As much as I'd love to see George in Yellow -- it does the Posties no good to move the jersey off of Lance and onto George if the objective is to get the team out from under defending the Yellow jersey until they get into the mountains.
However, if there was a goal to put George in Yellow he would have to compete for all three of the on-the-road intermediate sprints to secure the time bonuses against the likes of Zulle, McEwen and the other Green Jersey hopefuls. The first rider across an intermediate Sprint Line is awarded 6 seconds of bonus time, the second gets a 4 second time bonus and the third rider gets 2 seconds. Thus, if George were able to win at least two sprints (12") or any other combination that nets him more than 11 seconds he could move ahead of Lance "on the road" well before the finish line sprint. That's a tall order, but it would be possible.
Just my .02
Last edited by livngood; 07-07-04 at 08:38 PM.