Stage 21 Results

Pinotti - Thomas - Sergent

Marco Pinotti knows how to survive a 3-week tour and blast the final TT. The four who picked him are our joint stage winners: Seahorse, blitzer maloney, paisley and frans verbiage. Honorable mention also to muk and ther00kie16, who each had both Thomas and Sergent.

Our long time leader pablo777 seals the cappello rosa GC win, with VirtKitty in second place, and PrinceBuster edging out mb2612 by less than a point for 3rd.

Thanks to holmovka for the fabulous trophies and prizes!

Link to spreadsheet with full results history

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Rules for Tour de France game

DS picks will be made in the same way: pick 3 riders, the order does not matter.

Points awarded will still be higher for less popular picks, but with a revised scheme:

The other change is that the first 6 riders on a stage will score points:

Stage winner as shown above.

2nd-6th place will score 60%, 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% of above.

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I like the idea that we get rewarded for picking credible outsiders. But the GIro "bonus" scheme was too extreme, especially for unique picks, and maybe some of us who fell behind spent too much time trying to find "hail mary" unique picks just hoping to get really lucky. And too much time worrying about what other DS's were doing, not enough thinking about the riders' real chances. WIth the new scheme, if you fancy an outsider for a stage, your score isn't going to be all that different whether one, two or three DS's pick the same guy. And the score for a lucky unique winner is less extreme - it's now much easier to catch up with a couple of averagely-popular picks.

The other change is to score down to 6th place. This doesn't involve too much work, and means fewer "dead" stages where nobody scores. On breakaway stages, the sprinters or GC guys may well still figure in the lower points, adding some interest. Also, in the long run, deeper scoring means more skill and less luck.