Tour de France 2020 | Stage 8 (Gazeres-sur-Geronne - Loudenvielle

[CyclistAbi]

Congratulations to Nans Peters, for winning the stage 8. Sad to see Pinot having such severe back pains and a bit surprised Alaphilippe ended his GC ambitions in such way. Quintana looks really good. Pogačar did a great job today, did respond like a true champion. He more or less had to do it, in order to stay in the GC race, and did manage to do just that. Hopefully he will be able to cope with the favorites tomorrow. Good performance by JV. Dumoulin made the ultimate sacrifice, likely due to Kuss not being able to fulfill his role today.

Hats off.

As for the tactics. In my opinion Roglič is riding smart and is being patient. Most of GC contenders are now out of the way, the amount of fatigue inflicted is already substantial. Going after maillot jaune at all costs would in my opinion be a bad idea.

P.S. Rest assured killa bees will sting, when appropriate. Maybe as soon as tomorrow, that last climb looks tempting.

 

[movingtarget]

Congratulations to Nans Peters, for winning the stage 8. Sad to see Pinot having such severe back pains and a bit surprised Alaphilippe ended his GC ambitions in such way. Quintana looks really good. Pogačar did a great job today, did respond like a true champion. He more or less had to do it, in order to stay in the GC race, and did manage to do just that. Hopefully he will be able to cope with the favorites tomorrow. Good performance by JV. Dumoulin made the ultimate sacrifice, likely due to Kuss not being able to fulfill his role today.

Hats off.

As for the tactics. In my opinion Roglič is riding smart and is being patient. Most of GC contenders are now out of the way, the amount of fatigue inflicted is already substantial. Going after maillot jaune at all costs would in my opinion be a bad idea.

P.S. Rest assured killa bees will sting, when appropriate. Maybe as soon as tomorrow, that last climb looks tempting.

Roglic is also using up his team early in the race. Early days yet.

 

[movingtarget]

Pretty sure this will be Quintana's best chance to win the Tour. This all has shaped up as a perfect race for him so far, and the last week looks perfect for an inform Quintana 2013 style

And he has a TT where the time loss shouldn't be as bad as usual.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

no, he was NOT, watch the Lanterne Rouge videos, before TDF Bernal was still a slight favorite

I don't know what Lanterne Rouge is or where they get their information from, but it's simply not true. The day before the Tour, the average odds on Roglic was 3.195 while it was 3.298 on Bernal. Go check the numbers on oddschecker if you want.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Roglic is also using up his team early in the race. Early days yet.

Obviously, he is doing some of that. But still, he made other teams and riders work, to at least some extent in week one. Contrary to some suggesting he should basically take maillot jaune at stage 1 and defend it through the end.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Obviously, he is doing some of that. But still, he made other teams and riders work, to at least some extent in week one. Contrary to some suggesting he should basically take maillot jaune at stage 1 and defend it through the end.

Well, going coast to coast is not impossible, but how many times has shopping the jersey to a break happened? Just because a couple of really dominant teams like Sky and USPS didn't like to do it and it's been somewhat out of vogue in recent years doesn't make it an invalid tactic. Lat in week 1 or early in week 2 used to be the ideal time for this, when the top riders had battled the first set of mountains and didn't want to pace the bunch all week until the next ones. Nibali did it in 2014 (to Gallopin for one day), Yates in 2018 (to Jesús Herrada for two days), Quintana in 2016 (to David de la Cruz for a day), Levi Leipheimer in 2008 (to Egoi Martínez for four days). Voeckler's GC run in 2011 was entirely built on profiting from being given that jersey in a breakaway and then the passivity with which the Pyrenees were raced.

It's a balance of risk. Voeckler was not expected to climb like he did that year, so he was seen as a 'safe' pair of hands to shop the jersey to. Egoi Martínez came into the low end top 10 of that Vuelta because he had held the jersey from a break and then Igor Antón crashed out because he's Igor Antón, so they rode to defend his GC position after that. You might let an extra 1 rider back into the GC mix, but unless you do something really stupid and allow them a huge headstart like Marco Giovannetti in 1990 or Roger Walkowiak, or allow it to a rider who has previous top 10s in the race like Óscar Pereiro, it's worth the risk for a few days of not having to toast your domestiques, and generally they'll just be happy to have the jersey as an unexpected bonus.

 

[CyclistAbi]

The game plan likely is/was to not lose time in week 1. To use the team every third race or so, inflict fatigue. Make other teams and riders work. Don't waste Roglič foolishly, by for example going all in in a stage you can gain little or nothing. It's a 3 week race, and now we are at the beginning of the second week.

 

[movingtarget]

I don't know what Lanterne Rouge is or where they get their information from, but it's simply not true. The day before the Tour, the average odds on Roglic was 3.195 while it was 3.298 on Bernal. Go check the numbers on oddschecker if you want.

Lanterne Rouge is a nobody best ignored.

 

[topt]

I don't know what Lanterne Rouge is or where they get their information from, but it's simply not true. The day before the Tour, the average odds on Roglic was 3.195 while it was 3.298 on Bernal. Go check the numbers on oddschecker if you want.

Lanterne rouge is an australian youtube cycling chanel, he was watching the odds every day, showed them on screen, the videos are still there

 

[woodburn]

Roglič confirmed for Slovenian tv that he would be able to cover Pogačar but didn't, because team doesn't want yellow Jersey in the first week of racing. Roglič is very strong but team plans are very conservative.

If they don't want yellow, why are they riding at the front of the peleton all day and burning off their people? For a team that doesn't want the lead, they are riding as if they have it. Burning Dumoulin for no reason really was head scratcher. If Roglic had then attacked and consolidated time gains then it made sense. But to sit on and waste that effort made no sense.

 

[jmdirt]

I already said in the stage 6 debacle that Roglic is still at 90 % and he is planning to peak in 2nd/3rd week. Probably Loze is their biggest fear as Quintana/Bernal might thrive there and get a lot of time. He isn't taking any risks and the orders from his DS is just to respond to attacks from people around him in GC.
JV is heavily overestimated but actually only WvA is in a tremendous form, the rest of them are worse than in Dauphine. Bennett and Kuss can't help Roglic in the mountains for now so Dumo thinks he has to sacrifice himself for the team and basically doing their work. I still think it was a bad decision because Roglic didn't have an attack planned for the stage.

Maybe you are saying that to emphasize your point about his form, but he would already be an hour behind if he was at 90%.

EDIT: ...and to emphasize my point, did he look like a guy at 90% today? He might still be off from his best, but he's still 99% obviously.

 

[Frihed89]

So, Bernal can't win (again)? I think not.

 

[TomLPC]

Sepp Kuss' now famous comments truly were the moment of foreshadowing the race needed.

Them ceding time on this stage were where it was lost I think.

 

[Brullnux]

Once again JV and Roglic over-complicate GC riding. As much as a dislike Brailsford, he’d have won this Tour

 

[Asero831]

If Pog didn't gain time here, he would have gained time in other stages.

 

[Brullnux]

If Pog didn't gain time here, he would have gained time in other stages.

Where? It’s not as if Pogacar rode the whole Tour knowing that could beat Roglic by 2 minutes in the TT. Pogacar tried to put time into Roglic and was never able to, indeed it was Roglic who dropped Pogacar on stage 17. Point is, Roglic claimed he could have followed Pogacar here. If true, then many of us at the time said that you cannot let moments like that slip, especially because at this point you had the added bonus of putting time into Bernal. Nibali/Roglic/Carapaz all over again.

 

[Asero831]

Where? It’s not as if Pogacar rode the whole Tour knowing that could beat Roglic by 2 minutes in the TT. Pogacar tried to put time into Roglic and was never able to, indeed it was Roglic who dropped Pogacar on stage 17. Point is, Roglic claimed he could have followed Pogacar here. If true, then many of us at the time said that you cannot let moments like that slip, especially because at this point you had the added bonus of putting time into Bernal. Nibali/Roglic/Carapaz all over again.

Pog is 2 mins down and a newbie in TdF GT. So JV would not chase him? Their thinking is why would they burn their domestiques when there are more stages to come.

Very similar to Nibali and Rog 's Giro when they lost to Carapaz

 

[Brullnux]

Pog is 2 mins down and a newbie in TdF GT. So JV would not chase him? Their thinking is why would they burn their domestiques when there are more stages to come.

Very similar to Nibali and Rog 's Giro when they lost to Carapaz

so two things you’ve mentioned back my argument. They had already burned their domestiques, in a ploy to beat Bernal (who they out no time into). Following Pogacar would’ve been a great moment to put time into Bernal, at the time his number one rival. He passed it up.

second: this has happened before! To the same guy! And its not like Pogacar is a total newbie, he’d shown great shape at the vuelta and at the dauphine. Then riding the rest of the tour like a 50 second gap was fine was also dangerous, because a puncture happens at an inopportune moment and you’re out. Roglic was the strongest in the race for a while, and he rode it too passively and didn’t get the buffer needed.