Volderke said:
SKSemtex said:
I was a little bit disappointed with Boonen. I also expected him to go win or die. He looked so strong on cobbles.
He was just to scare of Sagan. Sagan showed him several times that he is willing to make the race hard but all his attack were neglected. It looks like Sagan was the only rider who wanted the ride PR not conservatively. :sad:
It is funny how GVA is still underrated in the peloton. If Sagan had the same problem before Arenberg as GVA had, the Peloton would fly away and nobody, nobody would have a chance to join back (we saw it last year).
Boonen lost his race on Arenberg not when he did not join GVA. What did he want? To beat Degenkolb on Velodrome when he had a problem last year with Haymen?
He wasted his energy in so many pointless attacks instead of riding hard with committed Sagan.
PR used to be the race for strongest rider and each cobbled sector should have his victims. The regrouping we saw yesterday was ridiculous. The cream of the cream was Greipel repeatedly attacking in places where we should have 4-5 strongest guys riding for victory.
Boonen tried to get rid of Sagan and Degenkolb just after Mons-en-Pevele. He almost succeeded, but Degenkolb did a hell of an effort to bring Sagan back. After that, and all the action on his favourite cobbles (Bersee) with headwind, Boonen realized he could not get rid of Degenkolb
and when Stybar attacked and GvA attacked and even Sagan attacked and Degenkolb just kept following his wheel... He knew he had a major wheelsucker and decided that Stybar was the best chance for podium/win.
To say that the regrouping was ridicilous clearly shows you don't have any idea how this race at 45/h AVERAGE in 20 degrees was ridden. Are you suggesting they had to ride even harder while it was clear that all the KOM's on strava on the headwind segments are smashed and also KOMs on asphalt in between? Only KOMs on cobbles with headwind still stand. So to say that they 'allowed' regrouping is ridiculous. They couldn't go harder.
https://youtu.be/NEij13TN9Oo?t=11469
With 36km to go, when Oss was out in front; Langeveld sneaked away; Roelandts bridged across, with van Baarle and Moscon in front of the group, letting the gap grow. That was when Stybar attacked (perfect timing), and Stuyven tried to go after him, though de Backer tried to chase him; and next we see Stuyven, Greg, and Moscon chasing Stybar with a gap to the rest with Sagan in between. Sagan gets up to the trio, and Boonen closes the gap. So far, so good. I think QS handles the situation after the big merger with 40km to go and up to this point perfectly.
Unfortunately, the production isn't as good as it should be at this crucial point in the race (pictures of Oss that don't tell us anything about the gap he has; a bunny figure on the side of the road etc.). We see Stuyven with a dig that Boonen is on immediately, and later from a heli-shot we see Sagan has gotten away again, while Greg looks around at the front behind with Moscon and Boonen on his wheel. Stuyven digs again, now with de Backer and van Baarle immediately on him. Now we get a large section of the irrelevant chasers (Burghardt), so who knows what the *** happens...
Oss now enters Templeuve and Sagan catches up to Stybar, Roelandts, and Langeveld on the first part of the cobbles. Somehow, the situation is now that de Backer is on the front behind with Boonen on his wheel and everyone going super slow. Apparently, Greg, Moscon, and Stuyven have gotten away, and that is what lost QS the race. How the hell did they escape? Why is Tom not chasing them furiously? On the cobbles it seems like it is Wallays who leads the chase (as slowly as possible with Roelandts up ahead), and after Sagan punctures, the race has been settled.
Now, no matter if they rode for Stybar or Tommeke at this point, it is a total clusterfuck how what was looking so good ended up for them. I don't get it.