I remember being the Head of the PMO for a sprawling multi-country multi-site organization, 1300 people and downsizing, and having to go into the Senior VP’s office (trembling knees) to let him know how many people we really needed to do all the projects based upon what the algorithm said or what the lack thereof didn’t say. (I’m so much better off nowadays.) I remember being a freshman at the University of Ghent, Belgium and being admonished by our professor in physics (I hold a Ph. D. in Chemistry and haven’t done anything with it for a long time) that the answer to the question at which height the parachutist (under this and that condition) jumped from the plane couldn’t be five meters.
In the many hours I spent reading up on cycling on the internet, Daniel Marszalek’s cycling algorithm is the only of its kind that I ever ran into, an attempt at a systematic quantification and ranking of all the riders involved, let’s say over the last 100 years, in professional road cycling. Alas, I have issues with its outcome, to cite just one example Laurent Jalabert being ahead of Lance Armstrong. So therefore and since I came down with a cold this week anyhow, I created my own version which I have rendered below.
As to the assumptions underlying the algorithm: there are many and some reflect my own interpretation of our beloved sport’s history; one example are the points to be won for the choice selection of one-day and stage races that have more or less been stable over the decades and which form the backbone of the algorithm. I’m giving 1 point to a classic, 1.5 to Paris-Tours (because of it almost being the 6th monument historically), and 2 to the monuments. I’m giving 3 points for a world championship; otherwise said, a world championship equals the Flèche Wallonne (FW) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège (LBL) combined. 4 points for a Vuelta (although Schwalbekönig would claim the Vuelta for a long time was a warm-up for the Tour only), 4.5 for a Giro, and 5 for a Tour, the crown jewel of (road) cycling as a sport. The following stage races each get 2 points: Paris-Nice (PN), Tirreno-Addriatico (TA), Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco (VCaPV), Tour de Romandie (TdR), Critérium du Dauphiné (CdD), and the Tour de Suisse (TdS). The Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (VCaC) is getting 1.5 points only. So winning Paris-Nice weighs in as much as winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège, although in my dreams I’m always winning the latter one. Finally a stage in the Vuelta yields 0.4 points (or 3 Vuelta stages to a regular classic), a stage in the Giro 0.5 points (or 3 Giro stages to Paris-Tours), a stage in the Tour 0.6 points (or 3 Tour stages to a monument). So far the math.
Other assumptions are: 1) This is a winner’s algorithm as I’m not assigning points to for instance second places (tough luck, Poulidor), unlike Marszalek. 2) I’m not assigning points to national championships as these races differ too much from one country to another. 3) I’m not assigning points to the other grand tour jerseys such as the polka dot and green jersey in the Tour. I believe them to be overrated and I’d personally much rather win a stage in the Tour (without jersey) than winning the green jersey without stage. 4) I’m not including the Olympic Games in the metric, for obvious reasons. 5) Team time trials in the grand tours are not included either. 6) The algorithm is focusing on road racing and not on time trialing. So the world time trial championships don’t get you any points, neither races like the Grand Prix des Nations. Time trials only weigh in as individual stages part of the many stage races included in the algorithm. 7) Lastly I have only included riders from let’s say the 40s onward, when it seems riders started racing a more international program. Coppi for instance won Paris-Roubaix and the Flèche Wallonne. Apologies therefore to Binda and Girardengo.
The results:
Ps. I must do some spot checks here and there to see whether all the data make sense. I welcome all of your comments as well and consider this to be a first version. I don’t think I missed any riders, at least not for the top-20.
