The Numbers: Biggest, fastest, record breakers of 2015
Can you remember why the number 2.3.029 is important?
The 2015 road season is all but done with only a few races remaining and most of the big names hanging up their bikes to enjoy some well-earned rest.
As we head into the off-season, Cyclingnews has pulled together some of the key statistics and important numbers from the WorldTour, Pro Continental and women's peloton.
20 – That’s the number of victories that Alexander Kristoff managed to add to his palmares this season. André Greipel was his nearest WorldTour rival with 16, while Mark Cavendish makes it into third with 14.
Kristoff started off well, dominating the Middle Eastern races and carried that into the Classics, taking his second monument win at the Tour of Flanders. He endured a barren patch during the summer, making it two months without a win, until he got back on track at the Arctic Race of Norway.
15,626.20 – Is the kilometres that Jens Debusschere completed throughout the year, after beginning his season at the end of January and completing it this week at the Nationale Sluitingprijs - Putte – Kapellen.
The Italian Kristian Sbaragli was the next best placed rider with 15,478 completed while Martijn Keizer makes an appearance in third with just 18 less kilometres than Sbaragli.
49.641 – The average speed of this year’s Paris-Tour, a record for the 231km race. Matteo Trentin’s speedy victory also earned him the Ruban Jaune, an award given for the fastest average speed in a one-day race or stage over 200 kilometres. He beat the previous record set by Marco Marcato at the 2012 Pairs-Tour by over a kilometre per hour.
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It is the 12th time that a rider has set a new record and the ninth time that it has been done at Paris-Tour.
54.526 - The distance that Bradley Wiggins went in his Hour Record attempt in June of this year. Wiggins was the sixth rider to make an official attempt, doing so at the Olympic Velodrome in London. The British rider smashed the benchmark of 52.937 that had been set by his compatriot Alex Dowsett had set a month earlier.
99 – A sizeable number when you consider that this is the number of race days LottoNL-Jumbo’s Martijn Keizer completed this season, significantly more than the 77 that he did in 2014. Among Keizer’s races this season was the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana. What’s more impressive is that the Dutchman only abandoned three races throughout the year.
Close behind Keizer was Pavel Brutt with 96, with several more riders sitting just behind on 93 race days.
39.389 – The average speed, in kilometres, of the fastest Grand Tour of the year. Unsurprisingly, it is the first Grand Tour of the season the Giro d’Italia that has the fastest average speed, with most riders’ legs still relatively fresh. It was also the longest of the year at some 3,481.8-kilometres.
The Tour de France was just a touch slower at 39.314 kph, while the Vuelta a Espana was the slowest – and the shortest - of all at 39.227 kph.
55.446 - Rohan Dennis' record-breaking average speed set on the prologue of the Tour de France. Dennis had been out to recon the course several times before the real thing and blitzed Greg LeMond's previous record set in the 1989 Tour, making it the fastest ever individual time trial at the French race.
40 – It might have been the slowest of all the Grand Tours in 2015 but the Vuelta a Espana had the highest attrition race, with 40 riders climbing off before the finish in Madrid. Cofidis and IAM Cycling suffered the most with almost half of their respective teams dropping out.
The Tour de France saw 38 riders abandon, with the Giro d’Italia suffering the least DNFs with 34.
13 – Jolien D’hoore’s number of wins in 2015, making her the most successful rider in the female peloton. Among her victories was the Ronde van Drenthe and the Belgian national road race title. Dutchwoman Anna van der Breggen was close behind with 11 victories in total while newly crowned world champion Lizzie Armistead took 10, helping her to her second consecutive World Cup title.
Last year’s most successful rider Marianne Vos doesn’t feature after an injury prevented her from competing on the road.
2.3.029 – The rule that caught Richie Porte out during the Giro d’Italia in May and resulted in him getting a two-minute penalty. After suffering a puncture in the final kilometres of stage 10, Porte took a wheel from compatriot Simon Clarke of Orica-GreenEdge. Riders are only able to take equipment from their team car or neutral service.
Vincenzo Nibali was another rider to fall foul of the rules, when he was disqualified from the Vuelta for taking a pull from his car. Eduardo Sepulveda was thrown out of the Tour de France when he caught a lift to his team car in an FDJ car.
13 – Adam Hansen’s record breaking number of consecutive Grand Tours. The Australian has ridden and completed every Grand Tour since the 2011 Vuelta a Espana. Hansen wasn’t the only rider to complete all three in 2015, with IAM Cycling’s Sylvain Chavanel making it to the end of the Giro, Tour and Vuelta.
63 – The number of race days that Elena Checchini took part in during 2015. The Italian champion began her season back in January at the Tour de San Luis and rounded it off at the weekend with the Giro dell’Emelia.
Servetto Footon’s Anna Potokina was the closest to her with 60 race days under her belt. Like Checchini, she claimed her national title (Russia) in June.
41 – The number of nationalities in the WorldTour peloton. France lead the way with 55 riders in the WorldTour but they are closely followed by Italy with 54 and Belgium with 53. Finland are one of the nations with only a single rider competing for them at the top level, however that will change with the retirement of Jussi Veikkanen at the end of the year.
30.45 – The average age of Pro Continental outfit UnitedHealthcare, the oldest team in the top two tiers of cycling. Tinkoff-Saxo are close behind at 30.13 and, with 40-year-old Matteo Tosatto one of the oldest professional riders.
Bardiani CSF hold the award for youngest team in the peloton with an average age of just 24.56. None of their 2015 roster was over the age of 30.
54 - For the fourth year running, Etixx-QuickStep have topped the team victory rankings with 54 wins throughout the whole season. Three of those four came at the Tour de France with Tony Martin, Zdenek Stybar and Mark Cavendish all helping themselves. Yet again it is Team Sky that trail just behind them with 43, although one of those was the Tour’s general classification.
Pro Continental outfit Team Roompot claimed the least with just three while LottoNL-Jumbo was bottom of the WorldTour teams with six.
In the women’s peloton, Wiggle-Honda dominated throughout the season to take 35 wins. Veloccio-SRAM, who are set to fold this winter, came in a close second with 33 wins.
Race day, wins and average age stats courtesy of cqranking.com.
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