86th Tour de Suisse (2.UWT) // June 11th - 18th 2023

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She's Jip van den Bos, a pro on hiatus. In Dutch she's quite good, but her English is just too poor to really add anything to Eurosport UK.
I dunno, multiple times she calls something out despite the screen showing something completely different. Thought Remco dropped the others when the groups were coming back to Gall and it was very clear that was not the case. Or saying that Powless should do one big strong attack despite it being obvious he has nothing and was barely attacking anyway
 
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I feel sorry for no one:
Skjelmose, Gall and Ayuso are currently 1-2-3 and have all won a stage.
If Gall wanted to really win the overall, he should have followed Ayuso, as he needed all the possible extra time anyway for the TT (on Skjelmose, Evenepoel)
Evenpoel is 4th and can win the overall, and if he doesn't, he's simply not worth it.

So everybody will go home with a prize he deserves.
I mean, Gall went for a long solo yesterday, so I don't know how much faster he could have gone today.
 
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I dunno, multiple times she calls something out despite the screen showing something completely different. Thought Remco dropped the others when the groups were coming back to Gall and it was very clear that was not the case. Or saying that Powless should do one big strong attack despite it being obvious he has nothing and was barely attacking anyway
I think that also stems from not being comfortable in English, because in Dutch she doesn't make mistakes like that. Probably too focused on finding the right words rather than watching what's actually happening.
 
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As for the debate we had yesterday on Trek's tactics, it would appear they were right.

If nothing weird happens in the next 2 stages, Skjelmose is in the drivers seat to take the overall on Sunday, with the time he put into Evenepoel today.

Evenepoel is not putting 46 seconds into Skjelmose on a 25.7K TT, especially one that includes a climb, and Skjelmose is normally a better ITT rider than Ayuso.
 
What a strange race...
Ayuso dropping like a brick yesterday and blowing everyone today.

Remco showing he is far from good.
Maybe a top Remco could handle the current time difference with ease. But the current Remco? Podium for sure (if he doesn't drop more time).
1st place? i doubt it.

Ayuso back in contention for the win and how...
 
It makes no case either way, it can not be used as a reference.
His overall level cannot, but him being clearly worse on the longest, hardest and highest mountain stage than he was the last two days does not bode well for how even an Evenepoel in great form would have gone on e.g. the Tre Cime stage at the Giro or the Loze stage at the Tour. I've said this before, but the Vuelta route was fantastic for him because it had zero big mountain stages and one HC climb, he's yet to show that he can go as well on stages of this calibre as he can on cat. 1 MTFs with middling run-ins and he'll need to if he's going to win a Giro or a Tour. Not saying he'll never manage (need a bigger sample size for that), but today does still count as a strike against him because it's still a disappointing performance when we correct for his form.
 
His overall level cannot, but him being clearly worse on the longest, hardest and highest mountain stage than he was the last two days does not bode well for how even an Evenepoel in great form would have gone on e.g. the Tre Cime stage at the Giro or the Loze stage at the Tour. I've said this before, but the Vuelta route was fantastic for him because it had zero big mountain stages and one HC climb, he's yet to show that he can go as well on stages of this calibre as he can on cat. 1 MTFs with middling run-ins and he'll need to if he's going to win a Giro or a Tour. Not saying he'll never manage (need a bigger sample size for that), but today does still count as a strike against him because it's still a disappointing performance when we correct for his form.
It is interesting how Ayuso, a rider with probably an equally questionable form at the start of this race, truly came alive today on a long, high altitude climb, whereas Evenepoel definitely did not. It probably says something about natural talent. This is not to say that Remco can never do it, but apparently to Ayuso it really comes naturally.
 
Concerning Evenepoels descending, I don't think there was anything particularly weird about that. He was probably around 10 seconds behind the Skjelmose on the top of the climb already. Combine that with him being a generally mediocre descender and the fact that he likely went deep into the red on the climb and I think losing another 15 seconds or so is exactly what should have been expected. Remember when Pinot gained time on Nibali on the descent in Lombardia 2018? That kind of stuff simply happens when one rider is really strong and the other one completely cooked.
 
His overall level cannot, but him being clearly worse on the longest, hardest and highest mountain stage than he was the last two days does not bode well for how even an Evenepoel in great form would have gone on e.g. the Tre Cime stage at the Giro or the Loze stage at the Tour. I've said this before, but the Vuelta route was fantastic for him because it had zero big mountain stages and one HC climb, he's yet to show that he can go as well on stages of this calibre as he can on cat. 1 MTFs with middling run-ins and he'll need to if he's going to win a Giro or a Tour. Not saying he'll never manage (need a bigger sample size for that), but today does still count as a strike against him because it's still a disappointing performance when we correct for his form.
i see this argument, absolutely. and until he proves it, i think it is fair to work from this assumption.

shocker, right? :eek: :cool:
 
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The one thing that I didn't expect at all was yesterday's long range attack.
Why not? Carapaz and Fuglsang did a range attack into Leukerbad two years ago and yesterday's stage was harder. This race is a prime example of a good route delivering good racing, a nice change of pace after all the good and bad stage race routes destroyed by dominance or apathy this year.
 
No

His will be a better pure climber (maybe) but not better TRer, sprinter uphill and all round attacker ...

We actually don't know though because he's so young. Ayuso can develop other traits like mountain sprint (just look at Evenepoel, i.e. who went from being a tractor uphill to now having a serious kick which gives me a nice advantage on certain profiles).

Ayuso was very impressive today & I absolutely enjoyed his win (& his descent was pretty epic as well). I also liked the Albulapass col, i.e. something worthy of being in a GT like the Tour or Giro. Nice views, good roads, long, hard & spectacular descent.