Le Tour 2018 stage 10: Annecy > Le Grand-Bornand 158,5 km

[del1962]

I thought GC Position of first rider determined car position not team position

Radioshck liked the team prize a few years ago

Fisrt of 3 days and still recovering from cobbles plus headwind made a GC passive stage

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Le Tour 2018 stage 10: Annecy > Le Grand-Bornand 158,5 k

I think it was obvious from quite a long way out that this would end this way. I'm happy that Dan Martin's attack at least exposed the pretenders but if you're looking at the rest of the group who should have attacked? Bardet, Nibali and the three amigos would have been caught by the sky train if nobody prepares their attack (and unfortunately nobody had anyone who could have prepared it) the TT specialists like Dumo, Roglic and ofc the sky duo is happy as it stands and someone like Kruijswijk who would be happy with a top ten in the final gc won't attack either.

And as some have claimed "everyone is handing the tour to sky", that really isn't the case either. Thomas is far ahead of the other gc guys but he is the only one and many expect him to crack in the mountains. Froome is behind Valverde, Fuglsang and Jungels and in a position where Roglic and Dumoulin might very well overtake him if the ITT was tomorrow. So far a pretty much neutralized stage isn't automatically to his advantage and maybe he'll find himself in a position where he just can't get rid of Dumoulin and Thomas in the third week. Yeah, Nibali, Bardet and the Movitrio have to gain more time in the mountains than him, but it's not way more. In theory one mountain stage where Nibali is stronger than Froome might already be enough for the Italian.

 

[GuyIncognito]

I've said it many times, I'll say it again

If you're not contending for the podium after a few short seasons of turning pro, you're unlikely to ever be because you won't improve much more.
I've said it in the context of "But Tejay and Talansky are the next generation of winners", I've said it before that with Kreuziger and others, and I've been saying it since last year in the context of Jungels. As shocking as it may seem, he's not likely to get much better than this which was already his level last year

I've heard this so many times, and it's an interesting idea, but I've always wondered if confirmation bias isn't at play here. I.e., we tend to focus on the cases where this is proven to be correct and ignore all the others where it isn't. There are too many examples that directly contradict this.

A great point and I'll admit I've wondered that.

So I just went through the podium finishers in GTs since the millenium, tallying up which season (1st, 2nd, 3rd...) they were first fighting for a GT win/podium and how many GTs they had done.

My conclusion? Is that I can't talk about it here because aside from 2 guys, all the late bloomers are the who's who of clinic discussion with lengthy dopeology.org pages.In fact, it made me realize there's comparatively much less clinic discussion of classics riders.

Anyway, I'll shut up about it now

 

[Laplaz]

Fastest ascent of Colombiere ever by Dan Martin.

 

[roundabout]

Re:

movingtarget - more unnecessary dogpiling on Cobo. El Bisonte was a pretty good espoir in Spain, had some prospects, built up through 26 and 27, handicapped by the Saunier Duval withdrawal of course, and even with next to no support on Fuji-Servetto managed a Vuelta top 10 in 2009. There are more factors at play with him due to both his team association history and his psychological history too, as we all know.

Dekker_Tifosi: That 2007 Giro was kind of won by Nibali's teammate though - team roles play a lot of the part, after all on paper Nairo Quintana's 36th in the 2012 is far less impressive than him being the top climber for Movistar and dragging Valverde around through week 3.

Sky_Bot: Unzué is surprisingly bothered by the team classification. Lord knows why other than place of car in cavalcade.

yaco: in fairness though, the Tour has started giving out some pretty ordinary HCs. At 6km in length I'm not sure about this one as a 'legit' HC. It's certainly no Madeleine.

Cobo had next to no results in his first 3 years as a pro. Is this now called "having some prospects"?

And next to no support in the Vuelta is not supported by facts. In every difficult stage except the one he won, there was at least 1 Fuji rider within 90 seconds of Cobo at the finish.

We all know that you like Cobo for whatever reason, but maybe a more factual discussion would be in order next time?

 

[Sestriere]

Re: Re:

Great performance by Movistar today! They are leading the team classification now.

Who cares about the team classification?

I don't. But Movistar showed interest in it during other editions as well. It was a bit of joke as they were completely passive despite their much hyped "Amigos"... You know #Landismo #Landani and all

 

[rlntlssly]

Re: Re:

Interesting that Bernal was the only Sky dom to survive to the end of the climb. Even so though, we now know that nobody else has domestiques capable of shedding them or even sticking around with them: everyone left in the group was a leader except for Bernal and Latour.

Also I’m a bit surprised that the GC men dropped by Martin’s dig lost 50 seconds.

There was 4 Sky's at the top of Colombiere. But, yes I'm not sure who was the 4th behind Froome, Bernal and Thomas.

I could be wrong, but I think it was Dumoulin. I know I falsely identified him as a Sky rider several times today.

 

[GuyIncognito]

I'm looking at the video now. It's Dumoulin on the wheels of the 3 Skys

From front to back, the group is:
Bernal
Froome
Thomas
Dumoulin
Yates
Nibali
Quintana
Landa
Kruijswijk
Roglic
Fuglsang
Bardet
Latour

and re-watching it I just realized Valverde wasn't dropped, he was between Nibali and Quintana, then stopped pedalling and started fiddling with his chain. Mechanical?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

movingtarget - more unnecessary dogpiling on Cobo. El Bisonte was a pretty good espoir in Spain, had some prospects, built up through 26 and 27, handicapped by the Saunier Duval withdrawal of course, and even with next to no support on Fuji-Servetto managed a Vuelta top 10 in 2009. There are more factors at play with him due to both his team association history and his psychological history too, as we all know.

Dekker_Tifosi: That 2007 Giro was kind of won by Nibali's teammate though - team roles play a lot of the part, after all on paper Nairo Quintana's 36th in the 2012 is far less impressive than him being the top climber for Movistar and dragging Valverde around through week 3.

Sky_Bot: Unzué is surprisingly bothered by the team classification. Lord knows why other than place of car in cavalcade.

yaco: in fairness though, the Tour has started giving out some pretty ordinary HCs. At 6km in length I'm not sure about this one as a 'legit' HC. It's certainly no Madeleine.

Cobo had next to no results in his first 3 years as a pro. Is this now called "having some prospects"?

And next to no support in the Vuelta is not supported by facts. In every difficult stage except the one he won, there was at least 1 Fuji rider within 90 seconds of Cobo at the finish.

We all know that you like Cobo for whatever reason, but maybe a more factual discussion would be in order next time?

He was one of the top U23s in Spain in 2003, and in 2004 he got injured in his very first pro race, at the Tour of Qatar, and hardly raced. In 2006 his head wasn't in it and he tried to quit the sport only for Matxín to talk him out of it. In fairness, looking back at the 2009 Fuji-Servetto lineup at the Vuelta it's a fair bit stronger than I remember it being, there's a fair few strong riders, albeit often very early in careers so they were far from polished. Still, by the end of it the only reliable hand he had was David de la Fuente, and the two of them have long since been a double act.

The problem with Cobo is that making a definitive judgement on him is nigh on impossible because of that psychological background. While there's plenty of obvious reasons for discussion of him to take a Clinic turn, he simultaneously doesn't have anything against his name at all, and while his ability to ride competitively as a pro fluctuates wildly (in 2010 he couldn't finish even the most basic of races, in 2011 he won a Grand Tour), his psychological history plays a large role in that so that judging what he is or isn't capable of is nigh on impossible.

 

[AnatoleNovak]

Re:

It's been this way for most all of the post-doping era.

What year would you say that this era began?

 

[GuyIncognito]

I remember when he won the Vuelta he thanked an unnamed friend for talking him out of suicide the previous year

The man has his demons

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Interesting that Bernal was the only Sky dom to survive to the end of the climb. Even so though, we now know that nobody else has domestiques capable of shedding them or even sticking around with them: everyone left in the group was a leader except for Bernal and Latour.

Also I’m a bit surprised that the GC men dropped by Martin’s dig lost 50 seconds.

There was 4 Sky's at the top of Colombiere. But, yes I'm not sure who was the 4th behind Froome, Bernal and Thomas.

I could be wrong, but I think it was Dumoulin. I know I falsely identified him as a Sky rider several times today.

Yes, there were three Sky guys. Poels and Nieve were gone before the top. Not that it means very much - there were five after all domestiques other than Latour had already dropped.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

It's been this way for most all of the post-doping era.

What year would you say that this era began?

The post-doping era began on July 11th 2008 and ended on September 9th 2008.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

If you exclude the early breakaway men and look at the 14 names left in the favorites group I can only conclude the level is very high this year

 

[GuyIncognito]

Definitely seems to be the case

Partly caused by the defending champion having the Giro in his legs, IMO

 

[tobydawq]

Re:

If you exclude the early breakaway men and look at the 14 names left in the favorites group I can only conclude the level is very high this year

This is true. And this makes the field very level. This is also a factor to be considered when needing to explain the passivity of many riders.

 

[thehog]

Re: Le Tour 2018 stage 10: Annecy > Le Grand-Bornand 158,5 k

Today’s stage in a nutshell

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

What a boring stage. Congrats Alaphilippe on a nice win

Boring? What planet are you on??

A mountain stage dominated by classics riders! It was great. Plus the scenery was spectacular

From earth.
A stage with 3 1C and 1 HC climbs with the great Romme-Colombiere combo with a downhill to Le Grand Bornand had 0 minutes of GC action. (I don't count Martin's attack as GC action)

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

They were really moving it on the Colombiere. Not only did Martin set a new record all of the lead group were inside the old one. And that’s with a headwind. It’s not really surprising that nobody attacked except Martin (who knows he can do an anaerobic effort better than any of the others except Valverde).

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

Great performance by Movistar today! They are leading the team classification now.

Who cares about the team classification?

I don't. But Movistar showed interest in it during other editions as well. It was a bit of joke as they were completely passive despite their much hyped "Amigos"... You know #Landismo #Landani and all

Vomistar takes all the soul from riders, that's why...

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re: Re:

What a boring stage. Congrats Alaphilippe on a nice win

Boring? What planet are you on??

A mountain stage dominated by classics riders! It was great. Plus the scenery was spectacular

From earth.
A stage with 3 1C and 1 HC climbs with the great Romme-Colombiere combo with a downhill to Le Grand Bornand had 0 minutes of GC action. (I don't count Martin's attack as GC action)

That's what you get with Sky

Dumoulin again: "With a strong team as Sky there, they can make a pace that everyone is on their limit. You can accelerate a bit, but then you will get caught and next you will get dropped. That is what everybody is so afraid of. It makes racing really difficulty".

 

[Lequack]

We need a Simon Yates to animate the race.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re:

I'm looking at the video now. It's Dumoulin on the wheels of the 3 Skys

From front to back, the group is:
Bernal
Froome
Thomas
Dumoulin
Yates
Nibali
Quintana
Landa
Kruijswijk
Roglic
Fuglsang
Bardet
Latour

and re-watching it I just realized Valverde wasn't dropped, he was between Nibali and Quintana, then stopped pedalling and started fiddling with his chain. Mechanical?

OK, probably my mistake.
(EDIT: mistake or fault - hope any native speaker helps me..).

 

[AnatoleNovak]

Re: Re:

It's been this way for most all of the post-doping era.

What year would you say that this era began?

The post-doping era began on July 11th 2008 and ended on September 9th 2008.

September 9th: Armstrong return announced?
July 11th: no idea

 

[rlntlssly]

Re: Re:

It's been this way for most all of the post-doping era.

What year would you say that this era began?

The post-doping era began on July 11th 2008 and ended on September 9th 2008.

September 9th: Armstrong return announced?
July 11th: no idea

Manuel Beltrán tested positive for EPO at the Tour. No idea why this should be the marker, though.