I can understand both sides of an argument, but Jumbo-Visma definitely lost a nice chance to make some serious GC damage by letting Wout to descend for a stage victory.
If he was stopped at the top (right after taking the mountain points), waited for Vingegaard, then pulled him back to Trek-Segafredos (only like 12-second gap) and then even got them to co-operate in working throughout the descend for a 4-man group (would have involved "selling" the stage), I believe they could have had almost a minute on Pogacar-Carapaz-Uran at the bottom. 40-45 secs , something like.
GC-wise that was absolutely THE THING to do and I believe it would've been something Kuss or Teunissen would have been forced to accept if they were in Van Aert's shoes.
But I do also understand that alienating one of the great stars of the team and whole cycling world who was about to win an unexpected glory of a "Queen stage" of TdF - something no one would've bet for...
Yeah, that would have been a huge risk to cause complications in upcoming times.
What do you think?
If he was stopped at the top (right after taking the mountain points), waited for Vingegaard, then pulled him back to Trek-Segafredos (only like 12-second gap) and then even got them to co-operate in working throughout the descend for a 4-man group (would have involved "selling" the stage), I believe they could have had almost a minute on Pogacar-Carapaz-Uran at the bottom. 40-45 secs , something like.
GC-wise that was absolutely THE THING to do and I believe it would've been something Kuss or Teunissen would have been forced to accept if they were in Van Aert's shoes.
But I do also understand that alienating one of the great stars of the team and whole cycling world who was about to win an unexpected glory of a "Queen stage" of TdF - something no one would've bet for...
Yeah, that would have been a huge risk to cause complications in upcoming times.
What do you think?