Rating GTs is a meaningless tradition on this forum, but traditions are there to be continued - especially the meaningless ones.
That's pretty good. It's like a 9 from anyone else
I rated the Tour 3/10, so my opinion aligns strongly with yours, but I really disagree about VDP. This is an Olympic year, and the priorities are different. You could say he shouldn't even have come to the race if he didn't want to finish it, and normally I'd say so too, but his performances were one of the few actual highlights of the race. I think it would have been even more boring without him.Oh & opi omi was the writing on the wall, i.e. it started badly & never really got better, with my personal favorite in the WTF moments being Mathieu van der Poel pulling out after one week, i.e. a huge fork stuck in the eye of everyone left in the race who'd suffered in the ultra fast week 1 stages resulting from the chaos he'd caused... in the ubiquitous Eric Cartman "Screw you guys, I'm going home" style.
2/10.
I might have worded my post wrong, i.e. I don't hate MvdP or blame him. In fact his departure from the race only reinforces the fact the Tour de France is no longer the massive obsession it once was & a shot at Olympic gold is worth more than some extra stage wins (this wasn't always the case). But seeing Alpecin & van der Poel cause such huge carnage (especially on the longest 250km stage on the Friday) before bowing out & not having to face the consequences of that sort of racing (fatigue, mainly) sort of distorted the race. It could set an interesting precedent where classics specialists target the first week with massive motivation & hard racing (which the entire peloton endures) & then pull out before the rest day. So good for MvdP, bad for the Tour (& those of us watching).I rated the Tour 3/10, so my opinion aligns strongly with yours, but I really disagree about VDP. This is an Olympic year, and the priorities are different. You could say he shouldn't even have come to the race if he didn't want to finish it, and normally I'd say so too, but his performances were one of the few actual highlights of the race. I think it would have been even more boring without him.
And again, the Olympics start next week, VDP is a serious gold medal favourite in the MTB, much more than anyone is a favourite on the road. He only gets that shot once every four (/five) years and maybe never again and he's already stretching his capabilities racing different types of races. I totally understand why he left, I think in those special circumstances it's acceptable.
I do like a good Cavendish comeback.That's pretty good. It's like a 9 from anyone else![]()
Pretty much this. The first week was much better than average but the the last 2 weeks were dull, even by Tour standards.5. The first week was awesome and then Van der Poel abandoned. The rest was below average.