jaylew said:
hrotha said:
jaylew said:
Scarponi said:
Well done Quintana and fck you Movistar
What on earth you got against Movistar this stage? No one else tried anything on the penultimate climb. Obviously, Landa didn't have the legs today. They got the win. Excellent stage for them.
If Landa didn't have the legs, didn't he realize until after he'd have the team chase Quintana's group, costing them like 2-3 minutes? Movistar's tactics could only be justified as an all-out assault on the GC by Landa, but that never came. Therefore, in the end they sacrificed Quintana's GC prospects for literally nothing.
What GC chances? He doesn't have any. Who knows when Landa knew he didn't have the legs and when he relayed that info.
First of all, even without those 2-3 minutes Quintana is a minute ahead of Landa right now and he was VERY strong today. Weirder things have happened.
Secondly, even if Quintana's GC prospects were short-lived and he lost time tomorrow again, that'd still translate into a superior strategic position for the team tomorrow. They sacrificed this for literally no gain by pulling and then stopping.
Thirdly, if they hadn't pulled, someone else would have (as indeed someone else did when Movistar stopped doing it). Having to do it for longer would have translated into weakened rival teams while preserving their own domestiques. Which is good.
You don't sacrifice those advantages without a good reason. "Landa is trying to launch a major attack on the GC" is a good reason, but only if he actually does it.
As for when Landa realized he didn't have the legs, if that's what happened: lol, surely it must have been long before Movistar stopped pulling. I won't cut Movistar any slack for basically repeating the same mistake they made the other day when they dropped Quintana.