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2016 Tour de France, Stage 5: Limoges → Le Lioran (216km)

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Jul 19, 2010
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Re: 2016 Tour de France, Stage 5: Limoges → Le Lioran (216km

StuyvenFan said:
DFA123 said:
StuyvenFan said:
DFA123 said:
StuyvenFan said:
Majka doing what he does best: nothing
He got what he wanted from today - a load of mountain classification points. That's his goal now for the Tour.

He picked up a total of two points today.
2 more than if he would have waited for Contador. And you could see how much he was struggling by the end anyway - the peloton were eating up ground on him. How exactly could he have helped Contador?

His team have clearly made the right call. Contador is done for the GC. He should stage hunt and save energy for the Vuelta from here on in.

I am in complete agreement with you with regards to Contador; Majka should be given free-reign in his attempt to take the polka-dot jersey. My problem is that after six opportunities to take mountain points today he only managed to grab the bare-minimum. Furthermore he allowed De Gendt to take the majority of the points; De Gendt is by no means equal to Majka in the high mountains, but he is certainly a talented enough rouluer to make things difficult for Majka if he too decides to go for the jersey.

I'll concede two things in his favor: First he hasn't been riding that well so far in this tour so we can give him the benefit of the doubt and say this was just a bad day and that he'll improve over the next two weeks. Second this terrain does not really suit Majka as well as a mountainous stage would where there would be more points up for grabs anyway.

Honestly I would have no problem watching him tear-up mountain stages in pursuit of the jersey if he ever gets himself together.

what do you expect? he came back from the Giro. He should be better on the 3rd week. Look Nibali, another Giro leg, he's already dropped. The fact that he was upfront this early, really surprised me. On sean yates quote: I guess they tried to keep Sagan on yellow. Failed. Getting a stage win w/ Majka. Failed. Hoping Contador won't loose time. Failed.
 
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Jungle Cycle said:
Valverde locked like he helped Quintana wright away when Bardet went for it.. I understand that to have Valverde high on gc could be good for Quintana but EVERY year neither go on the attack. I mean, serious attack on high mountains. Even though Quintana locked like he could they seemed happy not risk the 2-3 podium. Maybe will not be the case this year after Valverde Giro..
I like Quintana a lot but he has to attack sky other than in the last 2 or 3 days..!?..
Quintana might be able to win the whole race without attacking. It's not inconceivable that he could gain more time on Froome in the MTT than he loses to him in the hilly TT. Also, even last year, while hardly attacking, he managed to gain enough time on Froome in the mountains that he would have won had it not been for the careless loss of time in the first week.
 
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Zinoviev Letter said:
In so far as there is a "Plan B", and I don't think that's very far at all because Sky are all about Froome this year, it can't be Nieve or Landa. They are already nearly 3 and nearly 9 minutes behind the GC pack respectively.

It could only be Henao or Thomas. Who between them have once managed a GT top 10, a Giro 9th for Henao four years ago. I doubt if either will get much in the way of protection, although both will probably be told not to drop unnecessary time for the moment, just in case.
Yep, for sure. It's just fighting for placings in the train, unless something happens no one is looking out for anybody but Froome. Thomas was really strong last year, but Henao seems to be the form man. I'll be interested in how they play it on Friday.
 
It's interesting that Valverde finished right at the back of the GC group. Not because he didn't bother to contest fourth but because he didn't bother to protect himself against what was quite likely to be a small time loss. As it happens he didn't lose a few seconds, but that was just luck. The important part is that he didn't care about it.
 
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DFA123 said:
Jungle Cycle said:
Valverde locked like he helped Quintana wright away when Bardet went for it.. I understand that to have Valverde high on gc could be good for Quintana but EVERY year neither go on the attack. I mean, serious attack on high mountains. Even though Quintana locked like he could they seemed happy not risk the 2-3 podium. Maybe will not be the case this year after Valverde Giro..
I like Quintana a lot but he has to attack sky other than in the last 2 or 3 days..!?..
Quintana might be able to win the whole race without attacking. It's not inconceivable that he could gain more time on Froome in the MTT than he loses to him in the hilly TT. Also, even last year, while hardly attacking, he managed to gain enough time on Froome in the mountains that he would have won had it not been for the careless loss of time in the first week.


agree that there is a good chance this is how it'll play out but will loose me as a fan..
if he didnt have it than ok but he "looks"(!?) the best climber so why not play his strength early(h-mtn)? of corse it's easy said than done but hopefully he will even if it means loose more time...
 
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Jelantik said:
DFA123 said:
This was the quote from Spanish TV:
"La pierna izquierda no me funciona. Estoy satisfecho porque he perdido menos tiempo del que imaginaba",

El Tour se me puso más complicado. Soy optimista, pero mi cuerpo necesita más recuperación y tendré que plantear otra carrera"

My left leg doesn't work. I'm happy because I lost less time than I thought.

The Tour has been difficult for me. I am optimistic, but my body needs more recovery and I'll have to plan a different race.

Maybe stage hunting or going for the mountains?

no. who knows what he means. It could mean: instead of saving his powder, now he is gong to full on attack on every mountain... Personally, I would welcome that. At least for other contenders he will the headache that can't be get ride off.


Agree, there is no way he will just target a stage or polka dots, he still wants yellow.
 
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Jungle Cycle said:
DFA123 said:
Jungle Cycle said:
Valverde locked like he helped Quintana wright away when Bardet went for it.. I understand that to have Valverde high on gc could be good for Quintana but EVERY year neither go on the attack. I mean, serious attack on high mountains. Even though Quintana locked like he could they seemed happy not risk the 2-3 podium. Maybe will not be the case this year after Valverde Giro..
I like Quintana a lot but he has to attack sky other than in the last 2 or 3 days..!?..
Quintana might be able to win the whole race without attacking. It's not inconceivable that he could gain more time on Froome in the MTT than he loses to him in the hilly TT. Also, even last year, while hardly attacking, he managed to gain enough time on Froome in the mountains that he would have won had it not been for the careless loss of time in the first week.


agree that there is a good chance this is how it'll play out but will loose me as a fan..
if he didnt have it than ok but he "looks"(!?) the best climber so why not play his strength early(h-mtn)? of corse it's easy said than done but hopefully he will even if it means loose more time...
Agree, it would be great if he put in long range attacks on the hardest mountain stage, but not sure the risk-reward is in his favour, at least until Landa, Thomas and Henao have dropped off (which will probably be pretty late on a lot of stages). I guess that's where Valverde could be incredibly useful; either by attacking early to burn of the Sky train, or by getting in a break and waiting to give Nairo a crucial pull for a couple of kms.

If he wins his first TdF by riding mostly defensively I'd cut him a lot of slack; he has to get the first one in the bag whatever it takes. Would be criminal though, with his talent, if he carried on riding mostly defensively for the rest of his GT career.
 
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Re: Re:

RattaKuningas said:
Jungle Cycle said:
Valverde locked like he helped Quintana wright away when Bardet went for it.. I understand that to have Valverde high on gc could be good for Quintana but EVERY year neither go on the attack. I mean, serious attack on high mountains. Even though Quintana locked like he could they seemed happy not risk the 2-3 podium. Maybe will not be the case this year after Valverde Giro..
I like Quintana a lot but he has to attack sky other than in the last 2 or 3 days..!?..

I think that they are prepearing for the attack. They probably wanted to weaken Sky train legs today I guess.

I hope so too. Looks like Conti is slowly drifting away, although he did much better than I thought he would.

Movistar blasted the front in a small surprise move. They looked pretty good I'd say.

Sky did the bare minimum as required. Aru had a nice day with little stress.

Nibali is now staying on as a Barista in Le Lioran. Pity that.

My guess is that Valverde does what he can to support Nairo, then peels off.

Movistar is now more mature as a team and I fully believe that they will try to deplete Sky train this year even before the last week. If they can accomplish this, they will win the tour.

Sky for sure must know that Movistar and Astana will come hard at them especially knowing that Conti is adrift.

It's going to be interesting to say the least.
 
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WheelofGear said:
Sky's greatest tactic would be them convincing Valverde to fight for a second Tour podium.

...and how would they go about doing that? Have they somehow come across some type of mind control device or do you think that all the other teams are so lacking in intellect and common sense compared to Sky that this could even be a far fetched possibility? :rolleyes:
 
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Angliru said:
WheelofGear said:
Sky's greatest tactic would be them convincing Valverde to fight for a second Tour podium.

...and how would they go about doing that? Have they somehow come across some type of mind control device or do you think that all the other teams are so lacking in intellect and common sense compared to Sky that this could even be a far fetched possibility? :rolleyes:

It's the mind control device.
 
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Samamba said:
Great win for Greg (and he deserves the yellow jersey), but as someone with sympathy for Lotto I'm obviously pretty disappointed. It's the 9th second place for Lotto in exactly one month (only 2 wins). So these second places are getting annoying.
De Gendt was the second best of the escapees today, he actually kept the gap to Majka and Huzarski more or less stable, so he was not really cracking - Greg was super though.
 
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WheelofGear said:
13. Adam Yates (same time as number 5. Froome)

He is going to be dangerous this year. Top 5 is possible.

No hope for top 5 or top 10 - Target is to win a stage and finish high up in the young rider competition - Can say in recent races he is pacing himself better up climbs - Next year is targetting GC.
 
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Jungle Cycle said:
Valverde locked like he helped Quintana wright away when Bardet went for it.. I understand that to have Valverde high on gc could be good for Quintana but EVERY year neither go on the attack. I mean, serious attack on high mountains. Even though Quintana locked like he could they seemed happy not risk the 2-3 podium. Maybe will not be the case this year after Valverde Giro..
I like Quintana a lot but he has to attack sky other than in the last 2 or 3 days..!?..

Could have sworn that Moviestar's attacks on the last 2 climbs smashed the peleton to smithereens.
 
Re: Re:

RattaKuningas said:
Jungle Cycle said:
Valverde locked like he helped Quintana wright away when Bardet went for it.. I understand that to have Valverde high on gc could be good for Quintana but EVERY year neither go on the attack. I mean, serious attack on high mountains. Even though Quintana locked like he could they seemed happy not risk the 2-3 podium. Maybe will not be the case this year after Valverde Giro..
I like Quintana a lot but he has to attack sky other than in the last 2 or 3 days..!?..

I think that they are prepearing for the attack. They probably wanted to weaken Sky train legs today I guess.

You nailed it - And if Astana get their act together they can make it tough for Sky.
 
Alot of riders were finding it tough going today

Movistar really put the wind up them along with the heat

I thought Quintana , Valverde, Purito, Aru,Porte, TJvG, Rolland, Bardet , Henao, Froome,& Nieve looked the strongest

Looked to be struggling on the climb (a little) but recovered : Martin, Yates , Barguil, Kelderman, Mollema, Reichenbach
Looked to be struggling on the climb a good bit but recovered : Pinot, JVDB, Allaphillipe, Meintjes
 
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Hugo Koblet said:
Don't worry, Contador will come up with an excuse and quit I think.
No need to "come up" with one. He's already got it. I think he'll stay a bit longer and if he doesn't feel any better on the next important stage, he'll bail. That said, it's not something he usually does as he prefers to go down fighting. I guess if he feels like he even has an outside shot, he'll continue on but if he can't recover and it's looking like a 10th-25th kinda placing, he'll bail. If he can at least start to climb in the front group he'll figure there's always the chance to do something spectacular once he's back to full form.
 

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