I have the same feeling. I was hoping that Stage 2 with the bridge would have crosswinds that JV / Ineos could exploit to gain time, same with Stage 5 on the cobbles.
But with Pogacar up 31 seconds on Vingegaard, and 39 on Yates - the closest competitors - I’m really worried that JV / Ineos are going to go into protect podium position mode, and help UAE control the race instead of attacking for the win.
This is really why I wish the Tier 2 / 3 favorites - Bardet, Quintana, etc. - would give up on GC and go for stage wins / KOM jersey to make things exciting / potentially open up possibilities to beat Pogacar.
He’s going to be hard to beat and I think his team is better than they’ve shown so far. I kind of think they have been playing possum so far to save their legs for the mountain stages, but it is much harder to race with the yellow jersey. There is still a really good chance other teams tactics will put UAE in a position they can’t handle and Pog could lose some time. In the mountains, gaps can eat minutes, not just seconds.
You are missing the point, he could have gone to the line and won the stage, plus he got his points. It was his last day, before 100% team effort. Don’t listen to the sh!t commentary, it is not that hard to understand the final stand.
That makes no sense. He would have had a better chance to win the stage AND get more points by dropping back after the intermediate sprint. I enjoyed watching WvA’s move, but it made no sense from a tactics point of view.
Pog is simply on another level to the rest, it’s not even close, the lad can do everything and he’s now got quality around him. The only concern seems to be if it gets super hot which he’s admitted isn’t ideal for him.
That is true. Though he would have to have a pretty bad day and I can only remember him getting distanced once - when JV put a little time into him on Ventoux. Still, with JV “only” 30 seconds back, there’s still time. Pog just looks imperious. And he generally seems immune to team tactics. When you’re clearly better than everyone else the stupid Ineos train or the JV/Rog 1-2 doesn’t seem to do much.
To be obvious… It’s just down to the boring fact that Pog is the strongest guy. By a lot and good on him. His team isn’t dominant but they don’t stink either.
So… There aren’t a lot of useful tactics to beat him. You can’t ride him into the dust with a train when he’s better than your best guy. All you do is burn your team up plus your GC lead and then watch Pog ride away. You can’t isolate him and 1-2 punch him because he KO’s both your #1 and your #2 first.
The only real chance is if he has a bad day, gets isolated with a mechanical, or some other type of bad luck.
Commentators have to speculate and try to keep things interesting. But really we’re just watching an amazing “generational” talent at work and wondering if anything will happen to him on the way to Paris. As a fan, sure it’s kinda boring, but it’s also great to watch a rider of Pog’s ability race.
An aside, I thought WvA would sit up today after the intermediate sprint points were secure. Going for the stage was valiant but he didn’t have enough time in hand for it to stick. The explanation I have for his tactics is: (1) maybe he makes it solo (2) probably knew he wasn’t going to beat Pog straight up in that finale (3) likely feeling confident in quest for green so perhaps willing to throw away green jersey points (and one more day in yellow) for a chance at another stage win. But don’t know as staying out on an all day adventure doesn’t make obvious sense tactically.
Sacrificing Wout today was a stupid strategy then. This way not only he lost the jersey today but also shot his legs before tomorrow’s climbing stage. We know that he can climb as he won last year’s stage that had Mt. Ventoux climb twice so it would have been much wiser to keep him in the peloton today and see what happens at the end of the stage and tomorrow. Maybe he would have been still in yellow today and less than a minute behind Pog tomorrow rather than 7 minutes down today with tired legs for tomorrow.
I really hope that your strategy prediction for Ineos and JV will not happen. I can see this being the case in the 3rd week of the TdF but we’re only half way into the first week so there is still plenty of stages to make up 40sec advantage that Pog has.
He’s a great rider. Possibly the second best overall in the tour, but he’s not a GC contender. He can climb better than pretty much every sprinter, but he can’t hang with the other GC guys in the mountains over the course of a grand tour. He’s too big. One stage like Ventoux last year, but not 13. People used to say similar things about Peter Sagan, but he’d have to change his body and his training and dedicate himself to being a GC rider to be considered a threat for the yellow.
umm, no he didn’t. If you watched the stage where he lost yellow, you could see clearly he was no match for the real GC guys. But also, Alaphilippe is nothing like Van Aert. Van Aert weighs 16kilos more than JA.
