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What is the best Grand Tour of the year?

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What was the best GT this year


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If you are an Australian you are obliged to vote for Giro. No other race comes close then. You have my full support on that one.

As for Roglič i would imagine he is rather fine now. In this regard. He doesn't have to obsess with Tour and beating Pogi on the Tour anymore. On top of that he got Pogi off his wheel. As for JV and supporting Roglič on the Tour. I agree with that being a far cry. In 23 hence Rogla will likely have to do Giro - Vuelta double. And maybe to go to Tour in 24. Preferably as UCI No.1.
Pogi never recovered from stage 11. As a neutral observer I much prefer to see Roglič win the TdF than Vingegaard. Can't say more here and I have expressed my reasoning long ago in the other forum.
 
Tour > Vuelta > Giro

Vuelta got interesting `when Evenepoel started riding away on stage 6, and again after his crash when Roglic and Mas narrowed the gap. To top it all off there was the Roglic drama.
Giro got interesting about 5 minutes before the final mountain stage ended. Until then the cork was the main antagonist.

I'd rate them 8 for the Tour, 5.5 for the Vuelta and 3 for the Giro.
 
Tour 8.5
Giro 4
Vuelta 3

Tour was very exciting this year and had a lot of stages that got my full attention due to the way it was raced. The way Pogacar finally suffered was very nice to see and of course the ever impressive Wout van Aert made an extreme mark on this race.

Giro was quite poor by standards set in the last two decades. Parcours wise it was still ok for me, but the way it was raced absolutely sucked. So the Giro could have been much better for me, but I still rate it higher than the vuelta because of the parcours that at least made it exciting at some points in the race for me.

Vuelta had a parcours that shouldn’t even be allowed for a WT. Only half a proper mountain stage, two decent unipuerto stages and the rest was utter sh*t. Some excitement happened because Remco is a real racer who started to suffer a little nearing the end of the race. But still I had troubles motivating myself to watch stages even though I usually hardly miss an opportunity to watch cycling.
 
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So when exactly would this current era start? I think there are enough posters around who remember the Tours from the 80s to have those Tours valued as well. Since the time it happend, the 89 Tour has been widely considered the greatest Tour ever and even a quick read through a race summary would explain why.

So only one race can get the top grade?

I think my students would be quite sad if I applied that logic on them.
 
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Nah, 2003 had it all. 2007 was still better too. A closer GC fight and I'd reconsider though

No, it didn't have "it all".

It had a first week consisting of one prologue, one TTT and five bunch sprints, four of which were won by the same rider who then abandoned.

I really think that for all the "recency bias" some people criticise fans of the 2022 Tour for having, people have forgotten all the tedious stages of past races and only remember the GC battle.

Which could have been much better in 2003, if the guy who looked like he could beat the tyrant didn't crash out - albeit spectacularly.

It even had the bad guy winning in the end.havi
 
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Tour > Vuelta > Giro

Vuelta got interesting `when Evenepoel started riding away on stage 6, and again after his crash when Roglic and Mas narrowed the gap. To top it all off there was the Roglic drama.
Giro got interesting about 5 minutes before the final mountain stage ended. Until then the cork was the main antagonist.

I'd rate them 8 for the Tour, 5.5 for the Vuelta and 3 for the Giro.
I agree almost entirely with this.

I’d probably bump Tour up to a 9 even though I was disappointed Roglic crashed out. Basically every stage was thrilling.

Vuelta next. I think it’s being somewhat underrated here because so many crashed out or underperformed but the rise of Remco was a big deal. And Roglic from start to early finish was riveting. The stage in which he crashed out was truly shocking. More excitement in my opinion in about 5 minutes that the entire Giro.

The Giro is tough because on the one hand it can be boring to watch someone dominate, as some have indicated about Vingegaard and the Tour, but on the other hand watching three evenly matched riders riding mountains together is pretty dull. I think the difference was their passiveness. They all assumed they were evenly matched and no one tried much until that last mountain stage. In the Tour, by contrast, Pogacar and Vingegaard attacked over and over again. Vingegaard would not allow a meter of space and yet Pogacar tried again and again. It likely cost him, but it was a champion’s effort.

Tour 9
Vuelta 6
Giro 3
 
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Tour was quite a show this year and clearly the best GT. Although there was a sense of inevitability to GC battle after stage 11, the racing was very good regardless.
Vuelta was good, but not great. Breakout or confirmation of new strong GT riders makes me rate it a bit more favourably.
Giro was disappointing, a victim of a perfect storm of unfavourable circumstances. From route design meant to keep the race close as long as possible, to abandonment of some riders who could have made it livelier and more unpredictable and relative evenness of remaining contenders in the mountains.

Tour 8, Vuelta 6, Giro 3.
 
I can't rank it higher than better GTs I've watched, no matter how long ago. But everyone is free to enjoy their recency bias.
If you have watched 100 GTs, would you say that the distribution of their rating is uniform or normal? So how many of them were 8+? In any case, you can give this year's Tour a 9.1 and have the '89 edition as 9.8. A high score for this edition doesn't mean that there isn't space for even higher scores for other editions, so no recency bias is necessary.

It's no secret that I rank them ordinally, thus the distribution of scores is uniform.
 
No, it didn't have "it all".

It had a first week consisting of one prologue, one TTT and five bunch sprints, four of which were won by the same rider who then abandoned.

I really think that for all the "recency bias" some people criticise fans of the 2022 Tour for having, people have forgotten all the tedious stages of past races and only remember the GC battle.

Which could have been much better in 2003, if the guy who looked like he could beat the tyrant didn't crash out - albeit spectacularly.

It even had the bad guy winning in the end.havi
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If you have watched 100 GTs, would you say that the distribution of their rating is uniform or normal? So how many of them were 8+? In any case, you can give this year's Tour a 9.1 and have the '89 edition as 9.8. A high score for this edition doesn't mean that there isn't space for even higher scores for other editions, so no recency bias is necessary.

It's no secret that I rank them ordinally, thus the distribution of scores is uniform.
In practice it is closer to a small-lambda Poisson distribution.
 
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The Tour was a great show. I'm too young to have watched pre-2000, but I'm fairly sure that a lot of the great stages and GC's in consequence, have been down to the overall teams strength and the way it's been ridden...
Nowadays with the teams strength it's really hard to get the race blown into
pieces in the penultimate climb over 3 different stages. Let alone the heat and the overall speed. Tour 2022 is probably the best we'll get in a long time. I do agree with the ones saying that GC battle was done deal after stage 11, but I rate stage to stage battle more than the overall battle.
That's why I give it a 9.

Vuelta was better than expected, but fairly mediocre race, mostly down to the parcours and the fact that Remco's only true opponent had to withdraw.
I give it 5,5

I love the Giro and Italy's scenery, but
the Giro was horrible. The design of the Mountain stages was bad, the racing was even more. The fact that so many people speak about the last 3km on Fedaia says how boring the race was. In many previous editions that stage wouldn't even be mentioned as it would've been fairly regular mountain stage finale.
The Torino stage was great, but didn't help much.
Rate it 3.5
 
The Tour was really great this year because there were a lot of highly entertaining stages. GC wise it wasn't really close. The moment Vingegaard took the yellow, it was basicly over. The vuelta was GC wise much closer but there were some boring stages in it. If you cut out WVA I think Vuelta en TDF would be close. But because of WVA the Tour was so much more entertaining.

The cyclist are always making the race, so whenever Pogi and WVA are in the mix it is fun to watch. To bad MVDP was completly out of form otherwise it could have been truly epic.
 
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