Tour de France Tour de France 2021, Stage 8: Oyonnax – Le Grand-Bornand, 150.8 km

[gregrowlerson]

What are you saying? Roglic would have zero chance against this Pogacar. Zero. There is no one that could follow him today. I mean when did Roglic put 3 minutes on Carapaz in 20kms? Roglic has one of the best 5min watts and this is how he gets his wins. He doesn't casually put minutes on competition.

I agree. Today was a whole new level.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

What happened to Lopez?

He crashed descending the early climbs, got a somewhat suspicious tow from the team car to get back into contention, followed the first set of moves and looked good on Mont-Saxonnex but was put through the back on Romme.

 

[Carols]

Tuens talking about losing his grandad 1 week before the Tour and dedicating the stage win to him brought tears to my eyes. Cycling is always emotional.

 

[Billie]

I doubt many of the 2nd big peloton will make the time cut. Colbrelli was dropped quite late on Romme and he isn't in yet.

 

[Escarabajo]

What is the time limit?

 

[bigcog]

Ineos is a shambles! They have rode this tour worse than any recent Movistar trident
WTF have they been doing???
hopeless

According to Dave Brailsford, it's their new attacking strategy ...

 

[Mayomaniac]

Like Landis's ride, it's a bit oranges to apples, as Pogi was in prime position and no one let him go, he won all his time on pure strength. In that sense only Froome is close. Indurain gained 3'00'' in Luxembourg, I can't think of anything resembling Pogi's dominance.

Robobasso on the 2006 Mortirolo stage was as dominant.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Good to see De Bod finished the stage

 

[Escarabajo]

So best 1st week in ages and next 2 will be pointless??

Today the excitement dies!

 

[titan31]

What are you saying? Roglic would have zero chance against this Pogacar. Zero. There is no one that could follow him today. I mean when did Roglic put 3 minutes on Carapaz in 20kms? Roglic has one of the best 5min watts and this is how he gets his wins. He doesn't casually put minutes on competition.

Ya, what would likely have happened is that when or if Pogacar attacked like that, Roglic would have been on his wheel and not distanced as easily as Carapaz of the rest did. At this point, they either work together or they stare at each other until the others catch up. Pogacar doesn't come close to breaking Roglic like he did to the others there.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Colbrelli in the +28'41 group with Mohorič, van Baarle, Latour among others. Costa, Matthews and Kwiatkowski in +34 mins.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Like Landis's ride, it's a bit oranges to apples, as Pogi was in prime position and no one let him go, he won all his time on pure strength. In that sense only Froome is close. Indurain gained 3'00'' in Luxembourg, I can't think of anything resembling Pogi's dominance.

Important to note that he beat the best TT by 17 s and the best climber by > 3mins in a span of 3 days

 

[Bonimenier]

Damn, what a massive grupetto.

 

[roundabout]

Robobasso on the 2006 Mortirolo stage was as dominant.

I like the Romme-Colombiere combo, but it's hardly Mortirolo

 

[Salvarani]

So best 1st week in ages and next 2 will be pointless??

Think there will be some good stages.

Very unpredictable racing so far.

There will be a fight for the podium and we might see interesting breaks. Tough race to control. Could be some spectacular stuff. I got hopes there is still more to come that will be some great racing. Even though nobody seems to be on the same level as Pog. There could be breaks that gets a lot of minutes.

 

[Bonimenier]

81 riders made it within the time limit!!!

Nah, limit was 37:40 and pretty much everyone finished at 35 mins.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Kwiatkowski lost 35 minutes. I sense a lot of riders will be thrown out of the race!

(Obviously I don't, but Colbrelli will be in a great position now that all the other sprinters get penalised)

Ah, ok, they all finished inside the limit, so no worries.

 

[Netserk]

Robobasso on the 2006 Mortirolo stage was as dominant.

Athletically, sure. But he only gained 1'17'' on Simoni, which means he doesn't get anywhere near the other time gaps.

 

[MrTea1976]

This is to be fair similar to what happened at the 2011 Vuelta, everybody retro-justified it as being a horrible field which helped explain Cobo and Froome's prominence, but you also had Igor Antón who was one of the favourites coming in after crashing out of the lead in 2010, Scarponi who was at that point 2nd in the Giro (later upgraded to winner), Nibali as defending champion, Denis Menchov a two-time former winner of the race (at the time), and Joaquím Rodríguez, a top rider the previous year and in the top positions of the Giro, as well as Carlos Sastre's career swansong, but all of them underperformed massively or were simply not GC condition at that point in their career, leading to a very underwhelming GC mix.

Looking at the results sheet here would suggest this is a very disappointing field, but we've got Roglič, Thomas, Nibali and Geogeghan Hart as GT winners too, Porte, López, and several others, plus the likes of Kruijswijk too who have managed podiums at some point in their past, who don't appear in that top 10, while there's still another GT winner (Carapaz) and a couple of riders with GT podiums (Mas, Urán) in there. It's not as bad as it looks.

Yates too.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Monster unleashed! Absolutely legendary performance by Pogacar, wow. He simply crushed his competition in these difficult rainy conditions.

The tempo was crazy from the start, no escape formed for 70 km, Thomas & Roglic left behind early. Even Pogacar was temporarily in the break, lol. The offensive mindset was there (opposite to yesterday). Looking at this tempo, small size of "peleton" and the weather I felt the race would explode on Romme. When I saw Formolo redlining at the front (with Tadej comfortable behind him) I knew that Tadej (who maybe tolerates this weather better than others) was planning to attack hard. The rest is history. Carapaz withstood his first acceleration but the second was deadly. He was distancing Richie at ease - 80 seconds in 4 km. He was passing break guys like a motorbike, lol. Incredible execution of power, I'd like to see his numbers.

Barring a disaster the race is basically over. It's been the best 1st week of a GT I've ever seen. The 2nd and 3rd may be completely opposite though. Ok, it's time for some bold (?) prediction: Pogacar will join Merckx&Hinault and win 10+ GTs. His era has begun.

 

[Salvarani]

Organisation could still decide if many riders miss the time limit on what to do. You dont get automatically disqualified. They can make exceptions in some cases.

 

[SafeBet]

He crashed descending the early climbs, got a somewhat suspicious tow from the team car to get back into contention, followed the first set of moves and looked good on Mont-Saxonnex but was put through the back on Romme.

I think the better explanation is that he was sent to the wrong GT. Tour with 60 km of TT, explosive uphill finishes in the first week, lots of flat stages and the usual hectic racing is a recipe for disaster for him.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Wout Van Aert deserves maybe a bit more appreciation than he seems to have had for a long lonely effort to try to get yellow

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Two weeks is plenty of time to fall off a bike.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Athletically, sure. But he only gained 1'17'' on Simoni, which means he doesn't get anywhere near the other time gaps.

Yeah, but he gained over 1min on Gibo on the freaking Aprica...