• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Tour de France Tour de France 2022: Stage 1 (Copenhagen – Copenhagen, 13.2k/ITT)

Page 32 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Yeah I heard about Ganna flat later. I guess considering he rode with a puncture he had a really good ride.

I am not down on Lampaert, it was just unexpected.

Lampaert's win I'd file under mildly surprising but not shocking, he's a really good TTer. Given the weather some clearly decided better to take it easy and lose 10-30 seconds than crash and lose 45 or risk injury.

Can't imagine the chaos if this had been a TTT...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan and noob
I honestly believe Christophe Laporte could have won this ITT, if he hadn‘t crashed. He was 25th, 36 secs down. The crash probably cost him 30-40 secs.

I‘m Roglic fan. On one hand, I think all five JV domestiques should have ridden slow and safe.

On the other hand, I think the fact that even JV‘s domestiques rode a fast pace has something to do with respect for fans, sponsors, ASO and the TdF. When I saw Soler (last starter) riding, I missed this respect. He‘s a former winner of Paris-Nice, and a world class rider. Yesterday, he rode without obviously even breathing. No motivation for a good stage 1 rank. He‘s now in a road pro cyclist‘s best age, but his days of motivation for personal results in the biggest races seem to be already over.
It's more to do with the fact that Jumbo had many riders who could reasonably win the ITT, and they have to juggle multiple potential leaders because Vingegaard earned a free role, van Aert is going for green, Laporte was in with a stage win and yellow jersey chance at a time where the best times were considered touchable because the course conditions were improving (not by enough at his time, of course) and Lampaert hadn't yet set his time. There's also more than one way to skin a cat, and having several riders who are placed near the top of the standings is one of the things Jumbo like to do, even if they then don't always use all of those options.

UAE have one clear leader and Marc Soler, while OK against the clock, was going right at the end. He may have started out harder but once he realised he was not going to get near Lampaert's time, the instructions were to save energy to support Tadej later. He's going to be a mountain helper and it's worth noting that Sepp Kuss and Steven Kruijswijk, two riders who will have a similar role in Jumbo's team, were also well down the results sheet (Kuss 91st, Kruijswijk 124th, Soler 132nd). Rafał Majka has two Tour GPM titles and has been top 10 in multiple GTs, he was 153rd, because of similar considerations to these; George Bennett likewise was 156th. It's nothing to do with showing disrespect for fans or sponsors and everything to do with showing respect for your team, its leader and your role in it - which is not something Soler has always been keen to do in the past. We've grown used to super-teams in the last few years, but UAE, despite a few superstars, aren't really one of those and so they are riding more like Astana 2010 than Astana 2009, that's all.

Think of it like in 2010 when all of Contador's mountain helpers were dropping time on flat stages and several people who had got used to the super-teams of the previous era and the 2009 Astana team with Contador, Armstrong, Leipheimer, Klöden, Zubeldia and Paulinho were riding at the front all day every day were criticising them, suggesting this meant Contador's team were weak, when instead it was a conscious decision that they didn't have the strong enough resources to manage the front all day every day so would allocate Contador a protector or two on the flats and let the others save energy for later days.
 

TRENDING THREADS