It's only the first week, yes Pog is stupidly strong at the moment, but the moment he shows weakness Ineos really need to hammer him. They need a lot of time on him before the ITT. Can it be done? It would be great if they can make a race of it instead of looking at the podium.
LOL
Ineos isn’t going to be able to ride Pogacar off their wheel. All that will do is put Carapaz under difficulty.
On paper it’s the strongest team in the race, but right now that strength is useless because they have the same issues as Movistar and EF when it comes to dealing with Pogacar: only one rider is a threat. You have to weaken Pogacar to beat him, which is why Carapaz’s attack was so useless on stage 7. At that point, it should’ve been Porte or Thomas (though he admitted to struggling on the hills) sent up the road, or they should’ve been sacrificed at the start of stage 8. Movistar did the same thing with Lopez. Now none of those riders are a threat to Pogacar.
If you had a Porte, Thomas or a Superman still 5-6 minutes back, it forces UAE to ride because Pogacar isn’t going to let someone like that back into the race like he did with O’Connor. You attack early and often and hope to crack him, and you goad Movistar and EF into playing along. Instead Pogacar destroyed his rivals from a long way out.
Carapaz has tried but 3 attacks in 3 days and not only does he have nothing to show for it against Pogacar, but he gained nothing over his other rivals in the process.
People can point the finger at Movistar for chasing Carapaz down on stage 7, but that’s pointless. Pogacar has destroyed everyone in the mountains. Had Pogacar been forced to bridge the gap himself, I have no doubt he could have,. It may have given Richard a buffer for 2nd place, but that was not in Movistar’s interest. I know it’s a thing to bash Movistar for their dumb tactics, but they aren’t going to work for Ineos. EF was actually the first team to try and organize a pursuit, but they didn’t have the numbers and Movistar did.
So it seems the only way one could hope to put Pogacar under pressure is to attack him early with a solid 2nd option, and then hope the other teams are willing to sacrifice their 2nd rider in contention as well.
The problem as I mentioned earlier is that Ineos seemed more interested in protecting GC and forcing Richie to set the pace to lead out Richard than they were to use one of their leaders as bait. Movistar did the same by protecting a fading Superman, and EF without burning Higuita.
Now all those other options are well out of contention. So that leaves Ineos with the same old Brailsford plan- try and ride everyone off their wheel with the Skytrain. Unfortunately that won’t work with Pogacar.
So now hope for a miracle or a tragedy.