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Tour de France Tour de France 2021, Stage 17: Muret – Saint-Lary-Soulan Col du Portet, 178.4 km

Page 23 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
i think Vingegaard did the right thing riding with pogacar, he got rid of Uran and he can easily beat carapaz in TT

carapaz did what he was allowed to, if they let him sit on their wheels what you gonna complain about

Pogacar obviously with very impressive performance, he didnt have to do any of this, could sit on wheels waiting to be attacked, but chose to ride which tells us nobody was even close to gain any time on him
 
I think the issue is that Carapaz was not riding to win the Tour, but riding to win second place in the Tour, and sandbagging the guy he was 1 second behind. Not unheard of, and Carapaz has attacked more than any other rider, but his decision to sit-on and never pull netted him the same result he would have gotten if he pulled, only he wouldn't have looked like a bit of putz doing so.
 
I can't really blame Carapaz for his ride today (although I will never lose my 'F*CK INEOS spirit), especially considering he was probably the weakest of the three and still nearly got the win.

But seeing him get dropped by Vingegaard was hilarious.

Carapaz did actually make a mistake in not relaying the other two, i.e. Uran getting dropped was good news for both Carapz & Vingegaard. Vingegaard understood that & worked with the yellow jersey, Carapaz meanwhile wanted the stage & didn't help at all. He ended up losing both the stage & the extra time he could have put on Uran.

Bad move.
 
I don't think so. He really wanted to get rid of them but couldn't. He was definitely the strongest but I don't think by too much.

Agreed, he tried multiple times to drop them and it just didn't work. Finally he just saved a tiny bit to take the win.

Jonas V worked to distance Uran who can also TT and he gets trashed here, go figure.

It was a Pretty awesome finale :).
 
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Absolutely. I don't see any other reason for Carapaz to work. 0% reason to work. In fact, given the circumstances, Pogacar never should have asked the other riders for help. Why???
UAE wanted the stage, why would Carapaz and Vingegard have responsibility to help pulling and deliver the stage win straight to Pogacar?

Letting a stronger man pulls more is the right thing to do. It was Pogacar who attacked first. The others may not want to attack so far out. Vingegard will learn from that.

Carapaz and Vingegaard both have the podium in their interest, Pogacar can literally take coffee breaks on the climbs and still stay in yellow. Surely with multiple podium contenders dropped, it's in Vingegaard and even more so Carapaz (worse time trial) interest to extend the gap. Yes, Pogacar wanted the stage but he also can outkick everyone if it stays together with a group of 10, so he really had no incentive to keep the pace up except for fighting boredom.

So if I'm Vingegaard, I'd definitely be slightly annoyed by Carapaz playing theatrics just to drop that attack at the end. As a spectator I obviously enjoyed it haha, great entertainment.
 
CN forums want attacking riders, but when they attack on multiple stages and it doesn't work they get laughed at, and then when they finally elect to sit in a bit to launch one big attack they get moaned about if it works, and laughed at if it doesn't.

Ultimately if you're not riding everyone off your wheel at will you're a bit of a joke, and if you are riding everyone off your wheel you're in the clinic.
truth
 
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Vingegaard to me seems a bit deferential towards Pogacar who has now taken over the mantle of the current king of the peloton. He had no need to pull after UAE were clearly riding all day to set up the stage win for Pogacar. When Pogacar attacked the onus was on him to ride both Vingegaard & Carapaz off his wheel but Vingegaard naively started pulling for him. Perhaps he was just hoping to protect his second place and put more time into the pursuers but he still could have done this by allowing Pogacar to take a longer pull before attacking further up the mountain and give himself the best possible opportunity of winning the stage.
 
I know Carapaz might not have won many hearts today, but I think it was very cool what he did. Cycling is a sport where it's a matter of getting first to the line, not spending the most time in the wind. It's a long time since I have seen a masterclass in bluffing like that (although, when he was able to follow all accelerations, it was a bit obvious what was up). INEOS have had a miserable Tour and it was a nice ploy to get a stage win. It also made the finish much more interesting.
 

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