So far stage 2 hasn’t lived up to its billing as a potentially decisive stage. Baaaaad wind. I was hoping for 70 - 80 km of cross-winds and echelons.
According to Dr. San Milan, last year, many competitors were eliminated in the early stages (the huge crash), so Pog didn’t all-out his effort into winning the championship. he will take this game. and the strongest competitor is WVA.
That was always going to be the problem, the direction (on the bridge) according to the forecast anyway (not even sure its strong enough either.)
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decisive seems a bit strong, any stage can end somebody’s race.
The weather remains unpredictable.
Martinez hits the deck
I was originally hoping that the wind would allow teams to put time into Pogacar, to at least make it seem like there is a potential question as to who will win the tour.
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- Fabio Jakobsen
- Wout van Aert
- Mads Pedersen
- Danny van Poppel
- Jasper Philipsen
Wout van Aert takes Yellow.
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Last 1500m had my heart going. Jacobsen obviously super strong but did WvA mistime it?
Pogi and 75 of his friends super lucky to be within 3k, I’m sure he’s fine but didn’t look great coming in (on 2 flats).
Ludacris speed!
Pogacar didn’t come down, he just unclipped and put a foot down as far as I could see, a few of the Ineos team did though. Yates, Thomas and another (I forget who now) were in front of it.
Geraint Thomas on stage one:-
“It was sketchy and stressful but I think we’ve definitely had worse. With the way the wind direction was everyone knew not a lot was going to happen, but it was still obviously a very nervous peloton with crashes and stuff.
“We knew the wind direction on the bridge wasn’t too dangerous but everyone still wanted to be in front. The boys were really good looking after me, Yatesy and Dani. We were in a great position, it was just unfortunate at the end with Ganna and Dani in that crash.”
Sagan sprinting like a total jackwagon again……glad Jakobsen was able to get past him and still log the win.
Really happy for the guy after what he went through.
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Sagan looked good. Nearly got pinched slicing between two slower riders and kept it upright. Hopefully he can keep building and get a clean run at it. I don’t think he’s as fast as Jakobsen and Ewen etc if it’s pure speed though. That’s ok though because those are usually slightly less interesting stages.
Same again tomorrow but no bridge?
Did you see him repeatedly banging shoulders with Jakobsen? Simply unnecessary
And what was with that Intermarche rider in the last couple of KM’s…dude was going flat out, barely in control and then almost takes out the field. He had no business being up there.
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The intermache rider definitely didn’t look in control. As you say, he was on his limit and bailed off into the path of another team. He also did well to stay up after panicking I guess. I wondered if he has never lead out at the World Tour and assumed with that effort there wouldn’t be anyone there. Certainly when you watch the lead outs on TV it looks that easy 
.
With regards Sagan, I didn’t put all the blame on him. There was a lot of aggressive riding and position holding. The final bump and barge appeared mostly as a result of fighting for the lead out and getting squeezed by one slowing rider. Hopefully we get to see a surfing Sagan get a clean shot at a win while his legs are good. It’ll be interesting to see if his form trends up or down.
Anyone doing fantasy leagues with their riding buddies?
Here is the overhead view of the sprint…Sagan knows his lane is closing, so he leans into Jakobsen…and then bangs in again after.
He’s always been a dangerous sprinter.
Sagan had Wouts wheel and Jakobsen thought he’d like to borrow it for a bit. Wout had room to move right around the slowing rider but Sagan found someone in the way.
Looked like good honest sprinting to me.
I won’t comment on his past antics as I don’t really have an opinion. I’m much more of a fan these days than I used to be. He seems like a good sort really. Same with Cav lol, couldn’t stand him when his ego was bigger than he was.
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I dunno… at the very start of the clip Sagan in on WVA’s wheel and at the end Jakobsen is on WVA’s wheel. Who pushed who?
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Jakobsen ended up on Wout’s wheel because wout moved from right to left (which was fine, he had the room to do so)….Sagan wanted to stay on Wout’s wheel, knew his line ahead was blocked and tried to headbutt / shoulder Jakobsen out of the way….twice.
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