Roglic now all alone in the the closing moments because J-V fried themselves…
Edit - looks like a couple J-V riders have come back to help, but they are pretty far back.
Alliphillipe played that perfectly…
Great win!
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Julian is so fun to watch! I find myself rooting for him a lot. He’s the kind of rider I aspire to be more like. That post stage emotion he was showing was unreal. I had no idea he lost his father in June until they mentioned it on the broadcast. He apparently dedicated the win today to him. No wonder he was so overwhelmed at the finish line.
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Tomorrow’s stage is another for the sprinters…despite the climbing early in the stage, there is almost 85k of gently descending / flats to the line.
Some teams will send riders up the road early to grab some KOM points, with the goal of gaining enough points to hold the jersey for a few days. They may even get a fair amount of time…but the sprinters’ teams will ensure they are brought back before the finish. The only way this doesn’t end in a bunch gallop is if crosswinds show up and split the field.
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It seems that the detergent caravan vehicle never went onto the climbs or descents, so that at least wasn’t the cause for at least some of the crashes.
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Yeah, I saw that…and there are also counter-reports saying it isn’t accurate. Who knows? But when you look at the Crash form Lopez, I find it hard to believe there wasn’t something on the roads. It was literally like he was sliding on ice.
Interesting that Deceunick is all in on the Evade helmet today…the last two days, almost all Specialized teams have been on the new “Prevail III” (assuming hat is the name), but today everyone (except Allaphilippe) went for the Evade. Long day of pulling ahead of them and every watt counts!!
Holy crap…what an acceleration from Ewan!
Great sprint!!
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And weaving to the right of Sagan before darting left to overhaul Bennett. Amazing skill.
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Stunning sprint finish, never seen anything like it
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Couldn’t have asked for a more exciting finish! Put very well - “Literally made all of those sprinters look like second class in the final 100m”
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Wow.
Ewan just spent so much time in everyone’s draft that he was able to build up so much speed. I really though Bennett had it until Ewan came out of nowhere
He is aero AF…sprints with his face in front of the bars and super low. IIRC, his pure wattage numbers are not massive,
found some numbers here: Triathlon bike training advice, plans & research | Tri247.com
two years ago:
Ewan weighs around 67kg and revealed his max power. “My max [power] ever in training is 1650 watts,” he said.
and
“I can never get high power in that [my bullet] position. I reckon when I’m doing that [position] I’m sitting on, at a guess, at 1,000 [watts],” he revealed.
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Tomorrow’s stage…everyone needs to come out and play tomorrow. Cat 1 climb to the finish…not a horrific climb and no one is going to win the Tour tomorrow, but look for at least one GC favorite to give up their hopes tomorrow.
Another great stage for Allaphilippe…or Valverde. I would normally add Roglic to that list, but he seemed a little suspect in the closing stages yesterday.
A bit more feasible that a break stays away tomorrow…will depend how much the favorites play poker with each other. My guess is it still comes back together so the favorites can get the time bonuses, but definitely not a guarrantee.
Looking forward to seeing this one…
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Do you think Van Aert could sneak into a breakaway or pull a strade bianche on someone?? I have him in my Fantasy team and I expected so much more from him (in the form that he was…)
Think he has a job to do, support Roglic and help set the tempo.
I think he might get a bit of freedom in sprinters stage but he is there to support as his first job.
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So the question is: does Ineos and TJV go hard on the final climb to try and eliminate Allaphilippe as a potential GC candidate? Or do they play around like last year hoping he cracks later in the tour?
With the risk (your guess is as good as mine) of the tour not being a full 3 weeks, does this change the strategy?
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Not likely at this point…J-V ws supposedly setting him up for the win yesterday, but then Dumoulin crashed and he had to go back and help drag him back.
Any other stage where he could factor in at this point will likely depend on Roglic and Dumoulin both dropping out of contention.
I don’t think the stage / finish tomorrow is hard enough to do that…they need to grind JA down vs. taking him out in one strike. JA has to be a favorite for the stage tomorrow, IMO.
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That’s so interesting… Do you think JA will make the same mistake as last years Tour of killing himself and not letting any gas in the tank for week 3?? I mean I love the guy, awesome to watch but man, today he was 3rd wheel in that lead out train…