Recent content by Pogacsa

Can anyone explain why Letour.fr is incapable of uploading profiles for stage 6 and stage 15 onto the website, despite them featuring in the video that they played at the presentation?

Don't you think a more charitable explanation for why Del Toro didn't do as well as some expected is that he raced last Saturday (and won!), raced on Sunday, raced Tuesday (and was in the thick of it until Pogacar escaped), and raced Thursday (and won!) For a 21 year old, that is a lot of...

Irrespective of those who won it, who actually performed better in the Tour having done a serious Giro? I can't think of anyone. Froome was weaker, Geraint Thomas dramatically so, to give just two examples

But with the exception of Pogacar, who has performed better at the Tour than they did at the Giro in the same year?

I'm very sceptical that Vingegaard will enter next year's Giro, whatever hints he may have given this year. As we saw at the Vuelta, he doesn't have the ability to race two consecutive Grand Tours at the same high level and I think it pretty much rules him out of contention at the Tour de...

Changing the subject, what do you imagine will be the Tour team next year? I can easily imagine it as Pogi, Del Toro, Almeida, Yates, Sivakov (or Soler) Narvaez, Wellens and Pollitt. The inclusion of Del Toro might raise eyebrows but I think he's likely to get onto the TdF podium which would...

What is the source for this information?

Think back to Stage 7 of the 1995 Tour de France. Indurain attacked with Johan Bruyneel on his wheel. Indurain was stronger than Cancellara and Bruyneel was probably weaker than Cavendish. Indurain never came close to riding JB off his wheel, who also came around and outsprinted him. Remember...

So returning to the "team strength" discussion, what will Belgium do if a group go up the road?

Imagine Pogi reaches the descent of Mount Kigali with some riders 5 minutes ahead of him. Who could hold him off on this course? Only Remco, Healy and riders who won't be there in any case. So he just has to follow them. As Red Rick says, this is potentially going to be a very damp squib of a...

The road race features 5400 meters of climbing (at a minimum altitude of 1400 meters), and I fully expect the race to be in pieces well before the Mount Kigali circuit. So not sure that a weak team particularly matters on such a course. We saw in Zurich last year that the race had boiled down to...

Alex Dowsett on the ITV commentary noted that Pogacar is still wearing bandages and I suspect some of his apparent malaise in the last 9 days might be attributable to the stage 11 crash, which was not trivial. I do wonder if his exertions on stages 12 and 13 saw him writing cheques that his body...

The rain certainly complicates things. One strategy would be for Vingegaard to attack over the Madeleine and launch into a highly aggressive wet descent, hoping Pogacar will crash or not follow because he fears he might. But after Vingegaard's crash last year, does he really have the appetite...

I'd be surprised if the fastest time is under an hour

I remember following it on a ticker, but wasn't televised where I lived at the time. It came as quite shock. It was a Time Trial starting somewhere in Bedoin, so unless we know precisely where, comparisons are going to be inaccurate. It was 21.6km, and the riders were not fatigued after 15...