2005 Le Tour Fantasy Game winners announced

The results are now in for this year's 2005 Le Tour Fantasy competition. Below are the 10 lucky prize-winners, who all get to enjoy over US$13,000 worth of prizes, including the first-place prize of a TREK Madone Discovery Team bike.

Of course, these prizes wouldn't have been possible without our presenting sponsor, Trek, and other sponsors Specialized, Park Tool, Bontrager, Carmichael Training, Systems, DMT, Giro, fi'zi:k and Speedplay.

Here's what they had to say: "I first started by looking at all of the stage profiles to see how many stages favoured the sprinters, rouleurs, and the GC contenders. Once I broke that down, I then weighted my team of fifteen accordingly. With the sprinters, there was no way I could afford the dream team of Boonen, McEwen, O'Grady, and Hushovd - so I decided to save some points by not choosing Boonen and going with Hushovd and McEwen. While I love the Aussie riders, Stuey was just way too expensive. I filled out the other sprinter spots with bargain basement sprinters like Eisel, Wrolich, Forster, et al., being careful to skip over repetitive non-finishers or riders who seem to be entering the twilight of their careers, like Kirsipuu.

"For the GC contenders, the first couple of selections were a no-brainer. Armstrong and Basso were must haves. I skipped Ullrich because I didn't have a ton of confidence in how he would do, and his results in races leading up to the Tour didn't impress me too much. There were a handful of riders that I passed over because they seemed to find their form much too soon - guys like Michael Rogers. Instead, I went with proven performers over the last few Tours - Vino, Pereiro.

"I hedged my bets with the two last teams I entered. I did one team with Boonen and McEwen, and the other with Hushovd and McEwen. I also mixed up the GC riders a bit to cover my bases and took a risk by skipping Basso and going with Evans and Moreau for my second placed team. I took care this year to also think about the other competitions (GC, maillot vert, maillot a pois) when I made my rider selections.