The curse of the rainbow jersey...

[Moosedryvr]

TB is proving that the curse of the rainbow jersey has little to no effect if you spend the majority of your time racing in a leader's jersey.

Boonen = STUD!!!

[pdxmech13]

P I M P
O G

some could say FLOSS

[jerk]

yeah boonen isn't exactly romans vainsteins now is he?

jerk

[Grant McLean]

Isn't this curse thing a bit over the top? Take the last
20+ years, it's a quality list. (with a couple of exceptions)

1983 Altenrhein, Switzerland Greg LeMond, USA
1984 Barcelona, Spain Claude Criquielion, Belgium
1985 Giavera di Montello, Italy Joop Zoetemelk, Netherlands
1986 Colorado Springs, USA Moreno Argentin, Italy
1987 Villach, Austria Stephen Roche, Ireland
1988 Ronse, Belgium Maurizio Fondriest, Italy
1989 Chambéry, France Greg LeMond, USA
1990 Utsunomiya, Japan Rudy Dhaenens, Belgium
1991 Stuttgart, Germany Gianni Bugno, Italy
1992 Benidorm, Spain Gianni Bugno, Italy
1993 Oslo, Norway Lance Armstrong, USA
1994 Agrigento, Italy Luc Leblanc, France
1995 Duitama, Colombia Abraham Olano, Spain
1996 Lugano, Switzerland Johan Museeuw, Belgium
1997 San Sebastian, Spain Laurent Brochard, France
1998 Valkenburg, Netherlands Oskar Camenzind, Switzerland
1999 Verona, Italy Óscar Freire, Spain
2000 Plouay, France Romans Vainsteins, Latvia
2001 Lisbon, Portugal Óscar Freire, Spain
2002 Zolder/Hasselt, Belgium Mario Cipollini, Italy
2003 Hamilton, Canada Igor Astarloa, Spain
2004 Verona, Italy Óscar Freire, Spain
2005 Madrid, Spain Tom Boonen, Belgium

[classic1]

The curse refers to the fact that the wearer of the rainbow jersey had an average or crap year while wearing it, not to the quality of the riders.

Up until the early 80's at least the French champions jersey was considered poisoned or cursed!

[The Spider]

This is what it must have been like in the Merckx era, just domination....he seems to just win it all. Of course we still have so many questions....has he peaked, will he burn out, how much stronger can he get?

Incredible!

[William]

Is it the cycling equivalent of a Grammy for Best New Artist? :rolleyes:




William

[Grant McLean]

The curse refers to the fact that the wearer of the rainbow jersey had an average or crap year while wearing it

yes, of course. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess when looking
at the years the Champions had won it, I thought, gee, most of those
riders had a pretty good year.... but duh, they don't get to wear the jeresey
until the next season. Hopefully Chipo loosened up the curse a bit for Tom.

-g

[classic1]

I reckon Friere might have used up all the curse last year. :)