Tour de France Tour de France 2024:Stage 21: Monaco - Nice, 21/07, 33.7k (ITT)

[dacooley]

To me, there's no question who will win if both reach top shape, but we heavily need the landscape providing exciting battle for the overall win. I'm convinced the others will partially close down the gap until the next tour. Any domination results in a dominator weakening the grip in a way and competitors desperately searching and finding ways of improvent. But if it will be enough to catch Pogačar... Life will tell.

 

[Netserk]

I coudn't disagree with this more. Tadej did the same thing last year. And those injuries were no joke. The guy was completely sedentary without any exercise for quite a while. It wasn't one of those accidents where you were at least back on the trainer quickly.

I don't think that's true.

EDIT: Maybe I misunderstood you. I don't think it's true of Pogi last year, to be clear.

 

[James M]

And no mic drop at the end.

To do the dobule in the most competitve Tour in ages and the style he did. Okei Tadej okei. Truly out of this world. We are all lucky arent we simply amazing

 

[Cookster15]

Do you have @Red Rick on ignore?

How about linking what @Red Rick posted since I obviously missed it?

 

[hayneplane]

and Sean Kelly on live Eurosport said the F-word ? and was reprimanded by mother Orla.. < sheesh>

Funniest thing about that is that Sean Kelly has such an incomprehensible accent that it is likely very few people picked up on the F bomb prior to Orla issuing the apology

 

[Izzyeviel]

Funniest thing about that is that Sean Kelly has such an incomprehensible accent that it is likely very few people picked up on the F bomb prior to Orla issuing the apology

I watched that bit three times & I still have no *** idea what he said

 

[hayneplane]

It's done folks!

I thought he was going to step off the bike and do this on the finishing line as well which would have been super cool

 

[Lequack]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAJw0qSOuKo

 

[awavey]

I thought he was going to step off the bike and do this on the finishing line as well which would have been super cool

I did think for a moment too thats what he was thinking, but that really would be taking the proverbial in a TT, and probably finable by the UCI

 

[awavey]

I watched that bit three times & I still have no *** idea what he said

theyve edited it out of the online version

 

[Izzyeviel]

theyve edited it out of the online version

i was watching it live, rewinded several times & nope

 

[hayneplane]

I did think for a moment too thats what he was thinking, but that really would be taking the proverbial in a TT, and probably finable by the UCI

Would have taken some serious cojones from the UCI to fine him like Bernard for not giving his best effort if he stopped short of the line and and celebrated for a few seconds before crossing the line.

 

[awavey]

i was watching it live, rewinded several times & nope

its funny because I was watching Eurosport for the stage, as Hatch & Kelly were making more sense than normal, , but as soon as they went back to the studio, I channel hopped to ITV to watch the podium as I got burnt last year whilst Orla & co wittered on about nothing as usual in the studio and showed well none of it frankly.

so I missed it

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Pog
Vingegaard @30
Evenepoel @1 minute or thereabouts.

It's a climbing & descending ITT. Add the fact it's a GT third week time trial (on the last day, no less) & the hierarchy should be respected, which is Pog number one because he's the best climber & visibly has the best form, then Vingegaard & then the rest etc.

I don't think Evenepoel's natural superiority in a TT will have any relevance on this unique profile & TdF stage 21 at all.

Only 2 responded to my invitation to guess the timings, but this was the closest, with a total error of 47 seconds, compared to 69 for @Zoetemelk-fan and 117 for yours truly.

 

[2WpK]

Remco would have beaten JV if he could have worn his own skinsuit.

 

[woodburn]

Nah, Vingegaards loss is more severe as he never cracked and got 6 minutes nonetheless. He even said he was better than ever. So it's a crushing defeat imo, even though his preparation was very problematic, because he still was on great form.

The issues wasn't whether JV was better than ever. These guys improve every year. The issue was whether he was at his best possible form. And that is obviously not true due to the preparation. Even if his power numbers would have been the same - which is highly doubtful - you can see how much time he lost on the descents this tour - both on stages and TT. Pretty good indication how much the crash had an impact on him.

Does it mean he would have won? Probably not. But trying to draw deep conclusions from this Tour is really kind of meaningless as it was to draw same conclusion from JV dominating Pog last year. Pog goes out and rips him next year with both having fair prep then we'll have the asnswer.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

The issues wasn't whether JV was better than ever. These guys improve every year. The issue was whether he was at his best possible form. And that is obviously not true due to the preparation. Even if his power numbers would have been the same - which is highly doubtful - you can see how much time he lost on the descents this tour - both on stages and TT. Pretty good indication how much the crash had an impact on him.

Does it mean he would have won? Probably not. But trying to draw deep conclusions from this Tour is really kind of meaningless as it was to draw same conclusion from JV dominating Pog last year. Pog goes out and rips him next year with both having fair prep then we'll have the asnswer.

Ad improvement: sure, right now they do so. But it's not that there is no ceiling to this and Vingegaard is 27 and he did kinda push 6.8 watts/kg the other day for 40 min. (Atleast that's the assumption because he said there were very good calculations of the actual numbers) I mean to say: these are all time great numbers. We can't just assume that will go on forever, which is not to say that Vingegaard won't improve next year.

Ad deep conclusions: wasn't trying to draw any. I merely pointed out that I think it's a harder blow when your numbers say you are at your best ever outputs rather than this not being the case, simply because you can't expect your best ever numbers to simply improve significantly. Because that's what they've gotta do because he has ride Pogacar of his wheel because he can't at all match his acceleration with was apparent already last year.

Next year, next round so (hopefully). I'd like to see them meet each other with perfect prep to battle it out. As of today it's unclear who the winner would be. My money would be on Pog though, as he simply has more weapons than Vingegaard. Mind you he had the Giro in his legs and he still did what he did, so we also can't be sure this is peak peak Pogacar we've seen as he's still young plus he could come to the Tour fresher next year.

 

[dacooley]

There is a glaring gap between the Giro in the legs for Pogacar and the Giro in the legs for Froome, Contador or Pantani. The entire Giro field almost immediately realized that Pogacar was riding kind of out of competition. No stress, no doubts, no tough decisions, no opponents defying you... It turned out to be more of 21 day long training. I'm inclined to think the Giro clearly impacted his Tour shape in a positive way.

 

[AmRacer]

There is a glaring gap between the Giro in the legs for Pogacar and the Giro in the legs for Froome, Contador or Pantani. The entire Giro field almost immediately realized that Pogacar was riding kind of out of competition. No stress, no doubts, no tough decisions, no opponents defying you... It turned out to be more of 21 day long training. I'm inclined to think the Giro clearly impacted his Tour shape in a positive way.

There wasn't any competition at the Tour either.

 

[dacooley]

There wasn't any competition at the Tour either.

It was stiffer in the Tour, despite the relativity of absense of competition. Until the Pla-d'Adet stage Pogacar had no guarantee... On Lioran he even got light ass-kicking.

 

[AmRacer]

It was stiffer in the Tour, despite the relativity of absense of competition. Until the Pla-d'Adet stage Pogacar had no guarantee... On Lioran he even got light ass-kicking.

As he did first Giro stage.

 

[Salvarani]

It was stiffer in the Tour, despite the relativity of absense of competition. Until the Pla-d'Adet stage Pogacar had no guarantee... On Lioran he even got light ass-kicking.

More like a soft pat on his tush.

 

[SHAD0W93]

It was stiffer in the Tour, despite the relativity of absense of competition. Until the Pla-d'Adet stage Pogacar had no guarantee... On Lioran he even got light ass-kicking.

Pogacar’s hardest competition was the sign on stage 5.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Goat smoked 'em all.
Burn offerings ..
not burnt Goat.

 

[dacooley]

More like a soft pat on his tush.

From global perspective you are right, but that was clearly the only stage when Pogacar expierenced some negative emotions. During all the other stages he was obviously enjoying the race and his own domination. Pla-d'Adet stage was a turning point...