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Tour de France Official Rest Day 2 Thread - Who Wins Polka Dots

Who will win the King of the Mountains?


  • Total voters
    61
  • Poll closed .
With the quests for the Yellow, Green, and White jerseys having all found their homes unless something unexpected happens, the King of the Mountains classification is still wide open. Four riders sit within 10 points of the other after 15 days with all 4 having different skill sets. Four stages remain with King of the Mountain points, 3 mountain stages and 1 small Cat 4. Will the stout and consistent grinding Poels maintain his lead? Will Woods explosive pedigree come to fruition and he overcome his crashes? Will Quintana, a former winner and esteemed climber, finally find the form and his former climbing prows or will he remain inconsistent? Will Van Aert be set free and use his explosive and descending abilities to shock the climbers and win again like on Mt. Ventoux? Or will a surprise winner come from Mollema who has already won a stage and has hilly classical winning experience shock the four riders ahead? Or at even longer odds, will Pogacar win the Mountain, Overall, and Young Rider classification for the second year in a row with wins on the two mountain top finishes?

Mountain-king-Wout-Poels-had-to-climb-calculate-and-suffer.jpg

The king of mountain (KOM) classification.
RNK.RIDERPOINTSTEAM
1POELS Wout74Bahrain - Victorious
2WOODS Michael66Israel Start-Up Nation
3QUINTANA Nairo64Team Arkéa Samsic
4VAN AERT Wout64Team Jumbo-Visma
5MOLLEMA Bauke41Trek - Segafredo
6ELISSONDE Kenny27Trek - Segafredo
7POGAČAR Tadej26UAE-Team Emirates
8O'CONNOR Ben24AG2R Citroën Team
9HIGUITA Sergio24EF Education - Nippo
10ALAPHILIPPE Julian20Deceuninck - Quick Step


Pogacar is set to win his second yellows jersey with his massive lead and dominate performance but the podium places are still wide open. 56 second separate 2nd and 6th. That is not to discount Lutsenko, Mas, or Martin who are all within striking distance in case of a rider ahead faltering. Uran, Carapaz, Kelderman, and Mas all know what it takes to podium a Grand Tour What next fringe rider will enter second from a breakaway?

skysports-tadej-pogacar-tour-de-france_5436140.jpg

General classification after Stage 15.
RNK.RIDERTEAMTIME
1POGAČAR TadejUAE-Team Emirates62:07:18
2URÁN RigobertoEF Education - Nippo5:18
3VINGEGAARD JonasTeam Jumbo-Visma5:32
4CARAPAZ RichardINEOS Grenadiers5:33
5O'CONNOR BenAG2R Citroën Team5:58
6KELDERMAN WilcoBORA - hansgrohe6:16
7LUTSENKO AlexeyAstana - Premier Tech7:01
8MAS EnricMovistar Team7:11
9MARTIN GuillaumeCofidis, Solutions Crédits7:58
10BILBAO PelloBahrain - Victorious10:59


Cavendish looks destined to win his second Tour and fourth overall Points Classification who has four times finished second in a Grand Tour points classification. His only apparent opponent is the time limit over the next three mountain stages but he has the teammates to help. Matthews, a former winner, is 72 points away and can look to gain more points in the upcoming mountain stages. He has yet to finish close to Cavendish in a sprint finish but his team could set up a win on stage 19 by dropping Cavendish. Setting up for a showdown in Paris. Everyone else is too far away barring a miracle and all the luck rolling their way.

TELEMMGLPICT000263003216_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqtkFNGfLQhkpVPeNfby9bQUmOd-yH89tsrquJ0XWJdtA.jpeg

The points classification.
RNK.RIDERPOINTSTEAM
1CAVENDISH Mark279Deceuninck - Quick Step
2MATTHEWS Michael207Team BikeExchange
3PHILIPSEN Jasper174Alpecin-Fenix
4COLBRELLI Sonny159Bahrain - Victorious
5ALAPHILIPPE Julian135Deceuninck - Quick Step
6POGAČAR Tadej103UAE-Team Emirates
7VAN AERT Wout101Team Jumbo-Visma
8MØRKØV Michael95Deceuninck - Quick Step
9MOHORIČ Matej81Bahrain - Victorious
10MOLLEMA Bauke76Trek - Segafredo

No shock that Pogacar is leading the Young Rider classification as well with only a massive blow up costing him to lose a second white jersey. None of the other riders bar Vingegaard stand a chance of winning.

pogagar6.jpg

The young riders general classification.

With heavy favorite Team Movistar, a seven time Tour champion, 12 time Vuelta champion, and 2 time Giro champion, sitting at an unprecedented 8th place, Bahrain is looking to pull off the upset. Firing on rocket fuel can they maintain their almost 12 minute lead over EF a former winner.

Team Classification
RnkPrev▼▲TeamClassTime
11-Bahrain - VictoriousWT87:10:05
22-EF Education - NippoWT11:37
33-AG2R Citroën TeamWT26:21
46▲2Team Jumbo-VismaWT32:02
54▼1INEOS GrenadiersWT33:24
68▲2Trek - SegafredoWT40:15
75▼2BORA - hansgroheWT50:16
89▲1Movistar TeamWT56:12
97▼2Astana - Premier TechWT56:46
1010-UAE-Team EmiratesWT1:35:26

Super Combativity Award is wide open with no rider winning the Combativity Award twice. Van Aert seems the favorite if he continues to attack and with his Mt. Ventoux solo win.
Stage 1. Ide Schelling
Stage 2. Edward Theuns
Stage 3. Michael Schar
Stage 4. Brent Van Moer
Stage 6. Greg Van Avermaet
Stage 7. Matej Mohoric
Stage 8. Wout Poels
Stage 9. Ben O'Conner
Stage 10. Hugo Houle
Stage 11. Kenny Elissonde
Stage 12. Nils Politt
Stage 13. Quentin Pacher
Stage 14. Bauke Mollema
Stage 15. Wout Van Aert
 
The top four look like contenders... they've been contesting categorized climbs so far.
The rest (of the riders) collected the points along the way to other goals.
Looks like this time around a genuine contender, rather than the collateral winner, will take it to Paris.
The MTFs favour pure climbers over all-arounders. So WVA seems to be the least likely overall winner (although, probably, the most liked).
Woods and Poels were battling for the points, while Quintana had a more relaxed approach and still managed to be up there. Poels can contribute to the teams' ranking while chasing his own glory and Woods can turn ISN's race into success.
Should be interesting with back-to-back MTFs. Poels has some space to maneuver, but not much. If it comes to tactics he'll be counting more on the team.
 
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Is Van Aert going all the way to Paris?

yeah, he still aims for a win in the ITT at least. May take it a bit easy on some days, though - but it's not like it's any different for Woods, who also has the Olympics as a major target. On paper, I'd think Woods has the best chances to also score on the double-point HC climbs, and also has quite a good punch. But so far he still has lost almost every mountain sprint against Poels.

Pogacar (or even Vingegaard) may get up to around ~100pt indeed. Could be a number difficult to reach for the others, if they keep on stealing points from each other.
 
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yeah, he still aims for a win in the ITT at least. May take it a bit easy on some days, though - but it's not like it's any different for Woods, who also has the Olympics as a major target. On paper, I'd think Woods has the best chances to also score on the double-point HC climbs, and also has quite a good punch. But so far he still has lost almost every mountain sprint against Poels.

Pogacar (or even Vingegaard) may get up to around ~100pt indeed. Could be a number difficult to reach for the others, if they keep on stealing points from each other.
I think the GC contenders won't be taking (m)any points before the summit finishes. And even on the MTFs it's not certain they'll share top prizes.
Can't see both altitude finishes going to the GC contenders. Not with UAE's approach so far. One at best.
 
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