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Can anyone beat these 6

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Schachmann and Vingegaard, though.

As I said, "notwithstanding accidents".

I mean there's no way current year Schachmann beats current year Roglic on a climb or TT. Likewise Vingegaard is good, but not good enough to go mano-a-mano in GC with Pogacar alone.

On the other hand van Aert was again super strong today, but once they're in a 3 man breakaway group riding for the win towards the line, it does become a bit of a lottery where raw power & ability no longer = certain win.

Alaphilippe (for example) might of course get everything right next week (as he did in the world championship), but if I was a betting man, I'd feel much safer betting on GC stage race guys than one day race guys.
 
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Despite all the ridicule this thread and our starting hypotheses got, if we look at the WT races this year (15) 8 of them have been won by the big 6. If we look at the single stages as well, it's even more spectacular.
4 of 7 UAE
5 of 8 PN
6 of 8 TA (5 of them started there)
At Catalunya none of them started, so none of them won any of the 7 stages.
2 of 6 Basque

So if all of them are in a race they won't leave many crumbs.

(I may have counted wrongly here and there, I tend to do that...)
 
Despite all the ridicule this thread and our starting hypotheses got, if we look at the WT races this year (15) 8 of them have been won by the big 6. If we look at the single stages as well, it's even more spectacular.
4 of 7 UAE
5 of 8 PN
6 of 8 TA (5 of them started there)
At Catalunya none of them started, so none of them won any of the 7 stages.
2 of 6 Basque

So if all of them are in a race they won't leave many crumbs.

(I may have counted wrongly here and there, I tend to do that...)
It’s obviously hard to compare with other sports but it seems like that’s not a very remarkable record. Especially if the original point was that these 6 are head and shoulders above the rest? If you picked the six best cross country skiers, wouldn’t they win a higher percentage? The six best tennis players would (on the men’s circuit) win, what, 95 % of the tournaments they played in?