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Thomas Voeckler with the 66.667% success rate on World Championships as a coach.
The only time you will ever see Confidis written anywhere near a winner
In the studio segment before the race started, they were bigging up Cavendish's chances as well.
Wiggins looked like he had been up all night.
I think that the retaining World Champion is also on the incline..often..his out of the saddle,getting on top of the gear..sewing machine style is complimented by his tiny body being able to generate 10,000 Gigawatts while in the saddle..But it's ok because he is better on the decline
also have small man crush on him because he took a photo w w mom and small child at the tour of California,gave the kid his cycling cap..probably tosses many out per week..meant was significant to the child and mom..
I think that overall I didn't see the course as exclusively for climbers for sure..I am sure that Kristoff and Cav,Caleb would all agreed with me...yesterday..I see Quickstep merch flying off the shelves..
I think Kro may need another cup of coffee and a You Tube replay of the last @70k to more fully appreciate the brilliant bike racing..and our American has no shame,he drilled it whenever he could and had the presence of mind to always look for a wheel and close everything before the gaps became unworkable..fundamentally fantastic..these guys have the bodies of super models yet crush a 53 something for hours..
Declining upwards is the new reverse attackingDeclining upwards
Showed no form coming into the race though and it was 270km which could easily have been too long for him.
He said he was on good form, though. Next time I'll take his word for it.
Do you count Emil Axelgaard as one of the "perpetual pessimists"? Do you think today's racing before the second flandrien lap was what one on average could expect?
Or is this an actualist take?
Yes, fair enough. I guess you could make a case he was the second strongest rider today.
Excuse me, everyone who had seen the Voeckler in celeste bathing shorts photo knew what would happen.
Pidcock?
His form was steadily improving throughout the Vuelta. He was ripping those Cat 2 climbs on stage 20 just before MAL had his meltdown.
Wout: I didn’t expect we would be put under pressure that early. It was as if they did a wrong count of the laps. Already when we did the first Flandrien loop at 200 kilometres from the finish the race was exploding.
A bit, yes (to your first question). I have thought the whole week that a sprint was extremely unlikely, yet so many have been convinced it was the only possible outcome. Red Rick because he said he himself was able to ride up the climbs.
I just never understood that. With all the racing we have seen the last couple of years, it was always going to open up early. And even if I might have expected the Belgians to be stronger than they were (probably Van Aert specifically) and ridden differently, I still didn't see one team being capable of keeping the race together.
I just don't think you can use the four other races to anything because the elite men ride way more aggressively these years than the other classes and have much, much longer to ride.
A lot of people thought it could easily be a reduced bunch sprint, and considering that would've been a good scenario for the main favorite who also happened to have the strongest team backing him in addition to the other road races all having very small gaps and relatively large groups at the finish I don't think it was an outrageiously pessimistic take that a group sprint was likely.
When people were talking of Ewan as a possible winner, then yes, it was outrageously pessimistic!
It was a very wrong reading of the toughness of the course. No, the climbs were not particularly tough individually but the endless repetitions would inevitably produce a lot of separation if a few teams were to have an aggressive attitude from far out.
Okay, just read Voeckler said that wasn't exactly his plan. Alaphilippe had a free role and could do what he wanted, but actually he did the opposite of what they had planned (don't know what the plan exactly was) by constantly attacking, relied on his instinct.
That said, I concur that seeing three bigger favourites opening the race 198 kms out was pretty surreal and unexpected.
Imola was raced super closed. Innsbruck too (but it's a special case). Likewise for Bergen, really. If the teams had approached today like Bergen, I'm certain it would have been a reduced sprint.
I guess we can come back to the other idea that circuit WC favor final lap attacks and this route with 2 different laps and with the hardest laps finishing 50km from the line was a good idea.
I just hadn't anticipated the hard lap to be hard enough in the first place.
Same!!! It might look sexy on TV but irl no please
And remember Bernal transporting Champagne in his mouth to his gf this giro
Ewww
. But still somehow better than Daniel Ricciardo shoe champagne at the podium 
Voeckler's plan wasn't constantly attacking?
Okay, that's it! We're definitely in a parallel universe!
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