14 DAY TRIAL // The final stage of Le Tour de France is, traditionally, a simple promenade that takes the riders from the suburbs of Paris to the finish of Le Champs Elysees.
There the final jerseys are awarded and a number of French and cycling personalities make an appearance in order to bring the competition to a close until next year.
The sprint on the legendary Parisian boulevard is hotly contested and seen as a prestigious scalp, but rarely do we see any sort of change in the important classifications.
I once again have a plan for Benatii, but given the pancake flat final kilometers, I guess someone like Mark Cavenish or Greipel is better suited to take victory.
The ceremonial ride, in the real world, often allows riders to chat to one another, sip some champagne and generally act for the television cameras.
For me, a virtual directeur sportif, it is also time to look back on what I did right and what I did wrong in my virtual Tour de France.
I need to acknowledge that, when coming in cold, getting back into PCM 2012 is harder than it seems.
It takes time to re-learn when to launch sprints and attacks and when to stay back and converse energy and I am sure that if I ran the race again my results would be much better, simply because I have experienced the stages once and I am able to better build tactics.
This year’s version of the game is also more punishing and just two pretty small mistakes, one linked to water carrying and a mistimed attack, have cost me the competition.
Despite that, I managed to take home some victories and certainly did better than the real world Radioshack Nissan Trek did in the competition.
Take a look at how the Champs Elysees sprint happened:
