Ta. re the King of the Mountains Prize

in a sense, you're exactly right - the overall winner probably is the true 'king of the mountains' (unless they've won it by smashing everyone else in the time trials, and just holding on in the mountains - which has happened some years, to some extent).

But the actual King of the Mountains (KotM) prize is based on a points system, where every classified mountain - often 3 or 4 in a single stage - has points awarded to whoever reaches the summit first.

So it's possible to rack up lots of KotM points by continually escaping the bunch early on, and being the first to the top of the 2 or 3 climbs early on in a stage. The main contenders don't want to waste energy doing that, so they'll just let those guys go, and ride safely in the bunch for most of the stage. But then they'll chase down the escapers for the *final* climb - and attack, ride away, and gain time on everyone else.

Yeah they'll get a few KotM points for winning on that final mountain. But the escaper will have gobbled up loads of points earlier on in the day.

And there'll be a few guys who make it their mission to win the KotM prize - or even just to wear the jersey of it for as long into the race as possible (that gets them - and their sponsors - on tv a lot). So they'll try and escape, day after day, whenever there are classified climbs during the stage. And one of them will probably do this often enough to win the overall KotM prize, even though the yellow jersey contenders will take loads of time off them on a couple of the really big, key climbs.

It has been known for the yellow jersey winner to win the KotM jersey too, just by virtue of winning on the really big climbs in their mission to win the overall (and those really big climbs do carry the most KotM points). But more often the above happens.

Make sense?

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Jun 29, 09:26:58