Tour de France Tour de France 2025 Stage 15: Muret – Carcassonne (169.3k)

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The problem is the green jersey has become something of an underwhelming competition, quite often won by default if there is no dominant sprinter, and because it is weighted toward flat stages, often the sprinters get stage wins in and of themselves as a reward and aren't as bothered by the maillot vert competition, so it isn't often we get what I'd call a genuine competition for the jersey; the most interesting recent competition for green to me was 2020 with Bennett trying to get stage winning chunks and a not-quite-at-his-best Sagan trying to manoeuvre into a win by making undulating stages hard to drop Bennett, or drilling the echelons all day in stage 7 (which had a positive effect on the GC race as well as a bonus effect), and then that was taken away prematurely after Sagan got a relegation and Bennett's lead became too much to catch back up.

Obviously van der Poel rather fits the profile of most recent winners of the jersey to fit in the heritage of a jersey won more commonly by World Champions and classics-adept sprinters rather than pure sprinters (while the Cavendishes and McEwens of this world have green jerseys, there are more of the Boonen, Hushovd, Freire type) better than Milan, with Sagan the record winner and van Aert's recent wins, but during Sagan's time he would gain points the way MVDP is doing, but also be more competitive in the bunch sprints so he could collect points in big chunks in the 50-pt stages as well as the lower point level ones.

Perhaps Milan might not feel right because of the profile of winners, but it's not that different to how Thor Hushovd won it in 2009 (save for that solo break exploit in the queen stage, which is mostly what is remembered about it), just collecting points for positions behind Cavendish, or even how some of Sagan's points jerseys were won, because the thing with a lot of those was that the competition was dead by this point in the race because none of the sprinters could gain enough on Sagan in the sprint stages - even after the points system was changed to explicitly favour flat stages even more - to cover their deficits in the intermediate and mountain stages he could win at least the intermediates in, and would open up a lead that meant he only needed to manage the score the rest of the way. Hell, Ale-Jet Petacchi did the same in 2010 before the points system was changed - but both are high profile enough as riders for sprints and one-day races that they don't stand out as a surprise on the list of jersey winners the way, say, Baden Cooke does.
I feel queasy.. Boonen, Petacchi, Hushovd, Cav have something in common with Milan? Say it ain't so..
 
Vingegaard has a huge margin between himself and third so his podium is pretty much secured.

It sounds cynical because it really is but these teams want stage wins now. Visma included. The fact they're ready to leave Vinge out in the sticks is just pretty much what cycling has become.
An opinion sure, but that crash, this crash is an unknown..
Vingegaard could have been out completely, injuries unknown or could pull off and get in the car, go for pizza with Remco and Ganna, Philipsen, nothing is for sure..Visma needs to stop, absolutely abandoned the stupidity of thinking Vingegaard's podium is a forgone conclusion.. Visma is racing like they are drunk for @14 days!! Do the basics before the extras not after.. Visma need to stop chewing gum and walking, stick to just walking.. Baby steps for getting Jonas back to the bunch.. The director giving Wout, Jorgensen, Yates, Ving independent plans is insane.. Even clowns in the circus have limits on how many balls you can juggle at once.. The director should have got a yellow card daily for deranged tactics.. In Visma misses the podium you can't blame the riders..Don't let Diddy plan the party..
 
Mathieu is close to green without even doing the flat sprints. You could surely get Milan and Pedersen together here. Haven’t seen much of the other Trek riders beside Simmons. And the sprint train in 1 stage. Never knew why they couldn’t get Mads in.
Milan was specifically brought in because Pedersen did not want to do the bunch sprints anymore, he would rather drop a little weight to be able to hack it with MvdP and Pogacar in MSR and Flanders.

Obviously he did not expect to be dropped for the Tour, especially the route being what it is with very few actual bunch sprints.
 
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Also commentators acting like its a problem that we have several types of rider type contesting green is just a clown show. Its a damn point competition, not a flat sprint competition- Milan, MVDP, Grimay and Pog is perfect and thats how it should be - pure sprinter, durable sprinter, puncheur and all-round
I would argue that a well balanced points competition should have several types of rider type contesting green, and that, much like how pure climbers of yesteryear could feel like they could contest GC but could only win if they were truly elite, special climbers like van Impe, Fuente or Bahamontés, the green jersey competition should be one to reward the durable and the varied riders such that the pure sprinters should feel like they can contest it (if not, they get enough reward in stage wins anyway) but only the truly elite pure sprinters can win it (think like McEwen and Cavendish in earlier years) whereas riders with more strings to their bow like Boonen and Hushovd will be better candidates.

I mean, hell, I've said at least a couple of times that the type of rider that Peter Sagan is is, in fact, the absolute perfect type of rider for who should be contesting and winning the maillot vert, my problem with him winning it was purely personal.