The fact is that yesterday (when it didn’t matter) TJV looked good. And Today when they should be looking good, all their domestiques where totally spent due to (I assume) yesterdays effort.
They can talk about bad luck all they want but me myselef personally I was pretty pissed at them yesterday for showing off a day before such an important stage. And as it turned out, there are dire consequences now - one of their GC leader all but out of contention. Their two-pronged attack looking pretty much infeasible now and unless Vinge pulls a huge rabbit out of a hat, second place looking the most they can get from this race (again).
But sure - blame the bad luck if you will, do the Plan B documentary again. Your glorious run to the second place…
I could write a book about Jumbo's neurotic approach to the TdF.
Some teams like Movistar, Arkea, Bora & even Ineos etc. are just happy to go to the Tour with their best riders & see what happens. They have podium contenders who under certain circumstances can win it. They also have potential stage winners as well.
Jumbo meanwhile... they're just greedy & demand absolute certainties with guaranteed results, leaving a Damocles sword hanging over riders who might not hit those targets immediately. That's what I'd call it. They're obsessed with overperforming in July & going for everything. Green, yellow, multiple stage wins & stunts like pointless team attacks on cat 4 climbs just to show off their power. Even before the disaster yesterday, Merijn Zeeman (him again...) was already talking about getting a better idea of which rider (Jonas or Rog) they should back first in GC after stage 6 & 7 (La Planche).
This in & of itself is insane in cycling because over a 3 week GT, form can fluctuate. It's not unusual for a rider to be perhaps less powerful in the first week & then super powerful at the end of week 3. Just look at how Jai Hindley won the Giro.
But whatever, after some reflection & night's sleep, I consider this disaster to be one disaster too many. The crash was hideous misfortune but the situation which led to the crash (Roglic left with only one helper up front) & the consequences (Roglic getting left behind the Jonas/WvA group when he was right there in the cars) to be entirely self-inflicted by the team themselves.
It's like being a 3x GT winner, monument winner & serial 1 week stage race winner means f-all to the corporate people running that team. I'm still grossed out by what happened tbh.