Decent if not super spectacular stage regardless, but now that Pinot has retired, Bardet is under strict instructions that breaking French hearts is solely his responsibility now. He has to hang out there long enough to give them hope.
Well, were they really expecting to drop vinge or anyone with sivakov and wellens? In my book there is no secondary leader when Pogacar is racing.
Really don't think he would have found a group willing to work together though. That only works if the attack is hard enough and the group sufficiently small but the peloton was not thinned out enough to achieve that. I think an attack by someone like Yates, perhaps on the penultimate climb, was always more likely anyway, but the way the race went Visma, RB and Ineos simply would have buitlt a train against which Yates wouldn't have had a chance. They simply needed to reduce the peloton more than they did but were not willing/able to do so.
It wasnt a very good opportunity to do so and I dont think you can come to that conclusion based on today.They did not even test the field. All we know is that Ayuso is useless. So UAE is at least getting some information from stage 1
Emirates killed the action, when they stopped pushing for no reason.
Once all of their 3 helpers were done they stopped not wanting to use any of their secondary leaders.
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