Tour de France - Stage 9, 168.5km - Saint-Girons / Bagnères-de-Bigorre, July 7th

[Aditya]

What went wrong with Zubeldia and Kloden today? They might be planning something big for one of the Alps stages.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Dauphine dejavu... Fuglsang shouldve attacked on the flat part - top 10 seems very likely for Fuglsang though, especially with TT in mind
Andy showed he is definitely good for top 10, if he doesnt lose too much time on the TT

 

[Escarabajo]

doping control was done yesterday too as he was stage winner

It was a joke. Because of the way the stage was ridden.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

They didnt try to dislodge him at any point. They rode tempo (as if they were the yellow jersey) the whole stage. Basically did Skys job for them giving sky extra strengh for the next week.

Well, thats just not true. Quintana tried a few times, but you saw the result. I never counted on Valverde to make a move, as he never will outside of 200m to go.

Endurance racing is exactly that. Endurance and fitness, and then racing and tactics. You're suggesting that movistar had bad tactics. They didn't, they just don't have the fitness to drop froome

 

[burning]

At least we learned one thing about today. The tour isn't just about one day. Froome still reign supreme today. But his faithful lieutenant toppel so hard in on one swoop. But Paris is still along way. The hardest stage hasn't come yet. Also the revelation of Quintana form. It's just too bad he went too early yesterday..

here's porte comment after dauphine:
"We are not at the top of our game just yet," he said. "I'd be a little worried if I was Contador or Rodríguez. As quiet as they are, I think they're a little bit stressed."

The Dauphiné wasn't an easy race and we were one-two. That's the goal. The other guys say they are chasing form, but I don't see how they can recover from two and a half minutes or whatever they're down in a dead flat 30K time trial. That's a lot of time to pull back in three weeks."

Boy how wrong he was today. Not only he lost his position, he coughed almost 18 minutes. Top form ey Porte? How come you cough so much time with rider who you called chasing his form?

Fixed it for you

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Highly entertaining day. Exactly how such a stage should be raced. Wish we will see more of that in every race.

Some cleanup at the top of the GC done with lots of wannabies effectively removed.

Great win by Martin.

Hard to ask more from a stage like this. Chapeau.

 

[sulgpallur]

cavendish is over the line

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

Exactly! You are only as strong as your leader and Quintana is unproven over 3 weeks. They have secured a high placing, and they will try again in the third week. At some stage they will let Quintana loose if he has the legs in the Alps. But not on stage 9. It was too early for them to hurt Valverde.

If Quintana was let go, only Froome would have followed him and they probably would have put 2 minutes onto Valverde. At least now they have Quintana 2:02 behind and Valverde 1:25 behind rather than Quintana 2:02 behind and Valverde 3 or 4 minutes behind which would have happened if Quintana maintained his attack. At least they have 2 riders closer to Froome so they have options in the third week to make him panic when Froome gets isolated again.

Fact is they tried to do something, and that is a positive sign for the Alps.

If only Froome could follow then Quintana waits up for Valverde to catchup and then either tries again or lets Valverde have a go. Rince and repeat. If Saxo threw in Roman as well they would have almost certainly broken Froome at some point.

 

[burning]

They tried when Quintana attacked but each time Froome responded.

Froome will be isolated again in the Alps, there's no doubt about that. His team is ****, and there are harder stages over consecutive days where they can try to do damage.

The only proper multi mountain stage is last Friday. They completely blew their biggest chance with no gain

 

[movingtarget]

Brailsford is super happy about last 3 hours

Why wouldn't he be. Sky get time to re group and Froome did not lose any time to his rivals.

 

[Sasquatch]

2nd and 3rd is a better hand to play tactically than 2nd and 7th.

Quintana is only 17 or so seconds from third place, and is better than the riders ahead of him minus Froome. When the time is that close, placings mean **** all. Fact is, both him and Valverde are 2 minutes within Froome at the moment. It will be more when Froome blitzes them all on Wednesday, but they are still placed well enough tactically.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

At least we learned one thing about today. The tour isn't just about one day. Froome still reign supreme today. But his faithful lieutenant toppel so hard in on one swoop. But Paris is still along way. The hardest stage hasn't come yet. Also the revelation of Quintana form. It's just too bad he went too early yesterday..

here's porte comment after dauphine:
"We are not at the top of our game just yet," he said. "I'd be a little worried if I was Contador or Rodríguez. As quiet as they are, I think they're a little bit stressed."

The Dauphiné wasn't an easy race and we were one-two. That's the goal. The other guys say they are chasing form, but I don't see how they can recover from two and a half minutes or whatever they're down in a dead flat 30K time trial. That's a lot of time to pull back in three weeks."

Boy how wrong he was after today. Not only he lost his position, he coughed almost 11 minutes. Top form ey Porte? How come you cough so much time with rider who you called chasing his form?

Uhm, Porte lost 17 minutes. He lost his entire lead to guys as Wout Poels and Robert gesink lol

 

[Bavarianrider]

Grupetto only 25 minutes back.

 

[sulgpallur]

that AG2R guy looks like Ricco

 

[Dazed and Confused]

They didnt try to dislodge him at any point. They rode tempo (as if they were the yellow jersey) the whole stage. Basically did Skys job for them giving sky extra strengh for the next week.

lol,

Movistar effectively removed a strong tactical weapon from Sky.

Solid and a well executed plan by Movistar today.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

2nd and 3rd is a better hand to play tactically than 2nd and 7th.

That would depend on the time gaps.

 

[bolingbroke]

Uhm, Porte lost 17 minutes. He lost his entire lead to guys as Wout Poels and Robert gesink lol

What do you expect he was receiving no help and was literally on his own and eventually gave up. He lost that amount of time through circumstance not because those riders are that much better than him.

 

[movingtarget]

Uhm, Porte lost 17 minutes. He lost his entire lead to guys as Wout Poels and Robert gesink lol

I thought the Borg were not supposed to be human. So much for theories.

 

[Gubby Allen]

Grupetto only 25 minutes back.

They were more than half that at the start of the second climb. Only lost about 12-14 mins in 4 cat1 climbs.

 

[Ferminal]

Nice finish time for the sprinters, they would have really pushed it all day. Good thing they weren't eliminated otherwise they may as well have just skipped the race until Ventoux.

 

[Poursuivant]

Dan Martin, please take your prize money and pay for some orthodontic work. Jesus, the guy's a walking stereotype.

Must be great being perfect.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

So ****ings close

 

[Sasquatch]

The only proper multi mountain stage is last Friday. They completely blew their biggest chance with no gain

I disagree. They still have stage 18, stage 19, stage 20 to hurt Froome.

Froome is most likely going to be isolated on all of those days. If not all of them, then you would think 2 of them. They still have at least 2 days to throw the kitchen sink at Froome.

Will they? Probably not because Froome is on another level to everyone else. But rest assured, they are going to try.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

What do you expect he was receiving no help and was literally on his own and eventually gave up. He lost that amount of time through circumstance not because those riders are that much better than him.

He was in the group with Gesink at some point, cameras were on him... simply not good enough to follow. He was dropping from groups that later came back in front

 

[The Hitch]

lol,

Movistar effectively removed a strong tactical weapon from Sky.

Solid and a well executed plan by Movistar today.

What tactical weapon? Some of you are being very vague in your analysis of what movistar achieved.