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Low key Søren Kragh-vibes
It will be interesting if the camaleon hits great form lightening up the mountain stages.
Sénéchal is a tough classics guy who's really fast. Honoré showed some real power last fall in uphill finishes while also being support for Alaphilippe and Almeida and almost won San Sebastian. If you want to choose from who has a better chance to get results in this TDF it's obviously Honoré who btw was like 28th in last year's world rankings. I would choose both because I don't see what Declerq brings. If they need/want to do work early in the sprint stages Sénéchal, Honoré and Bagioli could do that.
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Do you think they keep their riders in the dark till the very end as well? I always thought the delayed announce was a publicity thing.
Bagioli was actually climbing better than Cattaneo at the Dauphine and brought him back to the front on the stage where Roglic took the jersey.
That said, he DNFd the Italian NC, where both him and Cattaneo got outperformed by Ballerini (and Masnada, but the later is less of a surprise in a really long hilly race) who actually attacked and tried something.
Cattaneo's climbing is clearly not on the level that it should be atm. Usually his climbing and TT results go hand in hand, but this year his climbing is clearly not on the same level. I would have replaced him with Sene, maybe a bit unpopular, but he can help a lot in the Vuelta TTT and clearly needs better climbing legs to do anything as a stagehunter or even a gc rider...
Personally i don't mind if a pro road cycling team prepares well and profits from it. It's what you are suppose to do. In addition JV dominance in my opinion shouldn't be perceived as the one from Sky. As in the end JV still hasn't won a Tour title. Point being that it would be hard to blame JV in 2020 as being Sky and because of that to deserve to not win the Tour. In addition Rogla has beaten Pogi in mountains. It's not like his team could help him much there. Hence on the contrary they should in my opinion be rewarded for it. If such dominance would last for lets say 5 years. Then obviously for somebody to come and put a sto(m)p on that. That would be most welcomed. Personally i don't even have an issue with Pogi TDF 2021 display. But if we would be watching that for 5 years. It would just make this sport a joke. And there wasn't all that much mano-a-mano at TDF 2021 either. Much less then at TDF 2020. As at TDF one mano crashed out hence it was just a pure display of the other mano. But we can see some things repeating. Such as before the Tour JV was by far the biggest favorite. After the Tour Rogla lost the title but became people champion. Hence it wasn't all for nothing after all. Lets see on how will it unroll this year. From objective point of view saying one deserves it more than another. Well. No.
Intermarché–Wanty–Gobert Matériaux copied Alpecin-Fenix (in 30 minutes). Better if they would just put Girmay in the middle. And i guess to make others a bit smaller.
Do you mean a dozen of seconds or so on Loze? Pog obviously gained more in the Pyrenees. The only time Roglic gained a significant time on Pog was on crosswinds (almost 1.5 minutes). Despite that setback the latter still managed to overturn it against a great rider supported by a superb team.
They went for it and all in mano-a-mano on a proper mountain and Rogla came on top. Lets not forget that. Point being that was not about JV as a dominant team.
Loze finale was really interesting and Roglic was stronger (but still gained little time). OTOH Pog's two best climbing performances combined (Peyresourde and PDBF) put way more time into his rivals than that. You can't ignore that, it's difficult to overcome a deficit of almost 1.5 minutes against JV setting amazing tempo on climbs. Roglic had all the cards to win but lost.
Roglic also gained a gap on the gravel piece after the Mur de Glières but stopped shortly after for no apparent reason other than feeling comfortable in his lead.
@Krzysztof_O
I am not saying Pogi didn't deserve to win at TDF 2020. What i am saying is if Rogla would win that edition. He would deserve it just as much. Such win would not be comparable to Sky era. Or more explicitly on what we don't/didn't like about Sky (as the years went by). In addition all wins from Pogi. Where his team is nowhere to be seen. Sooner or later they will get rewarded for that. And likely that won't be all that unjust. As pro road cycling is a team sport and the team needs to make a difference.
I am not saying Pogi didn't deserve to win at TDF 2020. What i am saying is if Rogla would win that edition. He would deserve it just as much. Such win would not be comparable to Sky era. Or more explicitly on what we don't/didn't like about Sky (as the years went by). In addition all wins from Pogi. Where his team is nowhere to be seen. Sooner or later they will get rewarded for that. And likely that won't be all that unjust. As pro road cycling is a team sport and the team needs to make a difference.
How on Earth is Cavendish missing?
I'm not too much into sprinting, so please explain it to me:
a) It's not desirable to have 2 riders fighting for green jersey, and Fabio is a tad stronger
b) Belgians didn't want him to break Eddy's record....
I'm not too much into sprinting, so please explain it to me:
a) It's not desirable to have 2 riders fighting for green jersey, and Fabio is a tad stronger
b) Belgians didn't want him to break Eddy's record....
i think if that's the bar for elite mountain domestique then there are maybe only 2-3 in the whole peleton (Kuss, Majka, does Thomas count?)
This is hands-down won of the strongest teams that you could put together for this tour route if you want to compete for the win. Strong support on cobbles and crosswind (Haller, Politt, van Poppel), enough guys to close gap on hectic medium mountain stages, a handful of possible satellite riders and even enough power to control the field if by some unlikely cause Vlasov should get yellow.
Of course that's not the intention. They will chase multiple stage wins and I think this team is underrated in their chance to get yellow (not with Vlasov) in the first week. In the pivotal GC stages I guess they will take turns in protecting Vlasov and with the new leadership it's highly likely that they also choose a stage to light it up big time.
It will be interesting to see if Bennett is still on the team in. a few months. I guess that no one will pay him this much so he will be sitting out his contract. With Buchmann and hindley confirmed for the Vuelta there should be also no space there.
Yeah. It wouldn't be unjust. And it wouldn't be Sky alike. That much is true. But lets look in the future as the past is the past.
We can agree on that surely. But the fact that, after years of team-dominated Tours, Pog (almost without team support) won against JV strongmen was refreshing to see.
I didn't find that particular win very refreshing, but okay.
For us cycling geeks, those EF last minute roster announcements are bad publicity. We'll probably get the press release on the first rest day.
This Tour EF will ride in another ugly duck shirt designed by Palace, like the Giro one in 2020.
He's not injured. Just Intermarché doing DSM things.
Is it a contract thing, I wonder? He‘s not signing an extension, so someone who is staying gets the spot? It’s the only (non injury or Covid) reason I can think of, but there are other guys in the Tour squad who also aren’t likely to extend, so maybe not.
2020 Jumbo was the boring Skytrain without the comedy and spectacle of the Froome thermonuclear seated acceleration with 5-10k to go, Kuss' famous interview after Stage 6 just summed up their attitude and in the end they deserved to lose because of it.
I think it gets forgotten how poor that Tour GC battle was because of the dramatic ending, the best parts of it were the opening of the stages with the green jersey salvo between Bennett/Sagan and Hirschi's redemptive win.
I think it gets forgotten how poor that Tour GC battle was because of the dramatic ending, the best parts of it were the opening of the stages with the green jersey salvo between Bennett/Sagan and Hirschi's redemptive win.
Bitter about a refusal to extend his contract? Or some internal discipline thing like most of the DSM squabbles?
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