I would expect nothing less from the Cavendish is Undeniably Not That Superb group. They have a fitting abbreviation, those guys.
I was wondering about this earlier, so looked up the last time Cavendish finished a GT...
Hopefully swingtp doesn't read this because it doesn't fit with his "I'm done with dirty Cav" tantrum!
Why aren't kittel and greipel beating cav at the tour right now??
Goss could easily have been a 10-time GT stage winner without Cav there
In fairness, or the 3 Tours he's started since, he pulled out in 2016 (after winning 4 stages) to focus on the track for the Olympics, he crashed out in 2017, and in 2018 he was OTL on the same day as Kittel, and the day before Greipel, Gaviria, Groenewegen and Rick Zabel all DNF'd, so it was a pretty rough trip through the Alps for the sprinters all round that year.
Tyler Farrar has 5 2nd places at the Tour. 4 behind Cav, and 1 behind Armstrong/Contador's Astana in the TTT.
But also the motivation and confidence that come with winning, if 5 of those 2nd places were wins instead, I'd be willing to bet a lot more of his 3rd,4th etc would also be wins
I guess you completely missed Philipsen's arm movement at the finish line or missed the fact that Philipsen didn't do a post-race interview. The guy was furious, zero doubt. This is just their PR manager making things right. That fools most, of course.
2008-2010 was very weak, likewise this year (especially as long as Merlier doesn't sprint against Cav). In 2011/2012, he had to compete with Greipel, and from 2013-2017 he had to face his strongest competition.
JP's line wasn't exactly perfect either which made them almost come together. TM was trying really hard to disrupt Cav.
You're pretty close to getting it.
The arm movement was the immediate reaction, made when the pulse was still high, and the adrenalin flowing.
He can survive the mountains while other sprinters will drop, enabling an even weaker sprinting field
From behind, lol.
Not doing the post-race interview shows that Philipsen took this up really high. All the scripted PR make-up, kiss up afterwards, is just laughable. Alpecin know they are a small Conti team, they don't want any enemies, especially not in DCQ and against a popular guy like Cav. Weak, is what it really is though. Cav's 1.5+ meter deviation would warrant at least an official question.
Post-race interviews tend to happen within an hour of finishing, so not exactly a lot of time to calm down from the initial reaction of anger. Once he had a chance to calm down, he probably realised that it was nothing.
He may have been angry at the finish line, but emotions coming from race adrenaline can't always be taken seriously. It's possible he watched it again and was ok with it.
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