I am very relaxed thank you. I'm just so done with the best riders getting no challenge from teams who seemingly don't even try to win the race. Pogacar dropping Jorgenson was very predictable, that we can agree on.Lol, relax.
They lost the chance to win when Pog dropped everyone and Jorgeson went into red.
Attacking from a group where everyone is cooked is not that strange. They were all, in the group, going for the exact same thing. Attack to try and get away to avoid sprint for podium.
He was obviously cooked as he got dropped hard by Pog on the climb. That he follow others and stay with a group who is equally cooked is neither here nor there.
Sure, but their best chance to get a podium... having no rider with a sprint in their team left... the best alternative was probably to take turns and trying to get away from the group with someone. Not take the responsibility to form and chase with riders already on their limit to bring back the strongest rider in the race. There was not enough time nor did they have the power left to do that and they would get beaten in the sprint no matter what.
Thus, I think that Visma needed to break the race from UAE's rythm earlier. Ideally at the point were wellens had done some work. Leaving Pogi with only Majka or Novak in an uncontrollable group of 30 ish strong riders. At that point they have a chance to go for the win.
When that didn't happen, the plan before the race must be to either hold Pogacar wheel (not good tacticts some would say delusional) or form a strong chase. Wandahl was clearly ready to work - then Benoot and Lemmen could do the same and suddenly the gap is stable at 20 seconds or even less. They had plenty of time. Come'on man. 23 km.
It feels like almost every one day race this season is teams being super passive waiting for the hammer from the best guy and when it happens it just "oh alright then we don't win today". This holds true for so many teams at so many races these days. I am singling out Visma because they are actually prepared to make it difficult for MVDP in the classics and so they understand this in principle at least.