The power of one

Just as races can be won with the help of your team-mates, they can also be won without them, writes Anthony Tan.

Over the past week at the Tour of California and the last fortnight at the Giro d'Italia, you would have heard TV commentators bang on about how important the team is when it comes to winning a stage or the overall classification, and the winners verbalise exactly the same thing.

"I couldn't have done it without my team. There's no better drilled unit than ours. I was led out perfectly. We have something special. We're not just team-mates, we're friends. I was protected all day. I only had to ride on the front the last 10 kilometres."

You get the idea.

While I acknowledge the collective role of individuals to an extent, I also believe races can be won without the need for team-mates, and because of certain team-mates, races can also be lost.

With regards to the latter, take the final stage of the Tour of California.

In the final lap, three riders were away, with Chris Horner (RadioShack) and Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Transitions) bridging up to the trio in the last 15km or so. Horner was the best-placed rider in the move, 1:32 behind race leader Michael Rogers (HTC-Columbia), who was now isolated – with no team-mate in the lead group – and had only Levi Leipheimer, Yaroslav Popovych (both RadioShack) and David Zabriskie (Garmin) for company.

At one point, the lead quintet had 55 seconds on Rogers' group. But as commentator David McKenzie noted during SBS' television coverage, he was dumbfounded when he saw Leipheimer and Popovych move to the front – not to stymie the chase in an effort to grant Horner a last-minute victory (provided he won the stage, he only needed another 16 seconds), but to secure Leipheimer's podium place behind Rogers and Zabriskie.

Said a bemused McKenzie, "For a team with apparently one of the best directors in the world, the stupidity of Radioshack…"

My sentiments exactly, Macca. At least Horner got his stage race victory at the Tour of the Basque Country in April, which notably, he impressively achieved largely on his own against a veritable Spanish Armada.

Now the Giro.

If you saw the opening days in Holland, you would have to been blind not to see BMC leader Cadel Evans isolated on the precarious wind-ravaged roads in the closing stages, forced to bridge gaps on his own, then on the third stage into Middelberg, drive a chase group to limit his losses to a group containing Alexandre Vinokourov, who would don the maglia rosa by the day's end.

Then there was Stage 11 to L'Aquila, where 56 riders including a bunch of GC contenders took flight and gained 17 minutes at one point. Conspicuously, not an Astana, BMC or Liquigas leader was present.

Over the last two days (Stages 15 and 16), Evans, frustrated though unperturbed, has now put himself back in contention, largely through his own doing. And with BMC now four men down, in the final five stages, he will ostensibly have only himself to rely on.

Conversely – and fortuitously for Evans – Vinokourov, Sastre and Nibali have faltered, but through their own weakness rather than their team's.

One man who has benefited from the strength of his squadra, however, is Ivan Basso.

Early on, Basso's Liquigas team proved they were the strongest when they won the Stage 4 team time trial. They weren't too good on the Strade Bianche that followed and missed the big move on Stage 11, but since then they've made few errors, if any.

Sunday, on the devilish slopes of Monte Zoncolan, Basso and Nibali were cocooned all the way to the base of the climb, and out of 222 kilometres, Basso rode just 7.5km up front en route to victory.

It's been such an unpredictable and tremendously exciting Giro so far, it's difficult to say what will happen next.

However come Sunday in Verona, if Evans does don the final maglia rosa, he can mostly thank himself rather than his team-mates for what would be a historic Australian first.

If Cadel wonders if a Grand Tour can really be won on your own, perhaps he should put a call into Alberto Contador…