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2014 Tour de France Stage 4: Le Touquet-Paris-Plage / Lille Métropole: 163km, flat

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clashb02 said:
And we saw how well that worked out for him. Yesterday we saw that it's not going to be possible to win from behind him, so what's the logic in letting Kittel in front of you with 200m to go?

Force him out early and hope he can't stand the distance. And it wasn't unreasonable. Kittel was nearly beaten today.
 
its true that kittel benefits greatly from his team keeping him in good position coz he wouldnt be the best at getting himself in good position. partly because being a very big unit he would'nt be the best at bike handling/cornering and partly because he isnt in the Cav/Bouhanni mould of nutters willing to take risks to win. obviously this doesnt always pay off (see Cav stage 1 !!)
 
Good job by Sagi in defending green. He almost lost it today.

Although Kittel does not care about the green, together with Degenkolb and boys like Kristoff, Gerrans, Coquard they can take it from him.

Sagan was scoring 400 + points because after first week nobodody has a chance. If Kittel wins all the flat sprints, Sagan need to work hard every single stage for every point and he cannot afford to crush.
 
Rollthedice said:
What about Canc?

Maybe, but this isn't 260k with 100km of cobble sections.

It's like compare galibier 2013 giro as the sole raced climb on a short stage with 2011 galibier as the final of 3 hc climbs. One had half the peloton roll in with the hos group, the other had some of the biggest gaps the tour has seen in years.

Canc relies on the difficulty of Paris roubaix to succeed there. That difficulty is not here tomorrow.
 
Jun 9, 2014
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SKSemtex said:
What a pity no real breaks are allowed so far. Kittel desn´t looked so dominant at all today. If they let Giant work more hard during the stage we could have some more fun.

Probably.:)
Yeah Lotto should stop doinng all the work and consider letting a bigger breakwaway go
 
roosters76 said:
Good point. I'm really bad at reading this guy. He's very inconsistent.

Inconsistent is not the right word: he hasn't raced enough. He has won quite a bit against lesser opponents i.e. at the 4 days of Dunkirk. Being a first-timer pretty much every time he lines up for a race, we can't expect him to be a front runner every single time against the big boys on the big stage. Eventually, he'll find the courses that fit him best and set his schedule accordingly. Anyways, what a sprint today: great future for Demare.
 
Mar 21, 2013
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Why Greipel is so bad this year?

Lotto every stage is literally killing themselves at front and he doesn't even try to do something.
 
Hugo87 said:
Why Greipel is so bad this year?

Lotto every stage is literally killing themselves at front and he doesn't even try to do something.

Actually he's won more races than anyone in the peloton this year despite being injured for part of the year. But yeah, he's been disappointing so far this Tour. He did try to do a little something today but he waited until way too late to move up. He was a little ahead of Sagan when he made his move forward in the final k but was too tentative. And even though he moved up to 6th at the end he never really looked like he was going for it. He barely even got out of the saddle

I don't know, he certainly doesn't seem his usual self right now.