The Tour Tigers: How it started.
In the distant past, we were still young and unspoiled and didn't know any better, we followed the Tour de France with some interest. That interest grew and to make the tension even greater and the summer even more enjoyable, 'the Tour Tigers' saw the light of day in 1995. It is true that there was not really a group yet, because the number of participants was limited to two or three, but a tradition was born.
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Now, many years later, there have been Tour Tigers trips, preparations for next year's Tour game start in the fall of the year before and there is even a real community! What a small game can be big at!
"There was once..."
Where fascination for sport and boredom meet, that's where the best ideas arise. The Tour Tigers, however, originated from an interest in cycling and years later it turns out that it was actually not such a good idea to start the Tour game from the Tour Tigers. Why not? Every year many lose hours or days of sleep and fights are fought at the cutting edge for something as banal as the Tour game! A simple task to put together a team of 21 riders leads to hair loss (could also be old age), change of characters ("Fall, stupid rider, fall! YOU shouldn't get points!?") or even a slight form of knowledge of cycling. The latter is not an advantage in the game, by the way, but that is aside. You don't just win the Tour game, that takes something!
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Winners and Misses
Of course participating is more important than winning, but still: you don't just add your name in the Hall of Fame of Tour game winners! In all those years, only five (5!) managers have managed to get their team to reach the finish line first. And where history is discussed, names must be mentioned, so here we put the former winners of the Tour game in the spotlight. Only they have the right to say that they have won the Trofeo Chapel, which does not mean that they have a monopoly on wisdom. :-)
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MULTIPLE WINNERS:
Jurgen (6), Jeroen (4), Anouk (2), Robert (2)
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SINGLE WINNERS:
Marc, Paul, Roland
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The group is small, but every year it seems to get more exciting. It is therefore inevitable that a new name can soon be added to the list of winners of the Trofeo Chapel!
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However, where there are winners, there are also misses. And yes, all the managers are great, even those who are no longer participating because they can't handle the thrill and excitement, but those riders...pooh! How many times has one wrong choice ruined an entire summer by missing a manager's victory in the Tour de France? A Christophe Moreau, for example, managed to knock down everything in the peloton like a stray dog, just like almost all Dutch riders who were chosen. Or think of Erik Zabel, Bjarne Riis, Ventoso, Menchov, Zubeldia and Cavendish or Greipel! Each and every one of them rose above themselves or sank below themselves, thus disrupting the Tour game. Another year of frustration, another no victory, another cry and maybe start again. It's not for nothing that so many extra rankings have been created in the Tour game; there must still be a chance to win something, right?