Tour de France Tour de France 2023, stage 16: Passy - Combloux, 22.4k (ITT)

[Rackham]

Don't take my word for it, take Tom Dumoulin's. He argued yesterday that this wasn't the Pogacar from La Planche, and I think he's right. And this is the same Dumoulin who couldn't believe that performance because "he sits on his bike like a miner". So he has studied Pogacar's style quite closely

It was a very strong performance from Vingegaard, that's for sure. But it was just a good, not great, performance from Pogi.

What I can say is that it reeks of sore loserdom when you've been arguing that this tactic won't work and then when it apparently does, you simply ignore the possible merits.

I really don't take Tom Dumoulin's word for it. The man is not an impartial observer when it comes to all matters Jumbo Visma.

And 'loserdom' doesn't account for Vingegaard's performance being the strongest in 60 years. Who could predict that? You? I don't think so.

 

[Gigs_98]

On another note, does anyone actually know how the times of the climb to Combloux compare to those in the 2016 TT. Unfortunately we didn't have split times at precisely the same points but maybe someone stopped it themselves?

 

[Elos Anjos]

Pog could win by 15 minutes with an 8w/kg on the last climb and it wouldn't hit a 3rd of today's posts.

Dear sir, a childish "I'm right" and "they're all wrong" approach to various sensible documented posts that do not surface even from Pogacar fans - which is you deem impossible because people just react against this performance because they are upset - is utterly stupid. Have a good day in your fairy tale land.

 

[theyoungest]

I really don't take Tom Dumoulin's word for it. The man is not an impartial observer when it comes to all matters Jumbo Visma.

And 'loserdom' doesn't account for Vingegaard's performance being the strongest in 60 years. Who could predict that? You? I don't think so.

Okay, well, whatever suits you! Enjoy the Tour de France, maybe Pogacar will still win and everything will be right again.

 

[Elos Anjos]

It's difficult to admit that you were wrong and that Jumbo's tactic of making this a race of attrition would pay off somewhere, somehow. That's what happened yesterday. Pogacar wasn't bad, but clearly he wasn't on his best day ever either. You could even see it on the start ramp, he already looked spent before the TT had even started. If you compare it to La Planche, his cadence was different, his whole demeanour on the bike was different, there was way more "grinta" in there. Just like Vingegaard had yesterday. And the bike change was just disastrous, Vingegaard rode the final few kms so much faster than Pogi it's not even funny anymore. Because he was on his TT bike on a rolling section.

We haven't seen second per km gains like this, but we also haven't seen a TT like this in the final week of a Tour, so there's no point in comparing. Oldschool Tour TTs were mostly super long and rolling, you're not going to gain 4 secs a km on one of these.

This is fine hog**** right here. When will reply to the fact that Pogacar improved his performance PDBF wise but still got destroyed? Even if he improved cornering, not shiting bikes and descending we would still be trampled and that's the whole point.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Pogacar did not perform that stellar yesterday and was also second to teammate Yates on the climb, and Ciccone was the fastest.

I think it’s slightly wrong to look at only a part of the climb and say it’s the climb.
It’s correct that Simon (not Adam) was 1 second faster than Pogacar on the first part of the final climb which was the section where KOM points was given, but Pogacar was around half a minute faster than Simon (and all other GC riders) on the whole climb.

 

[theyoungest]

This is fine hog**** right here. When will reply to the fact that Pogacar improved his performance PDBF wise but still got destroyed? Even if he improved cornering, not shiting bikes and descending we would still be trampled and that's the whole point.

How do you know this was a better performance than La Planche? Even if it were so, he has improved overall, the Pogacar we've seen this Tour is way better than the Pog we saw in 2020. So it could still mean that compared to the rest of this Tour he wasn't on his best day... which is actually what he himself has said as well. He wasn't feeling great anymore on the climb, as evidenced in the fact that he rode just the 4th climbing time.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

He wasn't feeling great anymore on the climb, as evidenced in the fact that he rode just the 4th climbing time.

it’s so cool with all you guys thinking that the section with the KOM points was the whole climb…

 

[Rackham]

Okay, well, whatever suits you! Enjoy the Tour de France, maybe Pogacar will still win and everything will be right again.

Tadej Pogačar isn't going to win this Tour de France unless Jumbo Visma screws-up really badly, i.e. they'd have to make a monumentally huge error to lose the race now.

Is it possible? No idea. But the power output by the ITT winner yesterday says this one is well & truly over. Even another mini rebellion by Pog (like on Cauterets) won't save him. In fact that's also unlikely because Vingegaard can get his own super glue out again & just wheelsuck Pog without expending any energy attacking (& then even counter him to gain time).

So, it's pretty much over.

 

[stekelegel]

The difference is huge yes, but I fail to see a logical connection to Vingegard someho cheating. Preparing a rider for a single stage has long been abandoned with current controls. And preparing a rider for the whole race isn’t consistent with vingegard only being just equal with pogi until now. They also know that testing will be done within the next twenty years on today’s samples… so how to explain the outlandish results ? I think first and most it’s a combination of the freakish recovery ability of vingegard added to being a very long and hard tour. The parcours was hard and most stages were ridden to the extreme. Rather few soft stages with a break departing in the first 5 km. Most of the time this brings the field together because most riders get blunted, but vingegard, who is a lot more ordinary in 1 day races, got better compared to all others.
Second reason, his team planned this to the extreme. This is the stage where they would take the time back to expected to lose on the previous mountain finishes with a normal more explosive Pogacar. The material, the planning, the warming up, no detail left untouched to gain an edge. I remember clearly Alan Peiper telling people how he meticulously prepped Tadej for LPDBF. The jumbo plan was to take it on the the TT and col de loze. vingegard also executed the plan to perfection.
Third, opposition was weak. This is a top 10 with rather ordinary riders. Kuss and Yates are domestiques. There are also very few Tt specialists and most of them also not firing. Wva has not been like the last tours.
In the Armstrong years everyone was on epo and you would expect differences to be a lot smaller. So it’s actually a fact that 1 man excelling is a sign that he just had a great day at the office…
And last he just had the ride of his life. His best day on the bike ever. Some day sportsman just are on fire. I am kinda hoping this was a bit of a fluke because the rest has been put to shame and Jonas will win the next tours if he can repeat this regularly. Hopefully this motivates pogaacr and his team to take their team to jumbo level next year.

 

[Trofonios]

I have a theory that Pog might have started too hard and paid for it on the climb. I think Pog wanted to go out hard and put pressure on Vinge, might get him to panic a bit (Like he did to Rogla 2020), but he never thought that Vinge would go even faster which in turn probably stressed him a bit.

 

[GroupDK]

I think it’s slightly wrong to look at only a part of the climb and say it’s the climb.
It’s correct that Simon (not Adam) was 1 second faster than Pogacar on the first part of the final climb which was the section where KOM points was given, but Pogacar was around half a minute faster than Simon (and all other GC riders) on the whole climb.

I sense Pogacar has been struggling lately.

Normally Pogacar would be able to outsprint Jonas 20/20 times when going for bonus seconds or the finish line.. that's not been the case on the last few stages and then we saw that weird move, just behind the motorcycles., that made a lot of drama, and if you look at it , Pogacar looks up and see that there is motorcycles blocking and then accelerate just a few meters and stops, even though he clearly could see that there wasn't a lot of room and it wasn't the right moment or maybe he saw it as a place to get an advantage to play on the crowded circumstances and one of the bikes moves toggles that plan, but he still got 500 meters more before the mountain-peak and bonus seconds that he could have pushed but can't and Jonas outsprint him for the bonus seconds and later stages they role over the finish line in tandem, which was a joy to watch between these two fabulous riders.

I reckon we are seeing the exact same thing, we have seen for a few years now.. Jonas Vingegaard recovers best on these extreme Grand Tours, and why Vingegaard is number 1 on the globe on UCI Stage Race World Ranking list' and got the most points with quite a margin.
Certain people should tone down with all the conspiracies & nonsense, and stop seeing ghosts left & right.

Today's stage will be interesting and see what UAE will do, as they do have the strongest team, and if we again will see Vingegaard alone with 4x UAE riders on the last few km, and if Vingegaard went to deep on yesterday's impressive TT.

 

[Red Rick]

Honestly I feel like it's complete speculation to put this down to Jumbo drilling it on one day. Maybe Vingegaard profited a little bit from an overall hard race, but that doesn't explain this kind of gap, especially in a TT after a rest day.

Think its Pogacar lacking racing miles, but you could see his decline in stage 14 amd 15 IMO, and I do think gaps can blow up on such a hard TT if you mess pacing up as well

 

[Elos Anjos]

I sense Pogacar has been struggling lately.

Normally Pogacar would be able to outsprint Jonas 20/20 times when going for bonus seconds or the finish line.. that's not been the case on the last few stages and then we saw that weird move, just behind the motorcycles., that made a lot of drama, and if you look at it , Pogacar looks up and see that there is motorcycles blocking and then accelerate just a few meters and stops, even though he clearly could see that there wasn't a lot of room and it wasn't the right moment or maybe he saw it as a place to get an advantage to play on the crowded circumstances and one of the bikes moves toggles that plan, but he still got 500 meters more before the mountain-peak and bonus seconds that he could have pushed but can't and Jonas outsprint him for the bonus seconds and later stages they role over the finish line in tandem, which was a joy to watch between these two fabulous riders.

I reckon we are seeing the exact same thing, we have seen for a few years now.. Jonas Vingegaard recovers best on these extreme Grand Tours, and why Vingegaard is number 1 on the globe on UCI Stage Race World Ranking list' and got the most points with quite a margin.
Certain people should tone down with all the conspiracies & nonsense, and stop seeing ghosts left & right.

Today's stage will be interesting and see what UAE will do, as they do have the strongest team, and if we again will see Vingegaard alone with 4x UAE riders on the last few km, and if Vingegaard went to deep on yesterday's impressive TT.

That's wonderful but Pogacar won the bonus sprint to the finish line in that stage.

 

[tobydawq]

Think its Pogacar lacking racing miles, but you could see his decline in stage 14 amd 15 IMO, and I do think gaps can blow up on such a hard TT if you mess pacing up as well

I don't think it could be sensed in stage 14 at all, unless you subscribe to the fantasy that he hadn't forgotten about the bonus seconds at the top of Joux-Plane. He attacked too early there, as he probably would have been able to hold his lead for two kilometres rather than four. But Vingegaard would probably have caught him on the descent in any event.

 

[GroupDK]

That's wonderful but Pogacar won the bonus sprint to the finish line in that stage.

So what?
I don't get your drift, where exactly do I indicate otherwise, sum of the matter, Jonas gained more seconds on Pogacar than vice versa and that is quite remarkable.. you did read "Normally Pogacar would be able to outsprint Jonas 20/20 times"
Whats your point?

 

[Elos Anjos]

The point is that you based a wall of text based on the assumption that Pogacar is getting more tired than Jonas already in the 2nd week and the proof is that Pogacar "made it on purpose" to attack when the motos were there because he knew he couldn't win "fair" as he was already declining.

What I stated is that wall of text comes crumbling down by noticing how Pogacar won the sprint. So oopsy daisy, there goes your point.

 

[nilfen]

One thing that makes me wonder.
If they knew Jonas was so fast yesterday - why did they let van Aert go all out. Before the stage, I thought they would save van Aert for today, but they let him go for a stage win.

 

[GroupDK]

The point is that you based a wall of text based on the assumption that Pogacar is getting more tired than Jonas already in the 2nd week and the proof is that Pogacar "made it on purpose" to attack when the motos were there because he knew he couldn't win "fair" as he was already declining.

What I stated is that wall of text comes crumbling down by noticing how Pogacar won the sprint. So oopsy daisy, there goes your point.

You jumping to conclusions out of the blue fitted with tons of confirmation bias, and like you simply not reading what people are writing.
Im referring to what Jonas stated' that it made no sense to attack at that point, when Pigacar looks up and can see the road is blocked, and it was precarious that he didn't tried again, as he had all the time in the world with 500m to the critical bonus-seconds and outsprinting Jonas for a line' is one aspect where Pogacar is superb..

paste from Jonas after Tadej attack.

Jonas Vingegaard took advantage of Tadej Pogacar's failed attack.
It was Tadej Pogacar's own fault when he had to abandon his attack on Saturday. (** take that headline with a pinch of salt, that danish media in a nutshell' trying to rally drama & conflicts)

At least if you ask Jonas Vingegaard.
A few hundred meters from the top of the last climb, the Col de Joux Plane, Pogacar tried to distance his Danish rival, but two motorcycles in front of them blocked the way.
Therefore, the explosive Slovenian had to get back in the saddle. According to Vingegaard, the Slovenian could have chosen a better time to attack.

How did you experience the situation with the motorcycle?
- What kind of motorcycle?
At the top just before the bonus sprint.
- Well, they were right in front of us, and then Tadej tried, but there were the motorbikes, and then it was a bit difficult to sprint past them, says the Jumbo-Visma Dane. (souce https://sport.tv2.dk/cykling/2023-07-15-vingegaard-saetter-ord-paa-pogacars-angreb-bag-motorcykler)

but let it be, quite a handful, and almost like you take offense in some of your above comments' because reality didn't evolve as you want.
It's cycling, entertainment, and only one thing matters, and that is giving us the viewers a spectacular show..
Who wins between Pogacar and Vingegaard.. doesn't really matter.. they both deserved it equally, at least until yesterday when Vingegaard clearly was the better rider..
Gonna be a joy to see if Pogacar can flip it today, like he did on stage 6 after the significant +minuteloss on stage 5..
Either way, it's a win for us the viewers.. be happy that you're watching a fascinating Tour de France with balls to the wall riding..

 

[Lorzenz08]

I think yesterday was a combination of Vingegaard doing the TT of his life, and Pogi not being at its best.

If Vinge would have done a great TT but not at its best ever level, he would probably have finished 25 secs later. If Pogi would have had great legs he could have finished 40 secs earlier.

So this same TT where both are feeling great but without anything exceptional and Vinge would win by 30-33 secs. Which I think is in line with most expert expectations.

 

[Aapjes]

I disagree, I most certainly do not think Pogacar is at his best.

He was (or close to it) the first 15 stages, but has started to lose his mojo the last 3 stages (today included), and my reasoning is the lack of proper preparation.

I think that today's stage is going to be very interesting. If Pogacar does poorly, perhaps even being dropped by Rodriquez or Hindley, then he is very poorly indeed. And if we no longer see him being nearly evenly matched by Vingegaard, then he's probably degraded a bit more than Vingegaard.

 

[hondated]

See I was rather sincere in my posting, only asking you to consider why people are asking questions. And also to acknowledge how crazy this effort ist. I don't want to go into clinic issues here, which is why I am here only pointing out the historical significance of the achieved performance. This alone is alluding to cheating for you it seems to me. But if that's the case you should be honest to yourself and understand that it's the facts not me pointing to the clinic. I am merely following in the pointed direction.
Your explanation, and I will leave it at that, is only really logical if one ignores history completely. As for the "how" of the performance: I am clueless, it doesn't make any sense it happened. Your explanations are there to dismiss questions, not to explain something very hard to make sense off. It's just to abnormal a performance to be solved by "he had a better day and has better regeneration".

I think you make some fair points as I have no proof either way about what we saw yesterday. I just wish that I hadn't watched Riis disappear up the Hautacam back in 1996 & thought at that time " how is he doing that " as its left me still feeling cynical.

 

[memyselfandI]

Pogi was in better form overall when Tour started, now he's getting more slower tired and was clearly not that relaxed cruising missle that he's been before, in LPDBF aso.

Vingo tt'ing and swinging his knees: Maybe uncomfortable with the position, something like Contador often was, doing constant back forth rumble through all tt-ride, awful to see but clock did not bother.. If anyone been on a bike with saddle sores/abrasions, even just a short stage race may know how nice is that. Vingos position these days is about as good as it can be, what I often look is that his lungs/ribcage size seems big, maybe big organs too = big engine, small frame?

 

[Elos Anjos]

You jumping to conclusions out of the blue fitted with tons of confirmation bias, and like you simply not reading what people are writing.
Im referring to what Jonas stated' that it made no sense to attack at that point, when Pigacar looks up and can see the road is blocked, and it was precarious that he didn't tried again, as he had all the time in the world with 500m to the critical bonus-seconds and outsprinting Jonas for a line' is one aspect where Pogacar is superb..

paste from Jonas after Tadej attack.

but let it be, quite a handful, and almost like you take offense in some of your above comments' because reality didn't evolve as you want.
It's cycling, entertainment, and only one thing matters, and that is giving us the viewers a spectacular show..
Who wins between Pogacar and Vingegaard.. doesn't really matter.. they both deserved it equally, at least until yesterday when Vingegaard clearly was the better rider..
Gonna be a joy to see if Pogacar can flip it today, like he did on stage 6 after the significant +minuteloss on stage 5..
Either way, it's a win for us the viewers.. be happy that you're watching a fascinating Tour de France with balls to the wall riding..

What's the thing with writing Pigacar? Is it a 11 year old pun that you enjoy?

Pogacar has already attacked from that distance and won.

The rest is the usual innuendo ad nauseam: "you guys are just butt-hurt because Vingo won and Pogacar lost". It's all so boring, so predictable, so limited.

 

[RedheadDane]

What's the thing with writing Pigacar? Is it a 11 year old pun that you enjoy?

Out of the four mentions of the guy in the post, you focus on the one time that was obviously a result of hitting the wrong key.