Recent content by Ramira

To me the big takeaway is that however much people on the like to bag on Jumbo-Visma for their strategy when it comes to teambuilding they really knocked it out of the park. Roglic lost over 11 minutes today and is out of the race for the GC, yet he was smiling and laughing with Kuss when he...

I think the constant attacks made it really hard for Pogacar to eat and drink. Not sure how much of a role that played, but it probably did affect him somewhat.

I wonder how many stages Cavendish would have won without Renshaw (and now Mørkøv). He won 3 with Sky in 2012 and 2 with Quick-Step in 2013 while Renshaw was trying to race for himself with Rabobank, so he definitely would have won quite a few. But he would definitely have lost at least a...

De Gendt apparently struggled just to come back to the final echelon. The pace really has been insane.

Very glad they are showing these kinds of stages from the start. On days like this the first hour is often the most interesting part of the race, except for maybe the last 30 minutes (actually this is true for a lot of stages, including those in the high mountains).

I agree he could definitely stay on the podium, and I very much hope he will. My point was mostly that being good for two mountain stages is very different from being good an entire tour. And it's not exactly uncommon for riders to lose a lot of time in the last week of a Grand Tour. You're...

He's also never finished within an hour of the winner in a Grand Tour. Now he's looked better than he ever has this season, but there have been plenty of riders who had a good first week (or even two weeks) in a Grand Tour only to fade in the last week.

Second surely? Or fourth if we're talking all Grand Tours.

True, he was mentioned in general, but I didn't see his 1997 tour specifically mentioned. Interestingly, I think the only way Pogačar loses this Tour outside of a crash is if he does a 1998 Ullrich and forgets to eat. He was 4:41 ahead of Pantani after stage 10, that dropped to 3:01 by the...

Interesting that nobody has mentioned Ullrich in 1997 yet. Because honestly that's what this reminds me of. That year he finished 2nd in the opening prologue, taking 42 seconds on the eventual runner up Virenque. Then in stage 9 (after 8 straight sprint stages, as the prologue didn't count as a...

That was caused by a crash though, albeit one that was caused due to Kruijswijk trying to follow Nibali while there was no need to do so. No race is ever over if we account for crashes. This year's Paris-Nice was also over until Roglič crashed.

I agree that's what they should do. They need to isolate Pogačar early and force him to respond to every attack. It's the only chance they have to beat him at this stage. But as you said, it's very unlikely that will happen. Though I do think Carapaz is the kind of rider who is willing to take a...

I don't think you can 'jump' the start anymore. As far as I know there's a sensor at the start and the time starts when you cross that. The countdown is just to make sure the riders start at the correct time gaps.

The problem is they are already too far behind, and Roglič is not going to get back to 100% this Tour. Those wounds just take too much energy to recover from. I do think that both Carapaz and Roglič (if he can recover somewhat) will attack Pogačar, I just don't think they can challenge him...

Roglič was not healthy last year. He was still very much affected by his crash in the Dauphiné. Of course Pogačar is stronger than he was last year. So I agree that even a healthy Roglič would not be able to take back 1:40 unless Pogačar has a bad day for some reason.