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Finally some GC action!! Hugely well deserved by Almeida - great to see him deliver on such a serious mountain stage. Not totally surprising to see Roglic dropped - his super high climbing cadence reminded me of stage 20, 2020 TdF: spinning fast but going nowhere.
Long way to go and many more mountains but Almeida and Thomas look the goods.
Almeida very impressive today, if he keeps going like this he will be hard to shake and also looks strong for the uphill TT. I also think he looks leaner? We are used to seeing Almeida limiting his losses on big climbs but today he was setting the pace. Ominous.
Long way to go and many more mountains but Almeida and Thomas look the goods.
Almeida very impressive today, if he keeps going like this he will be hard to shake and also looks strong for the uphill TT. I also think he looks leaner? We are used to seeing Almeida limiting his losses on big climbs but today he was setting the pace. Ominous.
Finally a stage with proper GC action!
Happy to see Almeida getting his first GT stage win, Thomas also looked really strong. Roglic was lucky to have Kuss at this side (and Dunbar at the end), I suspected Bondone was not a great climb for him but expected him to be better nonetheless.
Very good stage from Dunbar and Van Wilder too. Caruso was not great today, podium will be difficult but hope to see him on the offense on stages 18/19.
Happy to see Almeida getting his first GT stage win, Thomas also looked really strong. Roglic was lucky to have Kuss at this side (and Dunbar at the end), I suspected Bondone was not a great climb for him but expected him to be better nonetheless.
Very good stage from Dunbar and Van Wilder too. Caruso was not great today, podium will be difficult but hope to see him on the offense on stages 18/19.
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Keep it coming Almeida!! Next time has to drop Thomas as well
This is what he's paid to do, and he does it well. He may have come in a little cold but after two weeks of this I don't think it's that unusual he's found some form. He gets stick for doing nothing but this but the fact is, this is why JV pay him to ride his bike; keep your head down as much as you can and show up when the climbing starts.
Next mountain stage favors Roglic. This is starting to get interesting!
Frankly, Thomas deserves the pink jersey right now. Yes he's a dull rider sometimes But he attacked today and proved to be better than Roglic. It's not his fault that Evenepoel & Geoghegan Hart left the race. He needs to gain time on Almeida tough.
Almeida was well very strong today. Kinda attacked twice even. Because when he initially took over from Vine his acceleration exploded the group. Most notably Caruso. Had the guts to attack and exploit Roglic later. He sensed his chance today and dared to use it. Well deserved stage win. He has been a regular competitor at the Giro d'Italia ever since 2020!
Also impressive from Dunbar. Wouldn't have expected him to be up in the final selection. Despite indicating decent shape up towards Thyon 2000 already.
Tells a lot about the level at the Giro d'Italia though. If Evenepoel & Geoghegan Hart were still there they would be heads and shoulders above everyone else. Almeida isn't even 2nd fiddle at UAE, that's Ayuso. Dunbar is a good reference how low the level is. Thomas versus Almeida for the overall while Roglic still is in contention despite being a complete failure by his own standards (2021 Vuelta a Espana) tells everything.
Currently the Vuelta a Espana has become the 2nd grand tour. At least from 2021 onwards. The racing and the level of the contenders has been significantly lower at the Giro d'Italia and I doubt the 2023 Vuelta a Espana will break that pattern.
Almeida was well very strong today. Kinda attacked twice even. Because when he initially took over from Vine his acceleration exploded the group. Most notably Caruso. Had the guts to attack and exploit Roglic later. He sensed his chance today and dared to use it. Well deserved stage win. He has been a regular competitor at the Giro d'Italia ever since 2020!
Also impressive from Dunbar. Wouldn't have expected him to be up in the final selection. Despite indicating decent shape up towards Thyon 2000 already.
Tells a lot about the level at the Giro d'Italia though. If Evenepoel & Geoghegan Hart were still there they would be heads and shoulders above everyone else. Almeida isn't even 2nd fiddle at UAE, that's Ayuso. Dunbar is a good reference how low the level is. Thomas versus Almeida for the overall while Roglic still is in contention despite being a complete failure by his own standards (2021 Vuelta a Espana) tells everything.
Currently the Vuelta a Espana has become the 2nd grand tour. At least from 2021 onwards. The racing and the level of the contenders has been significantly lower at the Giro d'Italia and I doubt the 2023 Vuelta a Espana will break that pattern.
After 2016, the Giro GC winner list has been super-weak. There's no other way around it. Sure, a Froome and pre-injury Bernal might win occasionally but those are exceptions.
I'm not sure about the Vuelta becoming the second GT, Mas has finished 2nd twice in the last 2 years and people like Jack Haig are podiuming, I think the initial startlist for this years Giro was pretty good, but crashes and injuries have happend, simular to the 2014 TDF.
The Vuelta is a three-week long Sunday ride. It's by far of lower level than the Giro, no matter if bigger names turn up for it or not.
Mas is a quite decent rider if he gets his act together. A bit what Gilberto Simoni used to be at the Giro d'Italia back in the zeroes. Only that Mas hasn't won the Vuelta a Espana yet.
Haig podiumed mainly because of a tactical split that cost Lopez & Bernal badly. Normally he would have been 5th or so?
If you had asked me 2 weeks ago I would have called the Vuelta a Espana not a true GT.
But after this edition of the Giro d'Italia the writing is on the wall simply.
And yes, it hurts indeed.
Great story except for the fact that we have, you know, actual data that shows how the level was and it wasnt low at all.
Well let's wait until we have data for the 2023 Vuelta a Espana as well. And the Tour de France of course.
Pure data wise all races this year have been extraordinary. So it's not surprising. But this is the only race that has disappointed so far.
Hence why I said I don't think the upcoming Vuelta will break that pattern.
The data will be there this fall.
- I agree Thomas has done everything right and ridden to his potential. Apparently today was a career best climbing performance, and he obviously has won the Tour
View: https://twitter.com/cyclinggraphs/status/1661071026405490691?s=46&t=14N416zK93up_7bVPO60Ig
- Almeida looks great. He has always been just a level below but maybe he had taken the next step
- Who knows if Remco and TGH would be crushing this field. They weren’t when the left, were they? TGH looked good but hadn’t done much and doesn’t have a strong track record outside of one Covid-impacted anomaly.
- I would argue that the Vuelta has been on par with the Giro since 2014, when it was the GT of the year, being the de facto make up Tour for the two favorites. 2015 Giro was better, as was 2018 Giro. Aside from that, I would argue the Vuelta had been a higher level. Always hard to know though.
5.9 for 54 minutes at low altitude is like the most mid performance considering 2023 climbing times.
I agree with all of this. He's certainly not a douche. I always liked the dude off the bike. I just don't like watching him on the bike.
If Kuss buries Thomas for Roglic on Tre Cime will Kuss be off @Libertine Seguros' hitlist?
Makes sense since he has been a mid performer for years aside from his lucky 2018 Tour win. Still, his best performance at age 36 5 years after his Tour victory is remarkable.
He was comfortably the best rider in the race, but that was made easier by the next two riders having ridden the Giro.
Haha is that irony? Even though the first two weeks were most difficult because of the weather and not the hard paced racing this performance is absolutely great and you can't even compare that to the watts on Thyon, Valter and Lo Port.
Also that was a really hard stage today. We saw last year that Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel were head and shoulders above the rest but even though they probably win that stage they wouldn't but minutes into Thomas and Almeida here.
And how do you rank them? One Tour = 3 Vueltas?
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That's true. And I suppose that was what VVV meant, but I still think it's pretty disingenuous to call it luck.
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