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Tour de France 2017 stage 10: Périgueu > Bergerac - 178 km

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Jagartrott said:
Greipel f*cked that up once again, even though he has the best train.
If I were Lotto-Soudal, I would stop wasting De Gendt et al.'s energy.
I think Greipel can perhaps be filed alongside Contador, perhaps not quite yet in the 'finished' category, but at least in the 'age has caught up with them' box. Maybe still capable of winning stage races occasionally or against weaker opposition, but not good enough at the highest level any more and certainly nowhere near how good they were at their peak.

Greipel was disappointing in the Giro and has been terrible so far this tour. Looks like he has lost a fair bit of top end speed (maybe his focus on Roubaix this season is another cause), and that has destroyed his confidence making it doubly worse.
 
Greipel already has gone backwards at last years Tour after being the best sprinter at both the 2015 Tour and the 2016 Giro. That's why it was so stupid to let go the chance of winning the red jersey last year.

Kittel obviously has become even stronger than he was back in 13 & 14. He easily wins 5 stages now, which already should be considered as massive performance. If he even manages to get 6 or 7 stage victories he's finally the natural successor of Alejet 2004. But that might be a huge task even for this Marcel Kittel!
 
171. GRIVKO Andrei - Astana Pro Team 1:36
172. CATALDO Dario - Astana Pro Team ,,
175. KOZHATAYEV Bakhtiyar - Astana Pro Team 2:34
176. GRUZDEV Dmitriy - Astana Pro Team ,,
177. LUTSENKO Alexey - Astana Pro Team ,,

Astana planning fireworks for the weekend? :D
 
Jun 29, 2017
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Re:

staubsauger said:
Greipel already has gone backwards at last years Tour after being the best sprinter at both the 2015 Tour and the 2016 Giro. That's why it was so stupid to let go the chance of winning the red jersey last year.

Kittel obviously has become even stronger than he was back in 13 & 14. He easily wins 5 stages now, which already should be considered as massive performance. If he even manages to get 6 or 7 stage victories he's finally the natural successor of Alejet 2004. But that might be a huge task even for this Marcel Kittel!

I do not think he is stronger, but there is very weak competition this year and the easiest route in Tour as long as I remember.
 
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Irondan said:
Frankschleck said:
People saying kittel doesn't deserve green. He is by far the best sprinter in the world, and in my personal opinion, i don't even think sagan could beat him for the green jersey this year. Of course he derseves it, if ends up with it.
We'll never know though, will we..

Sagan was on great form, he would certainly contend for green.

agreed, i am a big sagan fan, and no doubt he would contend.

I am just saying people shouldn't say that kittel doesn't derseve it :)
 
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JackRabbitSlims said:
Frankschleck said:
People saying kittel doesn't deserve green. He is by far the best sprinter in the world, and in my personal opinion, i don't even think sagan could beat him for the green jersey this year. Of course he derseves it, if ends up with it.

Often..like quite recently, the fastest sprinter in the race doesn't win Green in Paris.

Agree, if he wins it he deserves it."..considering the reduced field ;)

Considering the reduced field?
Him or sagan would probably win anyhow, so he is not winning just because of a reduced field :)
 
It might be a bit of a crap route and the Sagan DQ was disappointing but I don't think people can really say Kittel is undeserving of a green jersey. He's unquestionably the strongest sprinter in the field and when he's been healthy it's basically been that way since 2014. It's nice to see him surfing wheels and freelancing a bit this season as well and doing some work without a supremely organised lead out train. I'm sad Sagan is out and that the green jersey looks like a procession but happy that Kittel looks like he'll get the race long accolade to back up his unquestionable strength
 
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DFA123 said:
Jagartrott said:
Greipel f*cked that up once again, even though he has the best train.
If I were Lotto-Soudal, I would stop wasting De Gendt et al.'s energy.
I think Greipel can perhaps be filed alongside Contador, perhaps not quite yet in the 'finished' category, but at least in the 'age has caught up with them' box. Maybe still capable of winning stage races occasionally or against weaker opposition, but not good enough at the highest level any more and certainly nowhere near how good they were at their peak.

Greipel was disappointing in the Giro and has been terrible so far this tour. Looks like he has lost a fair bit of top end speed (maybe his focus on Roubaix this season is another cause), and that has destroyed his confidence making it doubly worse.

He's obviously not as fast as in 2015, but he's definitely not yet in the "Contador group". He's still fast enough to win, he just misses the guts, the balls, the confidence to go a bit earlier or to try something different. Kittel is not only the fastest, he's also the smartest right now. He deliberately didn't follow the wheel of Sabatini and waited for another opportunity (Mclay) to come to the front so that he could come from behind. In almost every sprint he's doing the same thing. Look at Groenewegen today, he was almost as fast as Kittel doing the same thing, coming from behind. Greipel is always in 2nd, 3rd of 4th position and is waiting for the 200m mark. When they're at the 200m mark he's always boxed in. Today was the 3rd time this happened. The lead-outs aren't fast enough which enables people to come from behind at a speed that is impossible to counter for riders who are behind that lead-out.
 
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Eclipse said:
It might be a bit of a crap route and the Sagan DQ was disappointing but I don't think people can really say Kittel is undeserving of a green jersey. He's unquestionably the strongest sprinter in the field and when he's been healthy it's basically been that way since 2014. It's nice to see him surfing wheels and freelancing a bit this season as well and doing some work without a supremely organised lead out train. I'm sad Sagan is out and that the green jersey looks like a procession but happy that Kittel looks like he'll get the race long accolade to back up his unquestionable strength
This. I think, because of his obvious power, his positioning and timing is quite under-rated and something that has improved in the last year or so. Means that Quickstep can spend even more resources chasing down breaks if they need to, rather than holding men back for the leadout.
 
Re: Tour de France 2017 stage 10: Périgueu > Bergerac - 178

Dekker_Tifosi said:
And just like the last sprint stage, Groenewegen highest top speed over the final 500m.

Goddamn, start in front boy.

If he starts in front he has to waste too much energy getting there. His train just isn't good enough.