Super Rookie's World

For the past month Smithers has been begging all of us to participate in his 1st Annual Tour de France Pool. Since, I couldn’t resist his smile I decided to go along and enter a team and even convince Sarah to put one in as well. The pool is real simple. There are a total of 300 possible points. You get big points for correctly naming the final podium as well as the winners of the Green and Polka Dot jerseys. You get some minor points for correctly picking the winners of the Prologue, Alpe d’ Huez and Champs de lee zay. He also decided to add in a best team category as well as the wearer of the Yellow Jersey on both of the rest days.

39 people felt sorry for Smithers and decided to enter his little game. He just posted the picks and I have already gone through them and see that my podium is unique as are some of my other picks.

Before I decipher the picks I would like to point out my goals for this game.

1) Beat (dis)pencer.
2) Beat SickBoy.
3) Not fail at 1 or 2 as I will never hear the end of it.

Now that you have seen my goals I will let you know my selections for the upcoming Tour Day France Pool over at Smithersmpls.com

1st Place Overall- Jan Ullrich
I know this pick isn’t unique, but he is going to win the overall. I feel that Basso blew his wad at the Giro and won’t have enough to hold off Der Kaiser in the time trials. It is Jan’s year.

2nd Place Overall- Francisco Mancebo
Yeah. Only one other person picked him to finish 2nd and only one more took him for 3rd overall. This man is the best rider in Spain. Everyone talks about Valverde, but Mancebo finally has a strong support rider in Moreau and was one of the only men to stay with Lance and Basso in the mountains these past 2 years. Mancebo is going to blow everyone away. His two 4th places are not enough for this man. Watch out.

3rd Place Overall- Levi Leipheimer
Levi just cleaned up at the Dauphine and did it in pure style with his attacking on Mt. Ventoux and making Mencov be his little bitch. Levi will take down Landis for the final step in Paris. Plus, Levi is awesome.

Green Jersey (points) – Robbie McEwen
Robbie would of won the jersey last year but got screwed with the headbutt ordeal. You should seal his victory up right now. Thor is solid, but can’t sprint against McEwen and Tom Boonen is to busy trying to steal my girlfriend to even finish the Tour.

Polka Dot Jersey (mountains) – Rujano
Rujano is the big question mark on my roster. He dominated this competition in the Giro last year and this year he had a contract problem with his former team. He dropped out of the race after launching an attack and went back to Venezuela to train, or smoke weed, you decide. Only one other person picked Rujano for this competition.

Team Classification – Team CSC
How can you not pick the team that goes to Combat Training Camp? They will dominate in this category. That is a Super-Rookie.com Guarantee.

Prologue – Bradley Wiggens
This was an easy pick for the short 7km prologue time trial. Wiggens is the defending Olympic Gold Medalist in the Pursuit and is a trackie. Great minds think alike. Skibby picked him as well.

Alpe d’ Huez – Gilberto Simoni
Simoni will win on the Alpe and will drop out of the race the next day. After another solid Giro he will be concentrating on this stage. If he is in a break watch for him asking others to pay him for a stage victory. But, he knows that I picked him and he will purposely say to high of a number.

Champs dee lay zay – Hushvold
Thor will win this stage of the race because Robbie doesn’t care to win it. Thor also has a much cooler sounding name.

Yellow Jersey Rest Day July 10 – Basso
I didn’t really think to hard about this one, but I did pick Basso. I will be the first to say I am an idiot for this pick. I should of went with Jaske or Voight, but oh well. It is after the first time trial. Basso definitely won’t have it. Oh well. I am man enough to admit my mistakes.

Yellow Jersey Rest Day July 17 – Ullrich
Jan will climb with the best of them through the Pyrenees and will take the jersey just prior to the rest day. Jan will wear the Yellow all the way to Paris and will retire upon stepping down from the podium. He will then have his victory taken away later in the year when he gets caught up in the Spanish doping scandal.

Analysis of picks.

- All 39 teams had Basso or Ullrich as winning the Tour. 23 for Basso and 16 for Ullrich.
- Ullrich was the most popular pick for 2nd place. The only other 2nd place picks not Ullrich and Basso were Mancebo(2), Hincapie(1), Landis (5), Mayo (1), Evans (1), Popovych (1).
- Third place was all over the board. 4 teams held strong and selected Vinokourov for the third spot although his participation in the tour is doubtful.
- Boonen had 25 picks for the Green Jersey. 9 for McEwen. 2 for Hushvold and 1 for O’Grady, Zabel and Freire.
- There were quite a few picks for the Mountains competition. Rasmussen was the hands down favorite with 18 picks. Only 1 other person picked Rujano with me. The same person that picked Mancebo for second. Way to go Cricket!!! You rock girl.
- CSC was the most popular team picked with 22 selections. Disco next followed by T-Mobile and a few single picks for Gerolsteiner, Casgne’, and Credit Agricole. One person picked Astana-Wurth. I will keep my fingers crossed for them!
- Zabriske is the run away favorite for the Prologue.
- Valverde is getting the nod from a lot of people to win atop the Alpe d’ Huez. I think it is a very smart pick. But, I am happy with my Simoni selection.
- All three of the main sprinters scored well on the Champs dee lay zay stage. But, I like the pick of Backstedt by ‘Fride’
- First restday had the popular pick of Ullrich. ‘Paul Comeau’ selected Voekler…perhaps another glorious run in the jersey for the man from France!
- The final restday was a landslide towards Basso. Right after the Pyrenees before the last big days in the Alps and last TT.
- Sickboy is playing the numbers game and is being a statistical numbers geek and picked Basso to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd on the podium. What a douche. But, he is kind of smart so I won’t give him a hard time on that…except he isn’t any fun. I do applaud his pick of Perio in the Mtns Comp.
- (dis)pencer will lose.
- I am fairly disappointed in Tuffy’s picks. They are so run of the mill. I was expecting more.
- Sarah has a nice line up of riders. She will also beat (dis)pencer.
- A big hearty “good luck” to Tyler’s Bad Boys for picking Astana-Wurth in the Team Classification!