No Froome or Thomas at the Tour

Neither G or Froome looked that great recently so perhaps the extra time will give them a chance to build towards a grand tour. It’s impressive to see where Froome has got back too, but I do think it’s too much of an ask to see him win a grand tour again.

Go Egan!!!

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I think Ineos are still good to win the tour even with jumbo looking incredible. May depend on how well they recover from their injuries to whether than can knock Ineos off their perch.

Sepp Kuss is an absolute machine. And at only 59kg surely a future tour winner.

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I think Froome is more likely to win another one than Thomas. Thomas winning in 2018 was really a surprise - fully deserved win and he was undoubtedly the strongest rider in that race, but prior to that he’d always looked like a superdomestique who was very comfortable in that role and didn’t have the burning desire/ego to be leader. I was super impressed with his second place as defending champion (especially after the amount of celebrating he did after the win!) but he always struck me as a “one and done” kind of winner.

Froome is cut from a different cloth, he’s a decent enough guy that he’ll ride in support of a team mate if he knows he doesn’t have the form to win himself, but he’ll never be satisfied with that. He’ll keep raging against the dying of the light until such time as he no longer believes he can win. Might not get there, but Vuelta could be very unpredictable this year given the truncated season, wouldn’t rule him out.

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I would guess Bernal and Carapaz will be Co Leaders. Whilst they are both great for the mountain stages, I dont think they have a top level TT in their legs to challenge Roglic. TJV to win the Tour this year for me.

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I would agree although Thomas could of won last year too if they’d backed him. Although they were right not to.

Even if he is not at his best, Thomas in his current form is of more use to INEOS than some of those going.

Froome isn’t a huge surprise (although I thought they would take him, TBH) but Thomas getting stiff-armed and the. Carapaz getting the nod are huge surprises. Carapaz has not looked great in his warm-up races, but no one cared because the Giro was still 6 weeks away.

And if I was either of those guys, I’d be pissed. Thomas never got the support of Ineos, even when he won, let alone as defending champ. And now kicked to the curb.

Carapaz doesn’t get to defend his title and is back to a support role…after leaving Movistar to have a shit at leadership.

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:scream:

It’s not all that surprising if you watched the Dauphine, however it still feels weird. Ineos going to the tour without a British leader for the first time is just…strange.

Can we refrain from calling him G?

As far as I know we’re not his mates.

This is also being discussed here:

But I’m also not super surprised about Froome since they said his spot was contingent on his performance at the Dauphine and the only shots I ever saw of him were at the back of the group or falling off the back of the group.

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I merged the newer thread to the older one (and will repeat if/when it happens again. :wink: )

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No. He may not me “my G”, but he is G.

:sweat_smile:

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I’ve always felt Thomas hasn’t been backed enough by the team for the Tour which is a great shame IMO. INEOS have always had him as a number two but I hope they put there full weight behind him for the Giro.

Agreed that Froome is on another level, but making it back to the top is a big ask, but having said that, we’ve seen Lance come back from cancer so who knows.

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Well, we have to hope so.

But I don’t think the Dauphine is a predictor of TdF, this year more than ever and with the year we’ve had I would theorise that every team is weaker than they could be. Some riders could really struggle across all teams. This is a tour where experience could win out over form…but it’s done now.

I definitely think we could see some odd results due to what’s gone on this year. The Dauphine has generally been a good prediction of tour form but who knows in 2020.
Jumbo were looking very strong but it was a great shame to see some of their top guys crash last week and put there tour hopes up in the air.

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Alaphilippe looked good which is good for France and the Tour I suppose.

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The route seems to ave been designed for Alaphilippe.
He’s a great rider

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Agree, but I think personality/ambition comes into it as well - he’s always seemed fairly content in that role. As have riders like Kwiatkowski who despite being a former world champion and having one of the biggest engines in the peloton seems happy to play the superdomestique role at the Tour even though it means he’s never really tapered and peaked for the one day races where he’s given free rein.

Compare to a rider like Bernal who made no bones about the fact that he wouldn’t sacrifice himself at the Tour. Or Froome who despite being 35 and recovering from a serious injury has gone to another team in order to be guaranteed leader status.

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I’m a huge fan of both. Rooted for Froome in all his tours and rooted for Thomas during his win and last year. However, Ineos needed to do something after the Dauphine. Jumbo just ate their lunch and I think what was apparent to me was that neither Thomas nor Froome helped the team AT ALL. Whether it is a lack of form or the fact that neither is agreeable to a domestique role after their prior roles, if Ineos has a even a remote shot to out maneuver Jumbo, they need all the domestiques they can find to do work and protect Bernal. It’s probably also giving them good opportunities to be leaders at the other grand tours and perhaps they might be disappointed, but when you’ve got 3 leaders, you’ve got none.

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