Discovery wins the 2007 Tour de France Team Competition

It was an unusual year in the Tour de France, but one aspect that was largely overlooked in the shadow of the scandals and the great individual performances was the rare event of the top team performance being put in by a team that put a teammate on top of the podium in the Yellow Jersey at the end of the race.  Typically, teams providing support for a GC contender get crushed protecting the Yellow Jersey rider, but the strength of Levi Leipheimer, himself a contender, Gerorge Hincapie(24th in the GC), Yaroslav Popovych(8th),  and Vladimir Gusev(38th) meant that support did not exhaust the team. Much credit has to go to Johan Bruyneel and the staff at Team Discovery Channel for assembling and maintaining an outstanding team, and managing the tactics of the race beautifully.

In the end Discovery Channel won by over 19 minutes, and placed two men on the podium.  Amazing.