Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2020: Stage 17 (Sequeros > Alto de la Covatilla , 178.2 km)

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What a thrilling finale - I actually set my watch to count the seconds when Carapaz crossed the line
Roglic - you truly have managed to make us suffer during this season :grin: Luckily for him, there where no MTF stages left, otherwise could have won it easily........
 
How is that relevant? You think i'm British? :tearsofjoy:
I'm not asking Roglic to speak Dutch, so i don't know why you would ask me how my Slovenian is.
It's also not about him not knowing the words, his English is more than enough, it's the monotonous way in which he speaks, cut up by errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr after every word.


It's not about a language barrier imho. Plenty of people speak like that in their native language as well and it doesn't become any less irritating. And i'm not making fun of it, i'm simply saying it's annoying as hell.

Pogacar speaks in exactly the same way so maybe it does have something to do with being Slovenian.
 
What a finale today, in the end it delivered and it shows you don't need an Angliru type climb to make differences. We got our head to head battle, the only thing is the feeling of what if it was a longer climb, or they had attacked sooner.

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Wonder what Roglic could've done in the Tour and in this Vuelta with his Giro team.
Truth is the style of racing can vary a lot depending on many factors. For Roglič, he's been the biggest favourite (or co-favourite) and the reference point in the last 4 GTs he's entered and only confirmed that with strong showings in the first week of each of those GTs. In my opinion you almost cannot win a GT if you find yourself in this kind of situation and you have a poor team. You have to be head and shoulders above the rest and even then, if opponents with stronger teams attack you on different fronts, it's very likely you won't succeed. One example, where this happened and the rider was able to win despite not having the best team, was Contador in the Giro 2015 . And even then he was helped by the fact that Astana probably chose the wrong guy to ride for until it was to late.

It's different when you are a slight underdog. You can follow the stronger team of a pre-race leader. Lose a little time here and there, then gain a little time. You are still there in striking distance but all the opponents still have the pre-race favourite and his team as reference and ride accordingly. I this situation you can afford to have and win even with a bad (not that strong) team. An example is Pogačar in the most recent Tour.

It helps a lot (the slight underdog) when the strongest team (Jumbo Visma) use their strength mostly to defend and doesn't try to put their main opponents in difficult situations. But I think the defensive strategy was right for the Vuelta, while I don't think it was the right choice for the Tour. Of course in hindsight is always easier to be clever.
 
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But do you think some riders would ride differently then, if there was no time bonuses? For example Roglic...
I don't know. I have a hard time thinking of Roglic attacking earlier or more often to gain more 'real' time on his opponents in the absence of time bonuses. He has just made the best of his abilities, his consistency and team support given the circumstances. But maybe I can't get the conservatism of his team tactics and the comparison to Valverde out of my mind. And we wouldn't be having this discussion if he knew how to put on a rain jacket.