Nice takeaways. A few observations:
- Sosa will fade as soon as they hit multi-mountain stages.
- Why the hate on Martin? He is a decent climber who loves to go on the offensive. No shame in gaining time and places on breaks, especially when his gains are not extremely blatant.
- I think Skjelmose is better suited to mid mountain stages or stage hunting in breaks at the moment. His climbing level does not allow him to achieve more than a Top15 in a GT.
- Foss always starts slow on a GT. Let's see if he manages to bounce back.
Additions by my own:
- A shame Taaramae didn't manage to pull off the same trick as he did last Vuelta.
- This is probably Jan Hirt's best performance ever on a first mountain stage in a GT. The guy is going to crush the field on the last week, be wise to pick him as a winner on the Aprica stage.
Good write-up.
To Poels: I'm not sure if we can already draw that conclusion. Even at Sky he had days where he just saved his energy and got dropped early, and then a few days later he was one of the best climbers in the race.
I really don't like Gui Martin because he just plays a vital role in races so often while only riding for like 7th-12th place. For example in Catalunya he was never in contention for a podium spot, but when he got dropped big time during the Carapaz/Higuita raid he had his squad working big time just to get back to the Almeida group. It happens more often with him. Obviously, I should probably praise him for always fighting like a lion to get the best possible result, but I don't know I just really don't like him. I had a bit of the same back in the day when guys like Mollema would burn up their entire squad for an 8th place somewhere. Nowadays I like Mollema much better.
Agreed on the Poels part, his form yesterday wasn't too great, but he certainly should be able to improve over the next few weeks, so it's too early to say that he will not be an important factor for Landa/Bilbao this Giro.