HelloDolly said:
peloton said:
Gotta say he looked very good today. None of the 'true' climbers can match Dan's explosiveness on a climb like today, Valverde maybe and Purito.
Nice win for Dan.
Alberto was, as usual, alone in the final climb. At least he's used to it
Quintana was alone with Anaconna finishing behind Trofimov
Aru wa alone wit Lopez finishing even later than Annacona
Chaves, Barguil, Valls & Navarro were alone
This is a great photo of the 'team' issue, i.e he has none. I did watch the stage and thought in the last 10k all of Alberto's team had got in the car and gone home. It's pretty much always the same, the Giro last year was a case in point, he effectively beat the entire Astana team alone
Change the record
Surely finishing position does not tell us much about what moment they were dropped. Trofimov is a very steady diesel climber, maybe he overtook Anacona and Lopez.
I didn't watch the stage, but I read comments during the race and saw photos, and it's clear Contador was very isolated.
Here we can see (at least )3 Movistar + Quintana, 4 Sky + Froome, 4 Ag2R + Bardet, (at least) 3 Etixx + Dan, and Contador just with Hansen.
Oh,and Chaves, Barguil, Valls and Navarro aren't supposed to challenge for the overall victory in the Tour this year.
Fact is, Aru had teammates, Quintana had teammates, Froome had teammates. Contador was very isolated. Now, Tinkoff did send a B-team here, but you can't claim he didn't have less support than his rivals.