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

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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 think by not pulling he was able to at least attempt the attack and was his only way to win the stage even if it was only a 5% chance
 
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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.

Really? Pogacar could have won the stage & had the exact same time over second overall "if" he'd been with 12 other riders around him at the final km. His punch on climbs like this is rivalled by Roglic alone & he's not there. Meanwhile the guys who needed a gap over Uran were Vingegaard & Carapaz.

Pogacar is almost a tourist at this point on a sightseeing trip, i.e. just going for stage wins.
 
Vingegaard did the right thing that he pulled with Pogacar. They were distancing Uran and Pogacar didn't really care about it (given his GC gap) so obviously Vingegaard and Carapaz should be more interested (3 guys fighting for 2 podium places). If Vingegaard didn't cooperate Pogacar would have slowed down the tempo (allowing Uran to reduce the gap) and win the stage anyway on sprint.
 
So Vingegard told Pog that Carapaz was bluffing

Again why ?

Vingegard who is your competition ?

Well, a podium is a better result for Vingegaard (who despite being a Tour debutante at 24 years old, at least to me surpringly already is in his 3rd year in the WT), than it is for Carapaz.

It would be a real boost for him, and he could probably rightfully cash in on that on his next contract.
 
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.
But he put a huge amount of time into Uran. Enough of a TT buffer infact
 
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.
JV should have been doing something similar. He is almost assured of 2nd overall regardless of what happens (after Uran was dropped) but unlikely to win the stage while doing 40% of the work.
 

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