Many stages during grand cycling tours (GT; Giro d`Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana) are designed specifically for sprinters. Of the 79 GT stages won by sprinters within 2008-2011, 5 sprinters won 54 stages and 19 sprinters won remaining 25 stages. The primary aim of this investigation is to describe the sprint performances of a successful professional road cyclist in order to explore performance analysis methodology used for evaluating road sprints. We focused on comparing winning sprints to less successful efforts. Methods: A the time of this study the subject was the highest international ranked professional male road sprint cyclist (age, 26; height, 175 cm; weight, 69 kg). Performances of this athlete during 2008-2011 GT stages were identified using public access web sites. Stages won by sprinters were classified into those in which he won (W) or lost (L) the sprint, or was dropped (D) from the front bunch prior to the sprint. In addition, video footage of 16 stages have been analyzed for sprint duration, position in the bunch at 60, 30, 10 s remaining and the number of lead-out team members (at 30s) to determine tactical differences between W and L. The total elevation gain (TEG) of 22 stages has been determined to examine its relationship with W, L and D. A descriptive analysis of head-to-head performances against the 2nd-5th most successful professional sprinters has also been conducted. Results: Over 4 years, the cyclist started 52 GT stages (out of 79 won by sprinters) with 30 W (58%), 15 L (29%), 6 D (12%) and one crash. Video analysis of the sprints showed that sprint duration was similar between W and L sprints (10.9±1.8 and 10.0±3.6 s, respectively). The position in the bunch was lower for W compared to L at 10s from the finish (1.8±0.4 and 4.7±3.3, respectively) but not at =20s. The number of team members was not significantly different between W (1.1±0.6) and L (0.6±0.8). TEG was significantly higher when the rider was dropped (1313±395 m) compared to W and L sprints (478±266 and 524±324 m, respectively). The cyclist`s ability to reach the finish line in the first bunch (77%) was lower when compared with other successful sprinters (89%). However, the subject won over 60% of stages in which he was in contention to sprint, while his competitors won less than 15%. Discussion: This study presents novel methodology for the analysis of the road cycling sprint performance. The detailed descriptive information describes performances of one of the most successful sprinters in cycling history. This cyclist demonstrates the ability to win professional road sprints with or without a team lead out, when the GT stage is performed over low elevation gain.
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Veröffentlicht von Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. / Übersetzt mit https://www.DeepL.com/Translator