Well, he took a lot of time (1 min +) on every pre race favourite but Evans and Nibali on PdBF. So while "crushing" might be a bit too much in Wiggin's case, he certainly made a statement on that climb too. Additionally, two days later he won the TT and after 9 stages the Tour was basically over with Evans at +1:53, Nibali at +2:30 and every other competitior at more than 3 min. So the point stands - take time early is key to the Sky/US Postal approach that JV wanted to copy.
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Well if there'd been a 40km ITT at that point in the race, Roglic probably would've been the fastest GC guy and led by a minute. Wiggins could ride defensively cause he got minutes for free on his closest non teammate competitior who was a much more known entity than Nibali.
Yea Roglic had a below-average day, not a real collapse. But to put it into perspective I think him being in yellow and also being the strongest (by a slight margin) after that Peyresourde stage you would have expected him to do a bit better though. Probably also finishing in front of his teammates. Dumoulin wasn't in top shape, and both he and Van Aert were also working a lot for Roglic the entire Tour, so you would expect them to be somewhat tired. At the same time, Roglic didn't take risks, didn't attack, rode conservatively, pretty much doing everything to have something left in the final TT. Well, that strategy didn't work.
His performance yesterday was slightly below average but better (relatively)than stage 20 of the 2018 race). However he still finished fifth and within 35s of Dumoulin. Ok It is not Dumoulin of 2018 but that is not the performance of someone who collapsed. He was not on his best day and his opponent produced an unbelievable tt. Comparable in my view with Ullrich in the first long tt of 2003. Excepts we did not expect such a performance from Pogacar whereas Ullrich had obviously an impressive body of work.
He said his legs were bad. So to finish 5th with bad legs is heroic. But No One currently racing was beating Tadej on the day!
So... I have spent a lot of time these last few weeks discussing how good Roglic actually is and I usually stood with the opinion that he was overrated. Now over the last two weeks a lot of fun has been made about my posts, which I get, they did look very wrong at some point, but I now feel like I almost have to write: I was f*cking spot on.
Zeeman added to the story now:
Roglic rode better watts on the flat than last years Vuelta ITT (where he took 1'30 on Pogacar). And still he was 40s behind. On the climb he was slightly below par. But not even equalling his best performance would have saved him, that would just only made him lose with 10/20s instead of 50..
So really the way I see it Roglic would have needed his best time trial ever, surpassing himself, to win the TDF.
Roglic rode better watts on the flat than last years Vuelta ITT (where he took 1'30 on Pogacar). And still he was 40s behind. On the climb he was slightly below par. But not even equalling his best performance would have saved him, that would just only made him lose with 10/20s instead of 50..
So really the way I see it Roglic would have needed his best time trial ever, surpassing himself, to win the TDF.
I'd also add the fact that Roglic crashed in the Dauphine, which rarely comes up. I don't think he was ever at 100% this Tour.
That doesn't absolve TJV, they absolutely had the team to win this tour for Roglic and failed to do so. But I think without that crash it would have been a different race.
Mate you were talking after the Dauphine how we needed to backtrack on Pogacar and that that entire Vuelta was weak.
He just needed to climb as fast as Porte, something he had repeatedly done for the previous three weeks.
Roglič was very bad on the climb (compared to his standards obviously). The times are there for everyone to read.
And being told the split times I'm sure didn't help him much, you could see just by his style he was getting more nervous and once he got to the climb he just wanted to power to the top out of the saddle, instead of his usual high cadence metronomical style.
I agree, I think it was pretty clear he cracked at some point during the climb when it became clear he was going to lose the tour. That probably cost him an extra 10-20 seconds.
This 1,000,000 times over... I was thinking the same during the stage, why aren't they drilling even harder... If Armstrong or Froome got gifted such opportunity, they'd be screaming at their domestiques to drive it hard and gain as much as they could... Plus, I always thought that WVA sprinting "escapades", even though successful, were going to cost the team in the end... Not really, but it showed a bit of the JV hubris thinking they were untouchable and could have it all this year...
Feel sorry for Roglic and anybody else on the wrong side of 30 among the GC contenders. The time is not on his, theirs, side with this young generation of talent storming the gates...
Yet your signature was a quote of me calling Roglic overrated.
Also, thinking the level in the Vuelta wasn't that great and underrating Pogacar were basically the same thing
I could dig up the Pogacar one. But then that would be admitting Roglic got overrated when people were all like he'd drop in the 3rd week and instead he dropped Pog and still top 5d the ITT.
Could also dig up a load of Bernal third week stuff but then we can all cherry pick if we make enough hot takes.
Roglic mildly underperformed compared to his expectations. He mostly lost because of an act of Vino literally nobody on any social medium I've seen predicted.
My only criticism is of waiting on Plateau de Glieres. Pogacar was hanging on for dear life in the gravel. In fact it looked like Roglic was cracking Mas and Lopez as well and he sat up to wait for his teammates. He had the opportunity to go for the kill but didn’t. Not having that need to put a definitive stamp on the TDF cost him. Maybe he wouldn’t have gained any time, but the opportunity was there, and he chose to wait for Wout and Tom.
Top 5ing a TT you are the clear favorite to win is pretty bad though. If Roglic had performed just like everyone predicted he still wins this Tour albeit by a small margin.
I also don't want to cherrypick hottakes. I knew some of those predictions I made are gonna be completely wrong, I even wrote so in that comment. This is about people making fun of a comment that was right all along and if you have the right to laugh about a wrong hottake, oh boy do I have the right to laugh about the hottake ending up being spot on.
Roglic loses a minute to Porte in a 16 and a half minute climb = 'slightly below par'
looks like the excuses for the overall tactics during the Tour have started
looks like the excuses for the overall tactics during the Tour have started
Imo the main people overrating Roglic are the ones saying he didn't attack enough. I don't think his fans ever acted like he could just fly away from everyone. Then he drops half a minute to Dumoulin, probably the main standard in MTTs like this, doesn't make him insanely overrated imo.
Disagree about the stage wins being hubris. My read on those was that so early in the Tour, JV knew they weren’t guaranteed the yellow jersey, and so they should take every W available, including stages. And so it’s turned out; 2nd place and 3 stage wins is a lot better than 2nd + 1.
Also, I think even if Wout hit the front on the crosswind stage, the most he would’ve added would be 10-15s to their lead; there was no shortage of willing drivers of quiality in that group.
I think where they lost was in the Alps. It was clear by then that Pog was their biggest threat. They had the strongest climbing domestiques in the race, a couple of massive TT engines, and on multiple occasions arrived at the red kite with all of those within the yellow jersey group, and Pog isolated. There had to be several ways available to spring Roglic off the front, to find a friendly wheel to tow him up/down with minimum effort, and make Pog burn a match each time to close those gaps. Other than the Loze, with Kuss, they never really tried anything of the sort, and settled for the lead they had. Which wasn’t enough.
I don’t think Roglic had the legs to attack more than he did, but I think with the strength of team he had around himself, they had the resources to spring him away from immediate gc threats, and in such a way as to make those threats burn more matches catching him than he would burn staying away.
Well if you think Porte's time is the new gold standard for MTT's like this you are free to do so.
I also want to add that I never claimed Roglic is not tdf winning material at all, just that people need to stop rating Roglic by performances made under circumstances that suit him a lot better than gt racing. He is really good it's just that he got overhyped
As it is Kuss and Bennett were dropped pretty early due to their work on the flat of stage 7 with only Dumoulin for the last climb of stage 8. I am sure that if they had worked on stage 7 the entire team would have imploded on the penultimate climb of stage 8
To be fair, Porte saved some energy on the flat part it looked like. But yes, Roglic had an under-par/bad day.
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