first stage, finishing nine places ahead of the middle. On Stage 2, he slipped back to 106th place, but over the next ten stages, he slowly worked his way forward in the peloton to get to the fulcrum position on Stage 12. After a strong finish in Stage 13, he moved up eight places, peaking at 73rd place in Stage 16 when he got into a break of 26 riders that survived to the finish in Gap. Quinziato, though, limited his damages for the Point d’Appui by finishing 26th out of the 26-member break.
By Stage 19, he had dropped back to the middle, finishing on Les Cuspides on 19 and 20. The abandon by Westra and no significant changes on the final day of romps on the Champs allowed Quinziato to finish on the fulcrum and win the Point d’Appui.
Quinziato finished 1 hour, 48 minutes and 21 seconds ahead of the Lanterne Rouge, Svein Tuft of Orica-GreenEdge.
The rider with the time closest to the median for the 21-day race proved to be Thomas Voeckler, the French rider for Team Europcar.
The stage-by-stage general classification results for Point d’Appui:
- Stage 1 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 2 – No fulcrum. Markel Irizar of RadioShack Leopard, winner of the Point d’Appui in the 2011 Tour de France, was on Les Cuspides.
- Stage 3 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 4 – Pavel Brutt of Katusha
- Stage 5 – Sergey Lagutin of Vacansoleil-DCM
- Stage 6 – Vasil Kiryienka of Sky Procycling. Kiryienka was the winner of the Point d’Appui in the 2012 Tour de France.
- Stage 7 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 8 – Adam Hansen of Lotto Belisol
- Stage 9 – No fulcrum. Vasil Kiryienka was eliminated from the race after coming home too slow on the stage.
- Stage 10 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 11 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 12 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 13 – Jonathan Castroviejo Nicolas of Movistar Team.
- Stage 14 – Simon Clarke of Orica-GreenEdge
- Stage 15 – Julien El Fares of Sojasun
- Stage 16 – Alberto Losada Alguacil of Katusha
- Stage 17 – Alberto Losada Alguacil of Katusha
- Stage 18 – Matteo Tosatto of Team Saxo-Tinkoff
- Stage 19 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 20 – No fulcrum.
- Stage 21 – Manuel Quinziato of BMC Racing
2012 Winner, Kiryienka, Dropped for Time
Bad news to report. Vasil Kiryienka, the winner of the 2012 Point d’Appui in the Tour de France and one of the Sky team members riding in support of Chris Froome, has been dropped from the race after finishing beyond the time limit on Stage 9. The peloton was scattered across the Pyrenees after Garmin-Sharp threw caution to the wind and dropped the anvil on the pedals.
Kiryienka, who had looked like a strong contender for his second Point d’Appui after finishing at the fulcrum at the end of this year’s Stage 6, must have spent his legs on Saturday during the first mountain stage. He wobbled home Sunday and couldn’t get under the time requirement.
Along with Kiryienka, there were four other abandons — one who did not start and three who did not finish the day. As a result, 182 riders are still in the race, and there is no Point d’Appui at the moment. Les Cuspides are shared by Sergey Lagutin of Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling and Daniele Bennati of Saxo-Tinkoff. Lagutin held the Point d’Appui after Stage 5, but several other riders remain close to the center, including Stage 8’s fulcrum, Adam Hansen.
With a rest day coming on Monday and a relatively level run on Stage 10, perhaps no more of the favorites will be dropped from the race.
Tom Veelers of Argos-Shimano remains the Lanterne Rouge.
MacLean Edges Out Schwager for Giro Rosa Point d’Appui
Jessie MacLean
A minor shift in placement on the last day of the 2013 Giro Rosa put Jessie MacLean, who held the Point d’Appui after Stage 5, back in the fulcrum position to win the Maillot Gris.
MacLean, who rides for Orica-AIS, finished the first stage in 37th place, slipped all the way back to 103rd in the second stage and then slowly focused in on the Point d’Appui, coming home 71st, 74th, 68th, 69th and 68th again before capping the race with a strong finish in Stage 8, enough to bring her up to 64th place overall amid the 137 riders who finished.
MacLean rode in support of team leader Shara Gillow and finished 55 minutes and 23 seconds behind the Giro Rosa winner, Mara Abbott, and just under 1 hour and 39 minutes ahead of the Lanterne Rouge, Alessia Martini of Vaiano Fondriest.
Lauren Tamayo of the USA National Team had the time closest to the median time of the entire race.
Romy Kasper of Boels Dolmans Cycling took the Point d’Appui on today’s stage.
Mountains Take Toll; New Point d’Appui in Pyrenees
Adam Hansen of Lotto Belisol took over the GC Point d’Appui by the end of Stage 8 of the 2013 Tour de France as the tour headed into the Pyrenees for the first time.
The Point d’Appui after Stage 6, Vasil Kiryienka, slipped a place while riding in support of the new race leader, Chris Froome, on the first mountain stage of the day, leading Team Sky most of the way up the steep ramparts of the Col de Pailhères, the highest point on the Tour de France this year at more than 2,000 meters. His continued position one spot out of the fulcrum gives him plenty of time to regain the middle
Hansen has been working forward in the standards, and the first mountain stage favored his legs. He won Stage 7 of this year’s Giro d’Italia by breaking away early on a hilly, rugged day and staying away. Hansen finished Stage 8 of the Tour de France 44 minutes and 9 seconds behind Froome and 48 minutes and 9 seconds ahead of the Lanterne Rouge, Tom Veelers of Argos-Shimano.
On the stage, José Ivan Gutierrez of Movistar took the Point d’Appui.
Point d'Appui 