Colombia Oro y Paz (2.1), 06.02-10.02

[jaylew]

Just watched it and then looked at final results and apparently I had no idea what was going on. I thought Contreras won the stage, Dayer was Nairo, Seb was Sergio, Martinez was Uran...

Anyway, the last few stages have been fun. Hopefully the coverage will get better because this will be a great addition if the WT Colombians continue to come. Can you imagine this with Chaves and Lopez also in the mix?

So lessers Henao and Quintana were better than their more heralded relatives today. Who'd have thought that would happen, especially given both were in the mix for the GC win.

 

[SKSemtex]

The race should change the name for "war and peace". Everybody really happy in the end.

The Colombians have the scary team for Innsbruck. No chances for GVAs, Sagans like. . They can make hell from far on and Rigo can deliver in the end.

We need more races like this in January, February . What a crowd, what an atmosphere. Well done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8Cq4a8FXk

 

[tobydawq]

Re:

Just watched it and then looked at final results and apparently I had no idea what was going on. I thought Contreras won the stage, Dayer was Nairo, Seb was Sergio, Martinez was Uran...

Anyway, the last few stages have been fun. Hopefully the coverage will get better because this will be a great addition if the WT Colombians continue to come. Can you imagine this with Chaves and Lopez also in the mix?

So lessers Henao and Quintana were better than their more heralded relatives today. Who'd have thought that would happen, especially given both were in the mix for the GC win.

No they weren't (better than their relatives). They were in a breakaway group which got almost zero coverage, but they were between Contreras and the peloton for the entire duration of the final climb.

Geoghegan Hart was there as well.

The only thing that confused me was the sudden disappearance by Contreras from the front, because the commentators kept saying he would surely win and we hadn't seen anybody in his vicinity. Looking again, one can see Seb and Dayer sprinting past him, but the commentators didn't seem to realise that.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Just watched the last stage. Lmao the coverage was horrible! Like something from the 80's. But the crowds looked like something from the future. I love everything about it

 

[armchairclimber]

Colombia should be twinned with Yorkshire

 

[trevim]

I'm glad Dayer managed to win again. While there's obviously a gap in ability from Dayer to Nairo, he would be worthy of a WT contract either way and I find it very strange that Dayer has only ridden 1 GT in 4 years with Movistar. He's a very solid domestique, I hope he gets to ride more of the big races.

 

[railxmig]

Sorry, i'm a filthy European used to top standards of coverage, where the recent Vueltas are the worst thing ever. However, this stage had a way better coverage than the previous one even with the chaotic last 2km. For relatively poor parcours the race was top notch. There was a lot of people inside last 3km, but i wouldn't say it was anything out of this world.

For Sky being often Us-Postal like "brute force" they used very sublime, Bjarne Riis-esque tactics in (mostly) no-radio environment on a lacklustre HTF/MTF with Geoghegan Hart and Sebastian Henao as "satelites" for Bernal, while Uran and Quintana were looking at themselves. Even if this operation was only 3km long and gained only 10s it still will be one of my faourite cycling moments of 2018. Chapeau to Bernal and the whole Sky team for this beautiful race.

Also big congrats to Dayer Quintana for grabing the oppurtunity and Contreras for giving his all on the climb.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

Just watched it and then looked at final results and apparently I had no idea what was going on. I thought Contreras won the stage, Dayer was Nairo, Seb was Sergio, Martinez was Uran...

Anyway, the last few stages have been fun. Hopefully the coverage will get better because this will be a great addition if the WT Colombians continue to come. Can you imagine this with Chaves and Lopez also in the mix?

So lessers Henao and Quintana were better than their more heralded relatives today. Who'd have thought that would happen, especially given both were in the mix for the GC win.

No they weren't (better than their relatives). They were in a breakaway group which got almost zero coverage, but they were between Contreras and the peloton for the entire duration of the final climb.

That makes more sense. Maybe they were talking about that but I don't understand Spanish, unfortunately.

That said, I found the announcers to be the most annoying ever and I've watched races in a multitude of languages. The female announcer would just not stop talking. It was as though she felt like she would be docked pay for every half second of dead air. I don't know how a person can talk that long without pausing. And then, the second she did pause that guy would pop in immediately, probably thinking "here's my only chance to say something" so it was just a constant steam of words which I found incredibly annoying.

Periodic pauses and silences make a broadcast so much better, imo, especially in a sport like cycling where nothing is going on half the time