Why is Bettiol pulling Pogacar from 1'30 to 1'15 on the cobbles, while Powless has to gain 50 seconds on Pogacar to win the yellow jersey?The amount of nonsense spoken on here about Bettoil - a very experienced rider - beggars belief.
I thought his tactics were spot on and actually benefitted the break. On one of the sectors he drove on the front the gap was about 1 min 30 at the start of the sector, came down to 1 min 15 at the end of the sector but quickly went back up to 1 min 50 when they were on normal roads.
if you can get rid of the helpers on the cobbles then there will be a lot of looking around once you get off the cobbles as the riders who are left are those who do not want to put too much effort in.
What kills the break is a consistent chase, with bodies prepared to put a shift in. What benefits a break is constant changes in speed in the chase group.
Anyone who thinks Bettiol cost Powless Yellow today knows zero about cycling
The theory of disrupting the chase by drilling it is only realistic when you aren't pulling a direct competitor for the yellow jersey (Pogacar), when the group is small (the group Bettiol pulled was quite big with many helpers) and the time gap is big enough to the escape group (bringing back that time gap to a minute, which Bettiol helped to do, motivates EVERY rider in the chase group to attack / ride).
The only thing Bettiol had to do was to counter Pogacar's attacks, shepherd Uran and discourage anyone trying to reduce the gap with the front group by riding in the front but not pulling. What he did was 'paving the way' (pun intended) for Pogacar, upping the pace when it wasn't necessary, and thus effectively costing Powless the yellow jersey.