Tour de France 2020 | Stage 20 ITT (Lure - La Planche des Belles Filles, 36.2km)

[Koronin]

Almost every time trial I ever did the voice in my head said "this is a stupid sport and shouldn't hurt so much". Fortunately it went away a little bit down the road but 2-4km is the worst.
Again, I kid. We are way too deep into psychological analysis of these guys. I can't imagine how much physical and mental fatigue affects what you do after 3 weeks. We'd need to get 6 beers into Dumo along with some Amsterweed to get the truth.

There's one other issue here, which appears to be unique to Valverde. The team has said multiple times in the past they can't get a read on how Valverde will do a TT until he's on course and then they get a read very early on, as in the first 5 km. They've said anyone they've ever had on the team they know before they start the TT if it's going to be decent, good, poor, but with him they've never been able to get a read and he's always been a very inconsistent TTer although usually not that bad.

Dumo or Cancellara, or maybe both?

 

[Red Rick]

There's one other issue here, which appears to be unique to Valverde. The team has said multiple times in the past they can't get a read on how Valverde will do a TT until he's on course and then they get a read very early on, as in the first 5 km. They've said anyone they've ever had on the team they know before they start the TT if it's going to be decent, good, poor, but with him they've never been able to get a read and he's always been a very inconsistent TTer although usually not that bad.

Dumo or Cancellara, or maybe both?

Have they tried just looking at the map and determining whether he is in France or not?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Have they tried just looking at the map and determining whether he is in Spain or not?

Fixed for you.

 

[Red Rick]

Fixed for you.

We need to run all the data. Is it France or just not Spain.

Do we have an intermediate of his 2017 prologue?

 

[Koronin]

We need to run all the data. Is it France or just not Spain.

Do we have an intermediate of his 2017 prologue?

As crazy as this sounds he did ask what his time was on the 2017 TT before he crashed and if I remember correctly the team said they were clocking to where his numbers were tracking in the top 15. 2014 he also had a decent ITT at the end of the Tour. Had to look it up and he was 4 and a half minutes off of Tony Martin's time. Granted that was only good enough for 28th on the stage. Looking at the time his TT was about 2 and a half minutes off of Nibali's time and 1 minute 15 seconds off of Pinot's time. Where this TT he lost 5 minutes to Dumoulin (I'm not including Pogacar). Dumoulin finished 2nd in the ITT in 2014 to Tony Martin. So in 2014 he lost 2 minutes 40 seconds to Dumoulin.

 

[gregrowlerson]

So the greatest stage in recent memory ends with us discussing a forty year old who finished 47th.

In the year of covid we have learned to have greater respect for the elderly.