Wow, today's Tour de France sprint finish in Montargis was exciting. What a sprint. What made it most interesting to me was watching how the teams played the finish and then wondering ... after the outcome, if Columbia-HTC rode the way they did intentionally? Big bike teams these days have become known for developing 'systems' and then following their formula over and over. If it works, why change it?
Columbia-HTC has one of the best finishing 'systems'. They control the front with perfection and deliver their finisher to the line. Mostly we think of that being Cavendish - like today. But it could be Greipel or in the past Boasson-Hagen, Henderson, Ciolek etc and maybe in the near future Howard. They've hardly shown a chink or deviation in this system over the last few years. They are the winningest pro bike team by a big margin over this time.
But today was totally different. It looked like it was all going to plan. Perfect Columbia riding. Then with 2km to go Renshaw and Cav dropped back and Eisel was isolated on the front. Eisel looked confused a bit, but quickly put his head back down and drilled it. Cav actually looked a bit in trouble, he was back in the shit fight and was getting bounced around quite a bit. Then Garmin went over Bernie and looked to be in perfect position, and they were actually - 4 guys, unbroken in firm control with 1km to go. They had it in control until the sprint opened up with about 300m to go. Then out of no where Cav shoots out from 8-10 places back and won the race.
At first look you'd think Cav won by skill and a bit of luck. After all his finishing system looked broke. But on second thought, you might think that Columbia has controlled 2 sprints this tour perfectly and Petachi has taken advantage of their system to win. Maybe they switched up on purpose? If so it would be brilliant, but risky.
I've always thought the best strategies in biking are based on versatility. You need to be able to win with different players in different ways... that way you can keep your opponents off guard. A little bit of confusion can be a powerful thing in biking, and versatility gives you that. By contrast the way Columbia usually rides gives them another key advantage - intimidation. When you can have unbroken control of the front it can be very very intimidating. Sometimes in biking we call 'intimidation' the extra team mate.
But imagine, if Columbia chose to ride the way they did today. Their choice would have been balancing the risks of trading off 'intimidation' versus 'confusion'. They've also seen in this Tour that Petachi is really strong, and can maybe hold his speed a bit more than Cav. If they realized this and intentionally chose to opt for 'confusion' in their finishing system it would be brilliant! If you look more closely at the finish I'd maybe think that might be exactly what they did.
After all, they made sure to keep Renshaw with Cav when they let themselves get broken apart... having Bernie continue to drill it on the front kept Cav and Renshaw reasonably safe 8-10 places back - albeit they were definitely in a shit fight back there. Columbia looking a bit broken would have definitely confused the other teams, but in the split second decision making of a sprint finish there is only one choice to make - "we must move forward and control now" - and that is exactly what Garmin did, and they did it perfectly. What this allowed Cav to do was be in better position to mark Petachi. Petachi is a deisel sprinter and Cav is more punchy - his sprint is faster but a bit shorter (maybe). Renshaw did a great job moving Cav through the shit fight and Cav was able to hit out from the wheels a bit closer to the line - where he knew he was able to go faster than anyone else.
