Ha! The part that makes me laughWhich part of you?
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Ha! The part that makes me laughWhich part of you?
Stages like this are nightmarishly painful. Lots of repeated supra-FTP climbs.I put an RGT Cycling route for the final 43 km of this stage here. It's surprisingly hard -- up and down the whole way.
There is no complicated tactics here:
- In my opinion, after Thursday, it was 80% on Roglic or Pogacar for the win. 20% the rest. With McNulty with a very small percentage on that 80%. I would give Vingegaard and Yates a bigger percentage.
- Without the Astana attack, it was still the same outcome to me. All because the idiots of UAE had designated Pogacar to defend the leader's jersey. LOL.
- The expecting to play out the perfect scenario in order for Roglic to win is ridiculous. He would have won in my book under most scenarios. Astana attacking the descent was just one of them but Roglic didn't need it to win. Look at the stage again. McNulty was going to drop in the following climb no matter what. Period. At that point Roglic was the favorite again and Pogacar had to drop him mano a mano.
If they were communicating well and being 100% honest, TP should have bridged immediately.
At what point in the race? A km mark would be nice. As I see it, once they were on the descent, with or without McNulty, Pogi had no chance whatsoever of bridging across.
The whole race up to that point. And perhaps he would not have bridged, but I think using TP to provide cover for McNulty was a mistake. TP would need to react based on what he needed to do, and not check with the DS.
It may have made no difference. And it is not like I was rooting for UAE. But I do think that was a mistake that cost a second or two, and that is all it takes.
"Nous avons décidé qu'il fallait céder le maillot à n'importe qui, sauf à Tadej Pogacar"
"On s'était dit dès le départ de l'épreuve que tout se déciderait samedi. Lors du briefing jeudi matin, nous avons décidé qu'il fallait céder le maillot à n'importe qui, sauf à Tadej Pogacar. Et nous avons réussi à faire cela. Après la troisième étape et cette arivée en montée, il était clair que Primoz Roglic et Tadej Pogacar étaient beaucoup plus forts que les autres. Les 20 secondes de genius sur McNulty étaient donc largement rattapables. Nous étions donc satisfaits de céder ce maillot afin de pouvoir courir plus librement samedi."
Very interesting, how the Press and also many here took the UAE and Pogacar statement, that he and his team were defending the yellow jersey, during the attack.
Because, on the video is clearly seen how everyone reacted at the same time when Astana attacked, also Pogacar did not hesitate, and wasn't looking back and waiting for McNulty. They all jumped it no matter of time.
And it was then clear that Alex and Ion from Astana team, they knew the road 100% exactly and therefore went down like a mad man, what was then later told by others, as Valverde, and Gaudu have lucky managed to follow those two, and so did Roglic, at very last.
So I don't buy it, that Pogacar was working for McNulty, till he dropped on Krabelin climb, and that only then Radio team gave him hands free to go by him self. McNulty unfortunately could not cope neither on the descent nor on the flat section.
Agree with the bolded.There are some more quotes from Grischa Niermann regarding the Jumbo tactics on Thursday when they lost the jersey, i.e. relayed here: Tour du Pays basque - Grischa Niermann : «Un coup de maître tactique» (cyclismactu.net) (& quoted from the In Het Wiel podcast: Podcast | ‘Het belangrijkste nieuws van de maand: Fabio is terug!’ | Wielrennen | AD.nl )
He said stage 6 was seen as the deciding stage even before the start of Itzulia, so during the briefing on Thursday morning they said they needed to concede the jersey to anyone, except Pogacar. And considering stage 3's climb finish demonstrated the fact Roglic & Pogacar were vastly superior to the others, 20 seconds on McNulty wasn't an issue. So they were satisfied to lose the jersey & race with more freedom on Saturday.
----
My opinion? For some of us it made sense at the time, but I'm convinced most of the people who were screaming at Jumbo & calling them incompetents etc. happened to those who massively overrated McNulty as well. I'm thinking Chris Horner for example. Even in his comment section he kept on saying McNulty would be there on the final climb & Roglic needed those bonus seconds for the win.
It seemed seriously wishful thinking considering McNulty's credentials in the mountains (& UAE's mad decision to make Pogacar ride for McNulty compounded their problems).
As I mentioned before, you were right on target about McNulty. But I don’t think that people asking on this thread whether we might be dismissing his chances too readily were try to “hype” his chances. We were wrong, but I wasn’t invested in his performance (which I usually think of when we speak of hyping a rider).Agree with the bolded.
It was 100% clear to me after stage 4 that he was going to lose the jersey on Saturday. I even wrote it after the stage. Whether JV did it on purpose or by accident, I don't care. The main focus for them was Roglic being glued to Pogacar's wheel. Period. As long as Roglic kept together with him is mission accomplished. I do not care for the rest. As for this forum hyping McNulty after Thursday. It is beyond me why they were thinking that he was capable of following the Slovenians. I have seen this stage in the past. It is madness hard. When I was watching the replay I had to pause several times to rest a little bit. It was that hard!!!!
As for the question about being many scenarios in which Roglic would lose I say, Yes, there were several, no many, but the other scenarios included Pogacar winning, Not McNulty. And to a lesser extent an outsider. But probabilities were low with the others IMHO.
And then just one of those scenarious could have played out differently, and the exact same choice could've been a total disaster.
Why is it so terrible to admit that Jumbo screwed up on stage 4, but - rather impressively - were able to turn things around and still get away with the win?
There is no complicated tactics here:
GC after stage 4:In addition some people acted like no other team is really going to put stress, on the leaders jersey. Like top 10 GC is close and only UAE and JV will do something, the rest will just do nothing.
C'mon.
So tell me then please, why they just didn't let McNulty and Landa go away on Erlaitz? Why Vingegaard closed that move? They had Vingegaard, Tolhoek and Rogla in that group, they could've control those two perfectly.@Libertine Seguros
It was JV intention to give the leaders jersey to McNutly and by doing that JV didn't lost anything against Pogačar on stage 4. Somebody being in despair, trying to keep the leaders jersey at all costs for sure doesn't act like JV did. If they didn't want to give the leaders jersey to McNutly it was in their power, not to do that. It was their intention, for McNutly to take it and to get Pogačar from Rogličes wheel and put him in front of McNutly. To make Pogačar work on stage 6 (potentially 5).
On the long run, this race should be looked at as a whole and as such it will in my opinion withstand the test of time and will be considered being a race that was won tactically.