Thought I’d open up a thread dedicated to this race, beyond the crashes we saw yesterday on stage 2.
It was supremely gratifying seeing Marianna Vos don the yellow jersey. World champ on the road, track, and CX, olympic gold medalist (twice, I think), so the yellow jersey was what was missing from her trophy cabinet.
Yesterday was her 241st career win as a pro. And I read earlier today that women’s cycling only has 1/6 the races men have.
She was one of the voices advocating for the past 9 years for a return of this race, so am very glad she could finally enjoy the fruits of her labour!
Haven’t started watching today’s stage yet - but Stage 2 was great. For anyone who isn’t up to speed on the race or women’s racing - it would make a great introduction into the peloton and frankly could just be a two hour advertisement for women’s racing. Strongly recommend you give it a shot
I really like the parcours for this race - these classic-ish stages to start and then climbing towards the finish. Hopefully the constant splits and attacking continue until the weekend and then we see if AVV is still the best climber and capable of pulling back any time she’s lost in the meantime
I watched the replay of stage 2 while riding this morning and it was so exciting! I really love the fact that it’s less than 2 hours of racing because I think it keeps it more exciting. In comparison to the men’s where they just roll along for 4 hours chatting, and then like an hour of attacks and spiciness.
Elisa Balsamo surprised me. I didn’t expect her to drop off so early, then roll in behind the peloton even.
I do love that Vos won. Her mom hugging her at the end was so adorable. I also love that she’s in her 30s too!
Oh, it’s more than 2 hours of racing - stage 2 was 135km with a nasty headwind for the first 2/3. But I think broadcasters only show the final 2 or 3 hours
Today’s stage was 133km. So they are indeed shorter than the men’s and fun to watch (that being said, the men’s TDF was pretty damn entertaining this year!). The final 50km were fabulously bumpy and winding through some villages, like Belgium with vines.
Definitely not the favorite for GC… she will hold it as long as she can but once the big mountain stages come it’s not a race for Vos. I’m sure she isn’t even targeting GC.
Annemiek is the big favorite but she was sick and lost some time over the first three days. Opens the door for some of the other climbers. Should be super exciting!
I’m enjoying this race and looking forward to more coverage of women’s cycling. Although with GCN+ I already have more coverage of than I can watch.
I did notice something odd with the coverage video. When they do the summary of who is in which jersey and they start with the rider’s stock image and transform it to the rider-in-the-jersey, they are doing a body swap. All of the jersey bodies are the same, with the rider’s head changed out to the current jersey wearer. I thought for the men’s presentations they mapped the jersey over the actual image of the man in the jersey, but I’m not sure.
She always has hilarious quips in interviews. Flanders 2019, and La Course 2018 (I think) are all time classics.
With AvV sick, it will be interesting to see how long the recovery from that is. I know she said she was feeling better yesterday, but clearly not back to her full self. And also, she really struggled too keep much in her body for a day, so will there be a knock on effect later in the race? I am so excited for this gravel sector stage, time to turn the TV on.
Think we all know how important it is to properly fuel for cycling. Not being able to eat or two days will have a big effect. But he’s also one of the strongest riders and has a huge engine.
Can someone tell me if I am just seeing this situation wrong… at the 12.9k to go mark of today’s stage when Mavi Garcia hits the front side of her team car… I’ve replayed it like five times trying to figure out how this could happen… from my view driver is actually gaining speed into the back of the small group of riders that Mavi is trying to get to the back of… as a rider I wouldn’t have expected that car to be SPEEDING up into the back of that group (or the group was slowing down - still the car should have kept distance)… I’m thinking this guy had his eyes off the road in this critical point … I’m calling complete buffoonery on the driver on this one… would love to get @ambermalika or @IvyAudrain s take on it if they’ve seen it.
I didn’t see him speed up. It seemed to me that she just kind of cut in to get on the back of the group too soon. I would have thought though that he would have slowed down when he saw what she was doing.
Dutch Eurosport commentary said something like, car shouldn’t be so close the group, rider should pay attention to the situation. Combined with the chaos and stress of what happened before its just a really unlucky situation and I agree with that take.
