Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
thirdcrank
Posts: 36776
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

Post by thirdcrank »

Brucey wrote: ... For the low-oxygen training to have been any real use, he would have to have done it for weeks not days. ...


Without commenting on this exchange, its subject does illustrate a point I've been trying to make which is that modern training methods, helped by things like Lottery Funding are so much more scientific.

A former colleague was a pretty good distance runner and he told me a tale about an Iron Curtain athlete from the days when they were all "amateurs" holding senior rank in the Soviet armed forces. I think he may have been talking about Emile Zatopek. This also concerned training with a restricted oxygen supply, presumably to mimic the effects of training at altitude. Anyway, the story was that he used to hold his breath while training, but part of that training involved marching out of the barracks in the full uniform of a Red Army colonel or whatever and seeing how far he could march before he fainted.

This probably also comes under "learning how to suffer."
Brucey
Posts: 44521
Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

Post by Brucey »

that is quite funny!

But I feel I should point out that the effects of altitude and altitude acclimatisation were quite well understood even in 1972. Decades of expeditions to the Himalayas (which in the case of the British ones had a high scientific content) meant that there was a lot of information available.

Although there are some shorter term effects it is now understood that full acclimatisation (including the really beneficial red blood cell increases) normally takes about 11 or 12 days per 1000m of height gain, and varies with the individual in both rate and extent. They would perhaps not have known an exact number back then but no-one would have thought that it could be done very quickly.

Mexico city is ~2200m above sea level (higher than many of the alpine passes used in the TdeF) so full acclimatisation would take about 25 days under normal circumstances.

BTW I am not dismissing the notion that use of this apparatus had been going on for some time and that this was in fact Eddy's 'secret weapon' that made him dominant in the way he was. IIRC Wiggo trained in a comparable way before his successful TdeF campaign, even sleeping in a reduced oxygen environment.

cheers
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pete75
Posts: 16370
Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

Post by pete75 »

According to William Fotheringham in his well researched book Merckx underwent physiological tests at the university of Liege and then in Milan with a Professor Ceretelli who knew quite a bit about high altitude stuff because of his work with K2 climbers. The Ceretelli tests took place on 12th October according to Daniel Friebe in his biography of Merkx. After the Milan tests a decision was made for Merckx to do hypoxic training on rollers in between races - so it seems the altitude training did not go on for a long period.
Tests were done using a pulse monitor with Merckx breathing an air mixture equivalent to 3,600 metres of altitude. Apparently after 4 days of this his heart rate would fall from over 150 to under 100 within 60 seconds impressing Ceretelli with the rapid rate of recovery.
Everything I've heard or read about this mentions the relatively short period he spent acclimatising to the Mexico City altitude.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
TimP
Posts: 106
Joined: 25 May 2015, 6:15pm

Re: Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

Post by TimP »

ukdodger wrote:
Brucey wrote:I think that both have been held by the same rider at the same time but perhaps not at the race finish*. I think the rider wears the yellow and the second place rider in the points gets to wear green.

* correction Merckx did it in '69, '71, '72. He did it in the Giro more than once too. Not 'the cannibal' for nothing....

cheers


I thought and I could be wrong that yellow is on time and green on points. So the most stage wins wins green.

So Merckx did win both in the same race?


Yellow is overall leader so even if you are also the current sprint king/hill climb leader you wear yellow and the second place in the sprint/hill climb wears that jersey.

Yellow for overall
Green for sprint
Hill climb often red polka dot but I have seen it be red in some races.
There can also be highest placed amateur/highest placed junior, even highest placed Asian in Le Tour de Langkawi. Races in many countries have variations but in international races UCI must sanction them.
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