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Grand Tour Elimination Game ( 2010s )

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You mean a "lmao Tour is over in 12 seconds" on the first mountain of the Tour, is better than a GT won by a 50km attack on the penultimate day?

Now that you put it that way....

But it was like a "Let's get ready to rumble" at that Tour. The big four all present and correct. Well, not really correct, only two were in form. But look at the time gaps on that climb!

My argument is based on terms of level, and those who participated. 2015 Dumoulin rode well, but that wasn't quite yet the 17/18 version.

P.S. Nairo also kind of made a race of it in the third week.
 
Now that you put it that way....

But it was like a "Let's get ready to rumble" at that Tour. The big four all present and correct. Well, not really correct, only two were in form. But look at the time gaps on that climb!

My argument is based on terms of level, and those who participated. 2015 Dumoulin rode well, but that wasn't quite yet the 17/18 version.

P.S. Nairo also kind of made a race of it in the third week.
If we're gonna do the 'strength of the winner' list I imagine the 2015 Vuelta will be one of probably the first few casualties, but racing wise it was clearly better IMO. Quintana was too busy enjoying the landscape when the potentially race winning move was swimming up the Croix de Fer
 
If we're gonna do the 'strength of the winner' list I imagine the 2015 Vuelta will be one of probably the first few casualties, but racing wise it was clearly better IMO. Quintana was too busy enjoying the landscape when the potentially race winning move was swimming up the Croix de Fer

Was that when (mythical third week) Nibali attacked when Froome had a mechanical?

Another dramatic moment (mini chain-gate)!
 
I don't think it was ordinary at all. Plus, the last extraordinary stage was extraextraextraordinary.

Yates attacked with 1.5km to go on the Etna, Chaves at 5(?) to go, Carapaz at 1.5 to go on Montevergine, Froome at 4 to go on the Zoncolan, Then there were attacks by Froome/Dumoulin at 2km to go on Prato Nevoso and finally some mini attacks from Dumoulin on Cervinia and that's pretty much that.

Seems pretty ordinary to me.
 
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Yates attacked with 1.5km to go on the Etna, Chaves at 5(?) to go, Carapaz at 1.5 to go on Montevergine, Froome at 4 to go on the Zoncolan, Then there were attacks by Froome/Dumoulin at 2km to go on Prato Nevoso and finally some mini attacks from Dumoulin on Cervinia and that's pretty much that.

Seems pretty ordinary to me.

What other GT's had meaningful long range GC attacks on more than 2 stages?
 
Yates attacked with 1.5km to go on the Etna, Chaves at 5(?) to go, Carapaz at 1.5 to go on Montevergine, Froome at 4 to go on the Zoncolan, Then there were attacks by Froome/Dumoulin at 2km to go on Prato Nevoso and finally some mini attacks from Dumoulin on Cervinia and that's pretty much that.

Seems pretty ordinary to me.

Chaves was in the break of the day on the Etna stage which was pretty insane for a guy that had been on two Grand Tour podiums two years before and was looking strong again.

Then the day to Gualdo Tadino happened. A day still talked about in the peloton. Chaves was dropped early and then it was full-on madness the entire day in one of the hardest ridden stages of recent memory.

The Froome-Yates race on the Zoncolan was epic and then the day after Yates just bludgeoned the others from quite far out. And when it all looked decided, Superman did his thing on the shallow percentages on the Pratonevoso which exposed Yates and set up the following day's madness.

Then the Cervinia stage was disappointing.

But all in all it was not ordinary at all.
 
2011 Tour got eliminated a long time ago, so I am merely looking for some consistency/trying to understand why one is so much better than the other.

The 2011 Tour had the GC contenders finishing stage after stage after stage on the same (or as good as) time. The 2018 Giro wasn't like that.

Having said that, I am one who still thinks the 2011 Tour should be surviving in this competition.

P.S. There was also the most dramatic turnaround since Floyd Freakin' Landis. Whereas, in the 2011 Tour, the rider who was favourite to win heading into the Alps still - after admittedly much drama - finished up the eventual winner. 95% of us considered Froome dead and buried in that Giro.
 
I am struggling to see why 2018 Giro is so high as it was rather ordinary with the exception of 2 stages.
Interestingly, we have in the last couple of days seen people question or challenge the positive ratings of the three races that have seen a comparatively unusual situation: Chris Froome racing from behind. I think that's a large part of why those races are rated positively, in 2014's and 2016's Vueltas he was unsuccessful in his hunt, in 2018's Giro he was successful, but they all had something in common: because the guy and his team who had been seen as sucking the life out of so many other races were not in control, they were much more aggressive in how they raced. 2016's Vuelta's legendary stage is and will forever be Formigal of course, but it's not like Froome rolled over after that. 2014's Vuelta wasn't the most exciting race but it was one of the only times we saw Froome racing hard against Contador with a deficit, and that is perceived more positively than the races where Froome might be defeating Contador on a level playing field but Sky had a vice-like grip on the race. I'd perceive some anti-Froome sentiment in it (especially given the 2015 Tour is - rightfully in my mind - closing in on elimination too), except that in 2018's Giro, he succeeded in his quest to win that race back, and that race is being well received too.
 
Chaves was in the break of the day on the Etna stage which was pretty insane for a guy that had been on two Grand Tour podiums two years before and was looking strong again.

Then the day to Gualdo Tadino happened. A day still talked about in the peloton. Chaves was dropped early and then it was full-on madness the entire day in one of the hardest ridden stages of recent memory.

The Froome-Yates race on the Zoncolan was epic and then the day after Yates just bludgeoned the others from quite far out. And when it all looked decided, Superman did his thing on the shallow percentages on the Pratonevoso which exposed Yates and set up the following day's madness.

Then the Cervinia stage was disappointing.

But all in all it was not ordinary at all.

Right, I actually forgot that Chaves was in the break that day. But, personally, I never felt that he was a GC threat at the start of the race, but it's ok that you thought otherwise.

Was anyone high on GC apart from Chaves dropped that day? Probably not. Was anyone in trouble, but made it back? Not that I can remember.

On the Zoncolan they followed Poels for something like half of the climb which was pretty sad to watch.

Lopez attacking was not particularly meaningful for GC as he was 6th or 7th or something at that point over 5 minutes back.
 
The 2011 Tour had the GC contenders finishing stage after stage after stage on the same (or as good as) time. The 2018 Giro wasn't like that.

Having said that, I am one who still thinks the 2011 Tour should be surviving in this competition.

P.S. There was also the most dramatic turnaround since Floyd Freakin' Landis. Whereas, in the 2011 Tour, the rider who was favourite to win heading into the Alps still - after admittedly much drama - finished up the eventual winner. 95% of us considered Froome dead and buried in that Giro.

Eh, 3-10 same time on the Etna, gazillion people same time on Montevergine (which is ok), 10 or 11 people together until the start of sprint on Gran Sasso, too many people together on Cervinia (which is not ok).

So I would say the 2018 Giro was a bit like that.
 
2011 Tour got eliminated a long time ago, so I am merely looking for some consistency/trying to understand why one is so much better than the other.

Yeah, I'm with you there but I think that is abundantly clear for everyone who has read my posts in this thread.

But I will concede that (much) more happened in the first part of the 2018 Giro than the 2011 Tour.
 
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You mean a "lmao Tour is over in 12 seconds" on the first mountain of the Tour, is better than a GT won by a 50km attack on the penultimate day?
That was less of a 50km attack by Aru than it was a 50 km drop by Dumoulin. Don't think I've ever seen a team carrying their leader to a gt win this badly.

Anyway, 2015 Vuelta had a pretty cool third week because they basically only had three medium mountain stages left to drop Dumoulin, but they only even got into that position because the 3 big mountain stages on the tailend of week two were an absolute borefest of everyone letting Landa set the pace before trying to follow Purito's acceleration on the final kilometre. Andorra was also good and the Cumbre del Sol was possibly the most exciting murito finish I've ever seen but overall the first 2 weeks of the 2015 Vuelta were pretty dreadful.

The 2015 Tour I think is pretty underrated. The first week was pretty meh due to a complete lack of mountains (it still had cobbles and a great crosswind stage though) but from the pyrenees onwards it was brilliant. LPSM was legendary, we got a pretty good battle in Mende, a Nibali downhill attack in Gap, long range attack attempts by Nibali/Contador/Quintana on all of the four Alps stages. People don't remember it that fondly because eventually Quintana blew his chance by trying to sneak away from Froome on the Croix de Fer instead of using the fact that he was at that point simply climbing a lot better than him. But I think the most telling thing about that Tour is when you look at the time gaps on the mountain stages. We had some all out racing that year, which I feel we haven't really seen in a single Tour mountain stage since (with the excption of one that got cancelled half way through)

About the 2017 Giro. It was alright, it got really close in the end and really could have been won by 3 different guys but it was missing a truly great stage. Blockhaus and Oropa were good but not great. Sh*tgate was a shocker but then there wasn't really that much action till the descent. Then we had our big final 3 mountain stages were we expected Nibali and Quintana to finally properly show their cards and just when we thought the battle would really start they both faded away and the top climbers for the last set of mountain stages were Pinot and Ilnur Zakarin. Despite being so close it felt somewhat anticlimacitic.
 
About the 2017 Giro. It was alright, it got really close in the end and really could have been won by 3 different guys but it was missing a truly great stage. Blockhaus and Oropa were good but not great. Sh*tgate was a shocker but then there wasn't really that much action till the descent. Then we had our big final 3 mountain stages were we expected Nibali and Quintana to finally properly show their cards and just when we thought the battle would really start they both faded away and the top climbers for the last set of mountain stages were Pinot and Ilnur Zakarin. Despite being so close it felt somewhat anticlimacitic.
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