At the end of the season it's always a good time to have a look at the statistics. A cycling season in digits and tables of course reflects the number of stage or race wins, the number of kilometers and the number of race days.
In this article you'll find some of these statistics, thanks to an article in the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad but most of all thanks to the very useful web site Cycling Quotient Ranking.
The biggest number of victories
Individual ranking
The ranking which is probably the most top of mind is of course the one based on number of stage or race wins and this season this ranking is led, as usual and without any surprise, by the sprinters.
The top 3 is thus completely taken by riders from the Columbia-HTC team.
Last year (2008) the result was quite similar at the top of this ranking, with less victories however:
1/ Mark Cavendish (Team High Road/Team Columbia) - 17 victories
2/ Tom Boonen (QuickStep) - 15 victories
3/ André Greipel (Team High Road/Team Columbia) - 14 victories
Team ranking - UCI ProTour teams
If we take a look at this ranking but this time by team -only for the UCI ProTour teams- we get to the following ranking:
01/ Columbia-HTC - 85 victories (28 times second and 32 times third)
02/ Saxo Bank - 44 victories (38 times second and 30 times third)
03/ Garmin-Slipstream - 29 victories (38 times second and 22 times third)
04/ Rabobank - 26 victories (29 times second and 29 times third)
05/ Katusha - 24 victories (36 times second and 14 times third)
06/ QuickStep - 24 victories (29 times second and 26 times third)
07/ Caisse d'Epargne - 23 victories (22 times second and 17 times third)
08/ Astana - 21 victories (19 times second and 13 times third)
09/ Française des Jeux - 18 victories (18 times second and 20 times third)
10/ Liquigas - 17 victories (20 times second and 20 times third)
11/ Lampre-NGC - 17 victories (12 times second and 23 times third)
12/ Cofidis, le crédit en ligne - 15 victories (11 times second and 11 times third)
13/ Bbox Bouygues Telecom - 13 victories (14 times second and 11 times third)
14/ Silence-Lotto - 12 victories (19 times second and 16 times third)
15/ Milram - 8 victories (6 times second and 16 times third)
16/ Euskaltel Euskadi - 6 victories (11 times second and 14 times third)
17/ AG2R La Mondiale - 5 victories (6 times second and 13 times third)
18/ Fuji-Servetto - 4 victories (2 times second and 3 times third)
There again the Columbia-HTC team is far from the others in 2009.
Per country
Finally, the same ranking per country gives the following top 5:
France is on the sixth place with 6.763 points using this ranking.
The biggest number of race days
A rider's season is composed of a certain number of race days, completed by training and rest days.
Looking at the ranking of riders by number of race days we see that the top 3 is completely composed of Belgian riders, all from the same team: Silence-Lotto. When you see that the number three is no one else than Philippe Gilbert it's easy to realise that making many race days still allows to be in good shape at the end of the season ... it all depends on the rider: some of them prefere doing a light programme and focusing on some races in which they want to be in top shape while others want to do as many races as possible.
Here's the top 10 of the ranking by number of race days:
1/ Olivier Kaisen (Silence-Lotto) - 103 days
2/ Christophe Brandt (Silence-Lotto) - 102 days
3/ Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) - 97 days
4/ Fredrik Kessiakoff (Fuji-Servetto) - 96 days Brian Vandborg (Liquigas) - 96 days Mathieu Sprick (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) - 96 days
7/ Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) - 94 days Bert Grabsch (Columbia-HTC) - 94 days Matteo Tosatto (QuickStep) - 94 days
10/ Christian Knees (Milram) - 93 days Julian Dean (Garmin-Slipstream) - 93 days
Het Nieuwsblad asked Marc Sergeant, manager of the Silence-Lotto team, what he thought of this top 3.
He answered: It's our culture. When a Belgian rider doesn't participate in any race for two weeks he wonders what's happening. I don't think this is the right reaction: we do too many races. That doesn't mean that those who are at the top of this list had bad performances, the best example is Philippe Gilbert. But for others, like Van Avermaet, it was a bit too much in 2009.
That's why we will participate less in small foreign races: Bessèges, Grosseto, Coppi e Bartali, ... this will allow us to create free time for some team training camps and more rest in the season. That's part of modern cycling. Look for example what Boasson Hagen does: in 2009 I've seen him for the first time at Ghent-Wevelgem. But that didn't stop him from winning that race.
The biggest number of race kilometers
A similar ranking is the one of the riders who've done the biggest number of race kilometers (only races or stages which the rider finished have been counted here). In this ranking of course almost the same riders appear and with Johnny Hoogerland's third place we see that making many race kilometers can be beneficial for a rider who always wants to attack like he does:
1/ Christophe Brandt (Silence-Lotto) - 16.641,2 km
2/ Olivier Kaisen (Silence-Lotto) - 16.348,5 km
3/ Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team) - 16.105,3 km
4/ Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) - 15.987,8 km
5/ Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) - 15.320,0 km
6/ Fredrik Kessiakoff (Fuji-Servetto) - 15.299,1 km
7/ Matteo Tosatto (QuickStep) - 15.220,1 km
8/ Serguei Klimov (Katusha) - 14.920,7 km
9/ Nikita Eskov (Katusha) - 14.903,3 km
10/ Christian Knees (Milram) - 14.869,7 km
The CQ Ranking
General individual classification
CQ Ranking uses a table for the distribution of points which is similar to the one used up until 2004 by the UCI for its ranking of riders (ranking which disappeared in 2005 with the creation of the UCI ProTour). This table allows riders to get points when they are among the best ranked in any of their races, with the number of points being more or less important depending of the importance of the race. The current table is available here.
Based on this table, here's the top 10 of the individual ranking of riders for 2009:
As a comparison, here's the top 5 of the UCI World Ranking:
1/ Alberto Contador (Astana) - 527 points
2/ Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) - 483 points
3/ Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel Euskadi) - 357 points
4/ Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) - 334 points
5/ Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) - 333 points
Based on the same table we can rank the riders by taking the sum of the points of all riders of each of the teams. The top 10 of this ranking is as follows:
As a comparison, the UCI World Ranking gives the following top 5 for the ranking by teams:
1/ Astana - 1.100 points
2/ Caisse d'Epargne - 1.048 points
3/ Columbia-HTC - 957 points
4/ Saxo Bank - 946 points
5/ Liquigas - 923 points
Best climber
The title of this ranking is maybe not the right one because this ranking doesn't necessary reflect the order of best climbers of the year. Indeed, it ranks the riders by number of points won in mountain stages. This means that a good climber whose target is the general classification of a stage race more than the stage victory on one or more stages gets a lower ranking than a rider who fully focuses on stage victories in mountain stages. Here's the top 5 of this ranking:
By taking only the points of the CQ Ranking which were won on races or stages which ended in a sprint, we get a good idea of who's the best sprinter this year. Not really surprisingly Columbia-HTC's rocket man, Mark Cavendish, is leading this list, just before his German team mate André Greipel.
When we only take the points of the CQ Ranking which were won on stages which were done as an individual time trial we get the top 5 of time trial specialists. Spartacus is leading this list, far ahead of number two, the winner of the Tour de France 2009.
1/ Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) - 636 points
2/ Alberto Contador (Astana) - 360 points
3/ Tony Martin (Columbia-HTC) - 268 points
4/ Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream)- 259 points
5/ Gustav Erik Larsson (Saxo Bank) - 231 points
Bravo encore, et merci pour ce document assez précis comme d'habitude. Vous nous êtes d'une grande utilité pour nous, les mordus de la petite reine. Amitiés, Jean-Claude
| BAICRY Jean-Claude | sunday 15 November 2009 at 11:15:01
Quel boutot ! Respect et bravo pour cet article. Question : comment fais-tu ? Tu prends des notes tout le long de la saison ?
Dat vind ik nou leuk; zo 'n kompleet overzicht.
Ik mis wel de dames!!
Weet je trouwens al dat Jeroen Blijlevens ploegleider wordt van de damesploeg van Marianne Vos (Nederland bloeit)
| Wil Vergouwen | sunday 15 November 2009 at 17:58:25
@Martin : Sans vouloir offenser l'auteur du blog (que je trouve très bon par ailleurs, en particulier sur les spéculations sur le parcours du Tour), le mérite revient à Cycling Quotient, qui réalise un boulot vraiment extra !
Clément (un ancien Jeune Reporter du Tour !) a raison, ces informations proviennent effectivement de Cycling Quotient.
Tu m'as pas du tout offensé en le disant (merci au passage pour le compliment :-) ... je citais bien mes sources déjà dans mon article ! Et oui, je ne suis pas comme Het Nieuwsblad (ou encore pire VeloNews) à piquer des infos sans créditer la source ... En l'occurrence les infos dans Het Nieuwsblad en devenaient d'ailleurs même incompréhensibles parce qu'on se demandait d'où ils avaient sorti les points attribués aux sprinteurs et pour le classement du contre-la-montre !
Par contre, malgré le très bon travail de CQ Ranking, je trouve que leurs informations ne circulent pas assez et je trouvais donc que ça méritait bien ... cet article !
@Wil : yep, ik had gezien dat Jeroen ploegleider van de ploeg van Marianne Vos wordt inderdaad ... is weer eens wat anders dan voor Eurosport werken of voor T-Mobile achter het stuur zitten in de Tour ;-).
nog een gelukkig nieuwjaar aan alle sympatisanten van lezers van deze rubriek voor THOMAS dank u voor het terbeschikking stellen van deze documenten heb geprobeerd om sommige pdf Exell op te zetten groetjes
| yvan | friday 08 January 2010 at 22:12:24
Bravo pour ce travail remarquable. Avez-vous les stattistiques pour d'autres saisons ? Merci.
| Robert Jaumot | sunday 15 December 2019 at 19:29:27
@Robert : merci. Je n'ai pas fait d'articles sur les autres saisons, mais vous pouvez toujours trouver les statistiques en question sur cette page de CQ ranking :)