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Team Jumbo-Visma

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And here I was thinking that Kuss has largely stagnated, that Bennett hasn't really done anything to write home about other than in three days of a weird August in a weird season, that Gesink still sucks and that who even remembers Tolhoek anymore.
 
Jumbo does look less imposing this Tour than in Dauphine or Tour de l'Ain. But that doesn't really take away the particularly crazy levels of some of their riders, like Bennett in the hilly classics he did, Van Aert, Kuss in Dauphine, and Roglic all year. But this is indeed not like the Skineos dominace we're used to seeing.

It could be they're trying to save some domestiques more for the 3rd week, could be Bennett peaked early or something, could be not all of them respond equally to the program, could be some do their own little extra program.
 
Jumbo does look less imposing this Tour than in Dauphine or Tour de l'Ain. But that doesn't really take away the particularly crazy levels of some of their riders, like Bennett in the hilly classics he did, Van Aert, Kuss in Dauphine, and Roglic all year. But this is indeed not like the Skineos dominace we're used to seeing.

It could be they're trying to save some domestiques more for the 3rd week, could be Bennett peaked early or something, could be not all of them respond equally to the program, could be some do their own little extra program.
Bennett was supposed to ride the Giro initially. Only with the rumour that De Plus was moving to Ineos, did he take Laurens his place. Can't imagine how they screwed that up from then to now with Bennett being on form too soon.

EDIT: this was june 18th. Unless they knew about this internally longer and had decided Bennett would ride the Tour sooner, it would be a fckup of monumental scale to have a rider that was working towards the Giro up til june 18th, be peaking too soon for the Tour in roughly 2 months time. Unless they initially had him scheduled to peak twice during this short season, i can't really see this as a viable explanation.
 
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What was the title of the old thread? "The revenge of Rasmussen and the end of Rabobank"?

Reminds me more of CSC 2008, domestiques, all-rounders, and sprinters shelling some of the best pure climbers in the world.
 
Dropped a couple of clearly injured/ill climbers and nobody else. Looked like riding at FTP for 6km, nobody else was in trouble. Then Martinez and Martin dropped as soon as someone else took over.

I don't think they're clean or anything, but I don't think that was conclusive evidence in the other direction.
 
Even Sky didn't have a sprinter dropping pure climbers and pulling an entire group of them half way up a HC summit finish.

No, but they have copied Sky in having a team ridiculously stacked with talent. Dumoulin as a domestique FFS. And I gues that WVA is the equivalent of Kwiato. Kuss, like Thomas, could probably podium in his own right. I wonder how their rider budget compares with peak SKY.

Clinic question. Are they consistently hanging on to their bidons. I noticed Roglic emptying his today before putting it back into its bracket.
 
I really WANT van Aert to be credible, but I just can't get this into my head. Can somebody explain to me the physiology of someone almost beating Ewan in a bunch sprint and climbing like about the 15th best in the Tour?
No, looks like a hybrid between the performances that 2016 Sagan and 2017 Kwaitkowski had at the Tour.
I understand that he has a great engine (see his TT results) and he looks lighter than before. Still, his climbing is too good and at the same time he has won big one day races and is mixing it up with pure sprinters, how is that possible when you train to be a train wagon (ok, a pretty important one) at the Tour?
 
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