Tour de France Tour de France 2023, stage 20: Belfort - Le Markstein, 133.5k

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Great battle by Pinot until the very end. It looked like he would make it at one point. I will miss him, maybe he can still change his mind. Who else has fans like these.

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View: https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1682759067461206017?s=20
 
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He won one (TT) stage, but you would expect someone finishing a GC with a 7m30s advantage on number 2 and 11 minutes (!) on number 3 to have more stage wins. If the Jumbo plan for today was indeed to win the stage (as mentioned by Van Baarle), then he must not have received this information, because how he rode, he would only have won if Pogacar'd messed up completely.
Pogacar proved today what conventional observations predicted: a) The Tour (all GTs) are a 3 week race. You have to prepare and race accordingly. b)Pogacar is a better pure sprinter than Jonas. c)Jonas was focused, prepared and Tadej had to settle for indoor training and gradual ramp up to recover from an injury while preparing for le Tour d) See a) above.
 
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Explanation from Jumbo-Visma's sporting director Grischa Niermann.
- Today Jonas didn't feel so strong that he felt he could place the others on this smaller climb, he says to several media -- and continues:

- We had planned to go for the stage win, and Jonas had to see if it was possible to attack on these climbs.
- He chose not to do it, and that is of course perfectly okay. The main goal was to get the yellow jersey safely to the finish line, and he did.
He did fantastic, says Grischa Niermann.
 
Explanation from Jumbo-Visma's sporting director Grischa Niermann.
- Today Jonas didn't feel so strong that he felt he could place the others on this smaller climb, he says to several media -- and continues:

- We had planned to go for the stage win, and Jonas had to see if it was possible to attack on these climbs.
- He chose not to do it, and that is of course perfectly okay. The main goal was to get the yellow jersey safely to the finish line, and he did.
He did fantastic, says Grischa Niermann.
I also think it was smart to ride easy today. He was isolated on the last climb while Pog had 2 teammates. Why risk anything?
 
Watching this years tour, does any one els get the feeling, that Marc Madiot is *** at his job?
That’s because you think his job is to have his team win bike races; his real job is being Marc Madiot and he is the GOAT at that job.

Seriously I have long had the opinion that ASO need to be tougher on the French teams; it has historically been too easy for them to get a wild card if they drop down to the pro-Conti Tour, so they get away with not running a very tight ship.
 
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It has been empirically proven that in order to drop Pog, one needs:
- at least 2000m of altitude
- temperatures of 30C or above
- a sustained climb of at least 15km
- at least 2, preferable 3 softening-up climbs beforehand

It is also significantly proving that if you don't try you're definitely not going to drop him. You're just ignoring the whole 0 risk thing involved.
 
Just back here, following up on the thread I cannot completely understand the partly rancid atmosphere with insults, energy used on misinterpreted annoyances on behalf of others and patronizing assumptions, instead of just being happy on own behalf about a worthwhile watchable beautiful stage.
But in order to get my glass full again instead of half empty, I'd rather reason it as a side effect of passion and eagerness and it's not all just the same and reason why there's fuel left for that sort of activities.

Just watching the stage I was fully intertained, and maybe I should just stick to that part :)

/peace out.
 
That Pogacar was just as good as Vingegaard in the first half of the Tour, but then couldn't keep up - is there any objective connection between that and his changed preparations because of the injury?

The logical consequence of the latter would be that Pogacar was weaker than Vingegaard from the outset. I don't see how problems in early June can come out as a drop in power mid July. (Or rather: There might be a connection, but it's not significant and not decisive.)

And yet, so many talk about this.
 
He won one (TT) stage, but you would expect someone finishing a GC with a 7m30s advantage on number 2 and 11 minutes (!) on number 3 to have more stage wins. If the Jumbo plan for today was indeed to win the stage (as mentioned by Van Baarle), then he must not have received this information, because how he rode, he would only have won if Pogacar'd messed up completely.
Great point. There's no way he wins a sprint against Pogi. But maybe Sepptimus' unfortunate crash forced them to go to Plan B.
 
You just have the feeling that Vingegaard didn’t ride to his full potential:
If he can pull off a tt like some days ago, you would expect him to actually race the race, but the next thing you see is him just following wheels and he would even do a track stand if Pog did one, to make absolutely sure he isn’t doing anything than following wheels.

i would have loved to see an aggressive Vingegaard today: it’s the TdF and he raced this last stage as if he was afraid to influence the outcome of the stage, while he could have raced it to show the world what he has in the legs. It’s great to see that in a tt, but better in a race.
There’s also the element of not running up the score or “piling on” whatever you want to call it. Even if it’s not intentional the perception that you’re rubbing your opponents face in the dirt can create bad blood with rivals. He still gave himself a chance to win the stage at the end, but he wasn’t going to just ride away with 5 Km to go whatever. There’s no gain for him or Jumbo to finish 10 minutes ahead as opposed to 7 minutes, and while Jumbo would have liked a stage win he still gave himself a shot.