movingtarget said:
It's not helping BMC that no one but Greenedge and Haas are interested in the sprint points. I thought they might have tried to send a rider up the road so Gerrans couldn't take maximum points but the wind didn't help. Big advantage in this race if you can sprint. Cadel really has to win on Willunga to win the overall. Gerrans will keep chipping away. Cadel needs the win bonus and possible time gap but Gerrans usually does very well on Willunga which is a much different climb to Corkscrew. Alternative is for someone else to win on Willunga apart from Gerrans or Evans but at this stage hard to see that happening unless Ulissi or Porte can have a great climb.
You can't really compare Gerrans' victories on Wilunga in past years to the current year. He is riding against much better climbers this year in comparison to past years where either he was against much more average climbers (i.e. Slagter and Thomas) or riders who simply waited for the sprint (i.e. Valverde). Gerrans was put under pressure immediately by BMC from the bottom of Corkscrew. It was only really Evans that put the nail in the coffin into him on that climb. If I were BMC, I would let GreenEdge ride on the front all day and send a rider like Wyss to challenge Gerrans for the sprints, if the break does not go away. Otherwise, let the break go away and just let riders like Morabito, Moinard, Hermans and Bookwalter rip the race to pieces on Wilunga to launch Evans to victory. It will just be funny to see the smile wiped off Matt "Nobody is dropping Simon Gerrans" White's face.
The one thing I am hoping for is that there isn't a headwind on the climb.
classicomano said:
Evans to drop everyone on the bottom of the climb and cement his place in history as the greatest stage racer that ever lived.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Northerly winds on Wilunga around the finish time. That makes it harder for Evans to drop Gerrans.
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