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Tour de France 2015 Stage 17: Digne-les-Bains-Pra Loup 161km

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Re: Re:

Escarabajo said:
fungusbear said:
damian13ster said:
fungusbear said:
Well that was rubbish. I hate movistar for accepting 2nd and 3rd rather than going for the win.


Froome is the strongest. By a mile. No way they beat him unless they order a domestique to crash into him.
Accept it. Strongest GC rider in the world. By far

I don't disagree that he is the strongest, he clearly is. But instead of getitng your domestiques to ride hard for most of the mountain, why not attack one after the other. At least give your all instead of two Quintana "attacks", and don't chase down riders who could burn up SKY domestiques early in the stage.
Because they can't. Everybody is completely fatigued.

This could be the same problem with many GT's. Backloading all mountain stages. It has happened many times in the past and they keep doing it!!!

They should try something like the Giro 09: mountains on stages 4, 5, 10, 14, 16, (rest day) 17, 19
 
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el_angliru said:
Bjarne Riis' analysis on Danish TV: 'Movistar are handing the win to Froome. Movistar had 3 riders up front but still used Valverde to chase down Contador. And Quintana only attcked Froome 100 m from the finish. Movistar are not riding for the win' (not an exact quote, but the essence of what he said).

I guess Riis is still biased but that's how I see it too.
Quintana only attacked 100m from the finish :confused:
 
Jul 19, 2014
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Finally Movistar revealed what most people already knew: They are riding for 2nd and 3rd. Pathetic seeing them being more focused on catching Contador and then distancing him after his crash, than they were on pressuring Froome. Only Nibali and Contador seem to have a greater will to win than fear of losing.
 
Re: Re:

damian13ster said:
VayaVayaVaya said:
damian13ster said:
jsem94 said:
So... the Giro-Tour double is way too difficult. At least for Contador. IDK if Froome can cope with it though. He hasn't raced the Giro in many years, and while the climbing suits him, the race is always harder to control and more unpredictable. Would be interesting to see him try tackle the Giro.

If he races Vuelta then we will see.

Much less time to rest between Tour and Vuelta + much better competition. This double is way harder. If he gets close to winning then Froome can definetely go for Giro-Tour (not next season though)
No way. Giro-Tour is definitely harder. Giro is harder than the Vuelta, and the competition in the Tour is the hardest. If you don't go into the Tour at 100%, you can't win. Contador beat Froome in the Vuelta last year and is not even in the ballpark at the Tour this year after riding the Giro. If you are the best at the Tour, you can follow wheels of the lesser competitors in the Vuelta. Exception being last year's Vuelta with Contador, Froome, and Quintana.

And this years Vuelta with Quintana, Rodriguez, Nibali, Aru, Landa, Valverde.
It is much better field than last year.

Oh please. Let's take Purito and Valverde out of the equation because they raced last year and this year. They are another year older this year, but let's just take them out.

2014: Contador and Froome in good form and eager to make amends for crashing out of the Tour, with very few race days in their legs + Quintana, who hadn't raced since the Giro

vs.

2015: Quintana and an already off form Nibali with the Tour in their legs, Aru and Landa, who are a level below the big 4 and have raced the Giro
 
quintana and valverde riding for 2 and 3.

Damn. :(
Also sad to see Contador crash, he was actually looking better.

think gc is going to be
1 froome
2 quintana
3 valverde
4 nibali (!)
5 contador
6 thomas
7 gesink
8/9/10 still open for debate with Frank suddenly there after a ninja breakaway and Mollema looking weak
 
Re: Re:

VayaVayaVaya said:
damian13ster said:
VayaVayaVaya said:
damian13ster said:
jsem94 said:
So... the Giro-Tour double is way too difficult. At least for Contador. IDK if Froome can cope with it though. He hasn't raced the Giro in many years, and while the climbing suits him, the race is always harder to control and more unpredictable. Would be interesting to see him try tackle the Giro.

If he races Vuelta then we will see.

Much less time to rest between Tour and Vuelta + much better competition. This double is way harder. If he gets close to winning then Froome can definetely go for Giro-Tour (not next season though)
No way. Giro-Tour is definitely harder. Giro is harder than the Vuelta, and the competition in the Tour is the hardest. If you don't go into the Tour at 100%, you can't win. Contador beat Froome in the Vuelta last year and is not even in the ballpark at the Tour this year after riding the Giro. If you are the best at the Tour, you can follow wheels of the lesser competitors in the Vuelta. Exception being last year's Vuelta with Contador, Froome, and Quintana.

And this years Vuelta with Quintana, Rodriguez, Nibali, Aru, Landa, Valverde.
It is much better field than last year.

Oh please. Let's take Purito and Valverde out of the equation because they raced last year and this year. They are another year older this year, but let's just take them out.

2014: Contador and Froome in good form and eager to make amends for crashing out of the Tour, with very few race days in their legs + Quintana, who hadn't raced since the Giro

vs.

2015: Quintana and an already off form Nibali with the Tour in their legs, Aru and Landa, who are a level below the big 4 and have raced the Giro

And Froome. Astana will be insanely strong. It will be raced harder than this year's Giro, let alone last years Vuelta
 
Jan 3, 2011
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Re: Re:

fungusbear said:
Cimber said:
Nothing can be done in this Tour. The cyclist that is 2 levels above everyone else wins. As simple as that

Of course something can be done. It might be very very hard and very unlikely to succeed but nothing is impossible. Well it is only impossible if you dont try. Am so sick of strong teams (and most often Movistar) riding for secondary gc placements.


can you give an example of what can be done against a rider that is way better than all other contenders and has a strong team?

Isolate him (or close to) early in the stage. Just as they did some years back when the had him on isolated early. Like today have riders out front and then attack on and on early on and only let SKY and Froome close gaps, even if other rivals attacks. NEver ever do SKY's Work for them regardless of risking losing 3rd place. That Means a lot of teams would pin point their attacks agsint Sky and not eachother. If they went really hard on the first climbs all Froome would have left, if any, would be Thomas.

Today they should have let Berto go and let Sky deal with it and then counter a but later (but not to late)

Being ready to risk it all is key. It might very well not succeed. But maybe, just maybe, it will and you win big and become a legend. Cycling needs more riders with those kind of balls.

If you isolate a rider and then just take it in turns one after the other to attack, eventually one of them will get away. Froome is riding an incredible race, but he can't close down 20 different attacks. He can easily close down 3 though. Plus if you don't try to win the race, you won't win the race.

Exactly
 
Re:

TMP402 said:
Rain predicted for next three days apparently. Another thing against Froome and favouring... Nibali, Quintana and Valverde?

Actually, now that Contador is out of contention, and after having witnessed the Movistar circus today, I am starting to hope that Froome will win this ( :eek: ). He actually deserves it.
 
Re: Re:

Eyeballs Out said:
Quintana only attacked 100m from the finish :confused:
Riis' analysis, not mine. I'm aware (and Riis too, I'm, sure) that Quintana attacked from the start of the stage - even before we got TV pictures. But tactically Movistar didn't do much for the GC win. The right thing to do would to let either Valverde or Quintana go with Alberto and let Froome chase them down. Not just chas Alberto down. That was Riis' point.

Riis was also critical of Tinkoff's tactics though, as Flor pointed out earlier. Firstly, Alberto shouldn't attack so far out and having to do all the work by himself (Rogers didn't last long when Contador attacked on the 3rd climb from the finish). Secondly, Majka should have waited for Alberto after Alberto's crash.
 

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