I dont think so. He spent an incredible amount of energy pre Arenberg this year due to UAE DS' *** up and Vermeersch refusing to do a pull.
Very good race from him, but he deserves dedicated team riders and competent people in the cars. And don't bring Vermeersch to these races ever again.
Am I the only one who saw Florian make a gesture with his head (no, no) to Bjerg when he stopped?
I'd have to see it again, but it seemed like a denial .
I'm not blaming Florian in that moment, though; perhaps that's what the director told him at that moment. Bjeg also stopped late. In fact, it was a bit embarrassing to see that Politt then had the energy to stay on VDP's wheel for many kilometers. When a domestique has that kind of energy after the leader needs it, it's a huge mistake by the team. A domestique is supposed to sacrifice their own strength to save the leader's.
Florian's big mistake, in any case, was that moment I mentioned, when Pogacar lost Bjerg behind him and pulled alone, closing the gap to 15 seconds and staying like that for too many kilometers, increasing the difference to 20. Florian was fresh; he would have closed those 15 seconds immediately.
Today we saw a very different attitude between Alpecin/Philipsen and UAE/Florian. The problem for Alpecin is that the bike change made no sense; Florian's help to Pogacar would have prevented him from finishing so coocked.
UAE's management was awful. I've always thought that team is overrated for winning minor races. In Grand Tours, they've been outclassed by Kuss and Simon Yates, and in the Classics, they've been unable to win with Politt, who finished second in Paris-Roubaix, Narvaez, Wellens, while Visma has won Omloop with Jan Tratnik. They're useless in top races; they depend too much on the Slovenian. Leaving him high and dry cost them the 2022 Tour de France and probably Paris-Roubaix today.
They're worse than rabofail, by far.