Tour de France Tour de France 2024: Stage 19: Embrun - Isola 2000, 19/07 144.6k

[Valv.Piti]

Arrogance knows no bounds

Nothing to do with arrogance, everything to do with trying to get ahead of clueless experts, journalists and july-watchers calling him greedy and what not.

 

[slim charles]

I don't really have a problem with him wanting to win every stage but that he succeeds at that is something that I don't like. But that is a subject for a different part of the forum.

Which, at the same time, I am really tired of (not the forum but just generally thinking about that).

I really do enjoy watching Pogačar, he is immensely fun, seems like a genuinely decent guy - though there is some arrogance, too.

Whatever, I don't think the things will change, I just wish I could turn off the cynical part of my brain completely.

 

[Tim Cahill]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814310404274679886

 

[RedheadDane]

This hardly seems fair!

139	BALLERINI Davide	Astana Qazaqstan Team				43:46
140	BOL Cees	Astana Qazaqstan Team				,,
141	CAVENDISH Mark	Astana Qazaqstan Team				,,
DNF	EEKHOFF Nils	Team dsm-firmenich PostNL				-
DNS	KÜNG Stefan	Groupama - FDJ				-
DNS	STEWART Jake	Israel - Premier Tech				-
OTL	DÉMARE Arnaud	Arkéa - B&B Hotels				43:46

(It's gotta be a mistake. They showed the Astana riders coming in several minutes before Demare.)

 

[shalgo]

Most stage wins in Tour de France history.

#	Rider	Wins	2nd	3rd	Active
1	CAVENDISH Mark	35	4	5	Yes
2	MERCKX Eddy	34	18	11
3	HINAULT Bernard	28	12	6
4	LEDUCQ André	25	13	19
5	DARRIGADE André	22	12	5
6	FRANTZ Nicolas	20	18	12
7	FABER François	19	10	11
8	ALAVOINE Jean	17	9	8
9	PÉLISSIER Charles	16	16	10
10	ANQUETIL Jacques	16	9	4
11	LE GREVÈS René	16	6	6
12	MAERTENS Freddy	15	9	7
13	POGAČAR Tadej	15	7	7	Yes
14	KITTEL Marcel	14	2	2
15	THYS Philippe	13	11	13
16	TROUSSELIER Louis	13	4	8
17	ZABEL Erik	12	22	19
18	SAGAN Peter	12	22	13
19	INDURAIN Miguel	12	13	8
20	MCEWEN Robbie	12	10	6

Two thoughts on this table:

1. It's amazing to see Maertens there, given that he only rode the Tour three times.

2. Of course Zabel and Sagan have the most second-place finishes.

 

[magliaroz]

I don’t care… I’m just here to watch Team Sky/Ineos beaten at their own game by UAE and Visma of building super teams that suffocate the race year after year.

Oh, the naps I had thanks to the mountain trains...

 

[tobydawq]

Démare outside the time limit for the third time in his Tour career.

 

[RobertCrawley]

In his interview with Neilson Powless, Peacock's Steve Perino kept up the polemic about Tadej not allowing others to win.

Powless said, essentially, there is no expectation of gifts in professional cycling.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Démare outside the time limit for the third time in his Tour career.

And people say the time limits are laughable.

 

[magliaroz]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814310404274679886

I hope this is a joke. It' s clear Vingo waved the white flag and told them to try and win the stage.

 

[fbjim]

In his interview with Neilson Powless, Peacock's Steve Perino kept up the polemic about Tadej not allowing others to win.

Powless said, essentially, there is no expectation of gifts in professional cycling.

between commentators literally talking about twitter trolls, the period where everyone was talking about "balls" for like 48 hours, and people saying that breakaways never win stages anymore because GC teams won two stages in the Pyrenees, i think interviewers and pundits just make up things to talk about sometimes

 

[RobertCrawley]

I hope this is a joke. It' s clear Vingo waved the white flag and told them to try and win the stage.

In his post-race interview, Jorgenson said that Visma changed plans midrace. [I read: When it was clear Jonas could not go.] That's when they told Jorgenson and Keldermann to go for the stage win.

 

[jono]

Derek Gee is a top athlete. Just cos you dont know his ability doesnt mean he cant do what he did . He showed how he can climb at the Dauphine. Thisd forum is ridiculous ...no one is allowed to turn up and be good except those you deem worthy

If you think I'm insinuating things about his level, nothing could be further from the truth, and I also don't think you'll find a bigger Gee fan here than me. But he doesn't have a climber's physiology, and I thought he had peaked for the Dauphine and hoped to chase stages in breakaways in the Tour. Correct choice, in the end, to target GC with so few stages going to the breakaway.

I'm thrilled for him, but there are so many guys I view as better climbers and GC guys behind him. That's sport I guess. But it's more surprising to me than Pogacar beating a poorly prepared Vingegaard by 5 minutes.

 

[fbjim]

In his post-race interview, Jorgenson said that Visma changed plans midrace. [I read: When it was clear Jonas could not go.] That's when they told Jorgenson and Keldermann to go for the stage win.

i didn't want to say it and look like an idiot but once Jorgenson and Keldermann were taking big pulls on Bonnette i kind of suspected that is what they were doing

 

[Tim Cahill]

I hope this is a joke. It' s clear Vingo waved the white flag and told them to try and win the stage.

Yeah it's just a pastiche of the hyperbolic climbing record announcements on twitter at the moment

 

[Penninepeddler]

Two thoughts on this table:

1. It's amazing to see Maertens there, given that he only rode the Tour three times.

2. Of course Zabel and Sagan have the most second-place finishes.

van Aert is coming for them.

10x 2nds now.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

1. It's amazing to see Maertens there, given that he only rode the Tour three times.

No surprise the real Freddy displaying to be one of Le Patrons. A different time where 'transfer stages' had patrons as favourites here, doing their job on their comfort ground.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

In case people have forgotten. Last year, Vingo won by 7:29 over Pog, the largest MOV in like a decade, I believe. Only something like 16 riders were within 1 hour of Vingo on GC.
For all the pearl-clutching going on here, if anything, last year was even more monstrous than this year.

 

[AnotherArmChair]

I don't think we've seen yet how good this guy can be.

Yes he is brilliant

If you think I'm insinuating things about his level, nothing could be further from the truth, and I also don't think you'll find a bigger Gee fan here than me. But he doesn't have a climber's physiology, and I thought he had peaked for the Dauphine and hoped to chase stages in breakaways in the Tour. Correct choice, in the end, to target GC with so few stages going to the breakaway.

I'm thrilled for him, but there are so many guys I view as better climbers and GC guys behind him. That's sport I guess. But it's more surprising to me than Pogacar beating a poorly prepared Vingegaard by 5 minutes.

Fair enough but I think you may have to reassess your expectations/judgement of Derek's abilities

 

[RobertCrawley]

i didn't want to say it and look like an idiot but once Jorgenson and Keldermann were taking big pulls on Bonnette i kind of suspected that is what they were doing

FYI, it's ok to look like an idiot on this chat board. No one has held it against me, as far as I can tell.

 

[Salvarani]

In case people have forgotten. Last year, Vingo won by 7:29 over Pog, the largest MOV in like a decade, I believe. Only something like 16 riders were within 1 hour of Vingo on GC.
For all the pearl-clutching going on here, if anything, last year was even more monstrous than this year.

Yup

Nothing will beat that TT

 

[FrontHeadlock]

Good for Powless. In a sense, gifting stages devalues them, except in unusual circumstances (as in stage 1 this year, when teammates took each other to the finish and Bardet was "allowed" to take the win). Pog and Jorgenson ride for different teams. Pog did right by his team and showed that he cherishes every grand tour stage.

There is a difference between "gifting" a stage and not going for every stage.

There are riders in the peloton who hold back in certain stages. Are those stages "gifted" because not every single rider is going for the victory?

 

[titan31]

Their logic is that having a few guys winning everything and do battle against each other will draw in a casual audience because it doesn't require the same attention-span and can be condensed into 5 minute YouTube shorts and Netflix documentaries. The problem is that it isn't the reason a lot of us posting here watch, cycling historically has been a long-form sport that rewarded engagement and attention to detail with its massive pool of potential winners and this is what we became accustomed to, the assumption we worked under.

Contrast the discourse of younger posters on reddit/twitter with the mood on here right now, the sport to varying degrees has always required a suspension of belief that is completely gone amongst most fans that have been paying attention for any period of time, but the money keeps on rolling in and the newer fans are pouring in.

The bubble will burst eventually as usual, and these once new fans (the ones that stick around) will become cynical trolls like myself, but for now unfortunately our opinions are a bit irrelevant.

There is still plenty of cycling to enjoy, so I continue to watch, but if any new fan might happen to see this post, don't deify these top guys, don't hold them on a pedestal, because they will just let you down, they always do.

I dunno, like if I compare cycling to F1. F1 have had a pretty big issue the last few years where it was Max turns up and Max wins. It turned off casuals and some of the longer term fans a bit and really didn't help on converting the DTS audience into more F1 fans (like earlier seasons did where we had Max vs Lewis in competition). The most extreme one I can think of of the sports I watch is mens cross country skiing as without the Russians, even I barely watch it anymore as it's just what Norwegian wins.

Cycling I think has a danger of going a similar direction if this sort of domination continues by Pogacar and VdP in the classics (those races were done whenever he attacked this year). Cycling needs a competition, even if it's just Pog vs Vingegaard and VDP vs WVA, but the one man shows we've basically got in every major race this year will kill it. The other thing is someone like Jorgensen winning today (a US rider winning a stage in the Tour again) does far more for the sport than Pogacar winning another stage. It's the same as Girmay winning earlier in the race, or Bardet's win. Those wins do far more for the sport than Pogacar winning again does (same as when we get breakaways that make it as you can do a person wins against all odds narrative).

 

[JosefK]

There is a difference between "gifting" a stage and not going for every stage.

There are riders in the peloton who hold back in certain stages. Are those stages "gifted" because not every single rider is going for the victory?

Fair point. I soured on my own comment after re-reading it and deleted it. ... Carry on.

 

[movingtarget]

How is it a humiliation...The man was in intensive care 8 weeks ago . Behave
Anyone who can get 2nd in the Tour after that is as tough as steel


Derek Gee is a top athlete. Just cos you dont know his ability doesnt mean he cant do what he did . He showed how he can climb at the Dauphine. Thisd forum is ridiculous ...no one is allowed to turn up and be good except those you deem worthy

This is no necessarily the best he can do . Why is it ? he has 6 weeks to train and this is what he did. If that annoying poster (James M) who keeps posting over and over again about Vingegaards best numbers last week in the Pyrenees would think for a moment . Its not about your best numbers on one day ...its about your recovery and best numbers every day ...that is based on your base which he never got a chance to build after his injury. For me it feels he went deep today and probably feels he let the team down and was emotional ..He tried and did well considering where he came from

What II meant, is the best he could do with the preparation he had. Some riders do exactly the same prep and races every season and the variability of the results is huge and they never know why. Missing a block of training and racing to compete against someone like Pogacar is never going to go well. Even Evenepoel is looking as good as Vingegaard at the moment if not better. The TT should be interesting re the results of the top 3. Vingegaard looks like he is getting weaker in the final week but most people do against Pogacar in the form he has had for the past 3 months or so.