3 days to go; Teams with no Stage Wins

[Leinster]

With Cav/Tadej/Bahrain gobbling up everyhing so far, the following (15, by my count) teams have no stage wins to this point. I'm including their (IMO) best chance of breaking that duck with the 3 days left. Who, if any, will bag their win in the final 3 days?

Team	Rider with best chance	Which stage	How
Ineos	G or Castro	TT	TT
ISN	Greipel or Zabel	Libourne	Sneak into the break, and everyone forgets they can sprint
Movistar	Cortina or Erviti	Libourne	Break
FDJ	Kung	TT	TT
Cofidis	Somebody, anybody	Libourne	Break
EF	Valgren/Cort	Libourne	From the break
Arkea Samsic	Swift	Libourne	Break
DSM	Pedersen	Libourne	Probably from the break, but possibly a late attack.
Lotto	De Gendt/van Moer	Libourne	Long-range attack and Quickstep drop the ball
BEX	Mezgec	Champs Elysees	Everyone (including QS) assumes he's leading out Matthews, but he sneaks off the front
Astana	Lutsenko	TT	TT
Qhubeka-Nexthash	Walscheid	Champs Elysees	Manages to pull off a big sprint
Team TotalEnergies	See Cofidis
Intermarche-Wanty Groupe Gobert	Bakelants	Libourne	From the break; everyone else looks at each other to chase.
B&B Hotels	Bonnamour	Libourne	From the break.

 

[Breezy1985]

People were laughing at the likes of Total with silly attacks but at least we knew they were in the race. I genuinely forgot Wanty, Lotto and DSM were in this bike race

 

[Leinster]

TBF, Lotto built their whole Tour around Ewan, and didn't have a backup sprinter when he crashed out. They were kinda screwed at that point, and vanMoer did go on a break one day.

DSM showed up on the front in the final km of each sprint stage... and that was it.

 

[burning]

TBF, Lotto built their whole Tour around Ewan, and didn't have a backup sprinter when he crashed out. They were kinda screwed at that point, and vanMoer did go on a break one day.

DSM showed up on the front in the final km of each sprint stage... and that was it.

I love that you cannot find anything to say about Wanty, and neither do I.

 

[Warhawk]

I love that you cannot find anything to say about Wanty, and neither do I.

You don't remember Danny van Poppel's rousing fifth place on stage 13?

Because neither did I, I had to go to Wikipedia to find something to put in this comment.

 

[Publiuszam]

I love that you cannot find anything to say about Wanty, and neither do I.

You don't remember Danny van Poppel's rousing fifth place on stage 13?

I dunno ..seeing a Wanty jersey suddenly among the breakaway just as i switch on the race that day reminds me of Santambrogia...i thought i was watching my beloved II Giro 12/13 again. It is because Wanty Jerseys reminds me of Santambrogia in his heyday with Vini sella italia. Yes, i know, they are nothing alike

 

[Hugo Koblet]

I love the fact that the Danish reporter Emil Axelgaard from feltet.dk on more than one occasion has said that one of most positive things about this Tour has been watching Meintjes finding some sort of form.

 

[Bonimenier]

TBF, Lotto built their whole Tour around Ewan, and didn't have a backup sprinter when he crashed out. They were kinda screwed at that point, and vanMoer did go on a break one day.

Not all their riders were there to help Ewan though. Van Moer we saw, props to him. But guys like De Gendt, nearly invisible, and Gilbert, completely invisible, aren't really the guys to help Ewan all that much.

 

[RedheadDane]

So, according to this, everybody, their mothers, and their dogs should want to get in the break today.

Gonna be an interesting break...

 

[Valanga]

Not all their riders were there to help Ewan though. Van Moer we saw, props to him. But guys like De Gendt, nearly invisible, and Gilbert, completely invisible, aren't really the guys to help Ewan all that much.

De Gendt is almost always in a serving role when he's not in a breakaway. He's there to pull the bunch for kilometers. Tim Declercq style.
And apparently not good enough to go in breakaways this tour. This was probably his last tour.
Gilbert, meh. Too old I'm afraid.

 

[Bonimenier]

De Gendt is almost always in a serving role when he's not in a breakaway. He's there to pull the bunch for kilometers. Tim Declercq style.
And apparently not good enough to go in breakaways this tour. This was probably his last tour.
Gilbert, meh. Too old I'm afraid.

Yeah, that's a fair point. But he's still not the guy to only be in a GT as domestique for a sprinter.

 

[Volderke]

I love that you cannot find anything to say about Wanty, and neither do I.

Jan Bakelants was in the break on stage 16, the last to hold Konrad's wheel on Portet d'Aspet.

... and vanMoer did go on a break one day.

Brent van Moert was in 2 big breakaways and was close winning one of them: stage 4 (who doesn't remember?) and stage 7 (together with Mohoric for a long time).

 

[BlueRoads]

So 15 teams didn't get either a stage win or a jersey so far. In the "best" case the next three stages go to different teams and "only" 12 remain. Ineos will probably have a podium. That makes at least 11 teams that will have pretty much nothing to show for. A very dividing Tour.

 

[Breezy1985]

Did I see though that this tour also could break a record for GC by having the top 15 all from different teams

 

[tobydawq]

I love the fact that the Danish reporter Emil Axelgaard from feltet.dk on more than one occasion has said that one of most positive things about this Tour has been watching Meintjes finding some sort of form.

He has a very, very weird soft spot for Meintjes.

 

[tobydawq]

Did I see though that this tour also could break a record for GC by having the top 15 all from different teams

Top 14. But still noteworthy, I hadn't realised that.

 

[Breezy1985]

Top 14. But still noteworthy, I hadn't realised that.

Record is 11 I think and set in the 70s

 

[Red Rick]

TBF, Lotto built their whole Tour around Ewan, and didn't have a backup sprinter when he crashed out. They were kinda screwed at that point, and vanMoer did go on a break one day.

DSM showed up on the front in the final km of each sprint stage... and that was it.

Imagine going to the Tour de France and having Cees Bol as your only plan.

 

[Valanga]

Imagine going to the Tour de France and having Cees Bol as your only plan.

That's not entirely true of course. They were also hoping for Søren Kragh Andersen (2 stage wins last year) and Tiesj Benoot to steal a stage, but both crashed out.

 

[Leinster]

That's not entirely true of course. They were also hoping for Søren Kragh Andersen (2 stage wins last year) and Tiesj Benoot to steal a stage, but both crashed out.

Even after that, they never really did anything to try. Last year there was a solid coordination to their attacks, especially in the final 40km of medium stages, to set up Kragh's wins, and also Hirschi's. They put men up the road, had others bridging to attacks; it was some really impressive racing, as well as giving Bol a couple of sprint opportunities.

This time around they could only get Pedersen into today's break, and that's about all they've done for 3 weeks. Their best rider on GC is Donovan, in 40th.

 

[Leinster]

Another chance wasted for all 15 teams. Ineos didn't bother getting in the break, ISN completely missed the break, and Movistar sat up from the break. At least the likes of Bonamour and Laporte tried a little bit.

 

[BlueRoads]

Another chance wasted for all 15 teams. Ineos didn't bother getting in the break, ISN completely missed the break, and Movistar sat up from the break. At least the likes of Bonamour and Laporte tried a little bit.

Actually Kwiatkowski tried to get into the break.

 

[Bonimenier]

Kung might be the last rider to realistically have a chance to turn that 15 into 14 tomorrow, although I doubt it will happen.

 

[Leinster]

Kung might be the last rider to realistically have a chance to turn that 15 into 14 tomorrow, although I doubt it will happen.

Bisseger?

Ronan McLaughlin on the Cyclingtips podcast said the other day that if the mid-stage riders in the TT had the same weather as the top 10, the stage results would have been different. He reckoned, on the ground, that the difference was that big. So we’ll see if those guys can turn it around, or if they’re worn out from surviving the mountains.

 

[Bonimenier]

Bisseger?

I don't see Bissegger winning against some of the guys here. Also not sure how good he is at TT's longer than 10-15km.