OT ... The Tour de France so far...
Five stages left in the Tour and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Chris Froome took a lead after the first mountain stage over his three main prerace competitors; Quintana, Contador, and Nibali. The USA's Tejay Van Garderen has been excellent and was quickly anointed a fourth challenger to Froome. The second mountain stage featured repeated, seemingly coordinated attacks on Froome from the leaders of various teams and nothing put him in any discomfort at all. After that, Contador has been off his game and Nibali has been worse.
The situation has suggested the possibility of doping on the Sky team and has disgusted the French media and fans. Some ugliness has transpired including a cup of urine being thrown in Froome's face and his teamate Geraint Thomas being punched in the ribs while riding.
So Froome will win this thing fairly easily assuming he doesn't crash out. Peter Sagan continues to be a beast and will win the Green Jersey, but he hasn't increased his level of domination in the hilly stages the way I think he eventually will. No epic solo breakaways have succeeded (although a couple of very clever end-of-race attacks have). No bright new stars in the top 5 overall or in the sprints competition. All in all not what I was hoping for.
They hit the Alps tomorrow and maybe Quintana (currently second) can put Froome into some difficulty and shake things up. Also, here's hoping Tejay can hang onto his current 3rd place.
Contador has been off his game...
...since he quit doping.
He admitted to not being in the same shape as he was in the Giro. Classic case of peaking too early in the season. C'est la Vie.
6 weeks ago. I'm guessing that effort isn't helping him now. But yeah, your point is valid.
Nope, his problem is he's trying to do the Giro, Tour double and is virtually impossible to peak for both. He was just as dominant for the Giro. Hell, he even looked pretty good last tour despite doing the giro, before he crashed out.
All this talk about Giro is really making me hungry:
4 days in the Alps left including two major mountain top finishes and a third smaller mountain top finish. It is far from over
And Tejay fully admits that the Alps suit his riding style much better than the Pyrenees. I still think there are some surprises coming.
Favors tejay as far as not getting dropped. No way he rides anyone off his wheel doing steady tempo though. Froome and the sky train are also good at riding tempo on steady inclines. The only real chance anyone has is attacking them on the steeps and there just aren't that many kms above 10% left to go. Most of the guys behind him will probably be looking to protect their positions and fighting for a podium spot instead of really working together to crack Froome and sky from here on out. Hope I'm wrong, but that's been how tours with one dominant rider/team have gone done for years now.
I think Tejay is going to have to take a big risk and go early at a high tempo. That might be enough to get him clear of the better climbers. Although, that seems to be Sky's game and may not work. He doesn't seem to have any other choice though. BMC may just try to keep him on the podium.
Yeah, he and BMC have both publicly stated that the podium is the goal, not winning. I think they know tejay just doesn't have the firepower to beat the very best guys, especially with no long ITT this year. He also doesn't have a strong enough team to go on the offensive and he's too close on time for the leaders to let him get away on a solo attack.
Yes I agree with this. BMC and Tejay are just hoping to hold on to 3rd, I doubt he will be initiating any attacks. He doesn't have the team nor the skills to really try and put time on Quintana or Froome unless someone has a real bad day in which case the whole group will pounce. He could be a TDF winner someday but I think it will take a lilttle more improvement in climbing and a course with a long individual time trial.
Tejay doesn't have the acceleration to make a move on anybody. Plus unlike sky who always has 2 guys plus froome in the front, Tejay only has sammy sanchez who can't hold on when sky pushes the tempo. The best bet for Tejay is third behind quintana or valverde. If you aren't pulling for Froome, then movistar with those two guys is the best bet to get some time on him. I am pulling for Tejay, but Froome looks untouchable.
but the race has really lacked its usual drama both stage to stage and as a whole. Froome just looks better than anyone else and Thomas and Porte have been unflappable in protecting him.
I have been impressed by several riders who seemed to be near abandonment and have gutted their way through to fine performances including Barguil, Hanson and Mathews. Valverde has had a great tour both on and off the road.
I'm willing to bet that if Tinkoff-Saxo and BMC had equivalent riders to Porte and Thomas, things might be tighter or even different. Quintana/Valverde make for an interesting one-two punch, for MovieStar, but they don't seem to have figured out how to make it work.
But that second day in the Pyrenees featured attacks against Froome by Nairo, Contador, and Nibali and Froome didn't seem bothered at all. I would agree that a Porte, Thomas, Van Garderen combo in support of Porte would make a difficult situation for Froome.
I thought it was Richie Porte that was punched in the ribs. That crash that Geraint sustained, yesterday, was unreal. I figured he was concussed for sure. Say what you will about doping but they're pretty tough individuals none-the-less.
and I didn't watch yesterday's stage and missed the crash. You're right about their toughness though. After Tony Martin's crash he addressed the press before his xrays to discuss his possible continuation of the race and defense of the yellow jersey... All the while he was bleeding from a piece of collarbone poking through his skin.
I've broken my collar bone (crashing off my bike), albeit in a different spot. I have no idea how Tony got up, back on the bike and RODE to the finish with a compund fracture that required surgery to fix. That's "tuff-as-nails" tough.
As much as we love tough guys, I wish cycling backs off the continue at all costs culture a little. There's no way a guy who bonked his head off a telephone pole like that should be allowed to continue descending mountain roads at 60mph without getting checked out first.
Thomas ended up being fine, but Chris Horner, for example finished a whole stage a few years back without knowing where he was.
time to go back to the roids.
The US may as well stop competing. The Euros will never accept another US champ. Forever now, if the U.S. is winning, they'll scream "DOPING!"
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Well, they seem to be taking it out on Froome this year. I can understand the screaming and yelling but throwing piss, punching and spitting are low class.
They scream doping for every tour winner. All too easy to assume cheating when your guy isn't winning, given cycling's history.
Doping a "little bit". With the biological passport their cheating is radically confined compared to what we saw just a few years ago. Regardless of whether or how they dope, someone is gonna be the best. That doesn't mean he's cheating, it means he's the best.
Someone mentioned several days ago that much of the abuse cycling has taken over doping is a direct byproduct of the sport trying to clean itself up. I'm guessing we'd all be pretty dismayed if we knew how many CFB players swim in 'roids the way the old Texas Rangers locker room did.
The Euros will never accept another US champ.
Well, two of the three Americans to win it were dopers - and complete assholes, too. If they weren't our countrymen, I doubt any of us would defend Armstrong and Landis. Nationalism blinds everyone.
But anyway, Froome isn't American.
- The crashes and recoveries have been amazing
- Team Sky is protecting Chris Froome incredibly well
- Froome is a beast and will be hard to beat
- Team BMC needs one or two better riders to better contend with Team Sky next year
- The scenery and rhythm of Le Tour is great to watch
to lead BMC next year. Don't know how Tejay would feel about this or whether he'd be willing to become a domestique, but that's the rumor.
are both on the same team, I think it becomes a 2 headed monster, with the daily race situation dictating the team leader for the overall in the next Tour de France. I would be surprised if BMC would come out and make Porte the leader and Tejay the domestique at the onset of the race. If they did, it would just be for show until the race determined the true team leader anyway - like the 2nd year Cadel struggled, and TeJay was officially given the reigns.
but the rumor continues that Porte would move so he could lead a team. Clearly Froome is the boss at Sky, but I don't know if he'd agree to move without some assurance he'd get to be leader. Interesting how Sky has morphed from an all around team that chased the green jersey and stage wins to being purely a vehicle to win the overall GC.
Phil said on the air that Porte is going to BMC. No reason for him to leave Sky except to lead a team, but hard to figure how they're going to manage 2 great cyclists who have both left questions about their ability to win a grand tour. I don't think either will be happy being a domestique or not knowing before the start who the team leader will be.
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I'm guessing either could win a Giro or Vuelta if the team patterned their season to do so, but I don't think that's what either has in mind.
Clearly, they should let one lead a team at the Giro, the other at the Vuelta, and just skip the TDF altogether... ;)
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Up until the last couple days, the battle for the green jersey was the most exciting part of the race, but Sagan has taken the drama out of that as well. (Good for him, of course.)
I'm hoping that Nairo can make the Alps interesting, but it really seems like Froome would have to have an exceptionally bad day (or a crash) to lose 3 minutes. And Porte and/or Thomas always seem to be there when needed. Still can't believe Thomas wasn't seriously injured yesterday.
I have a feeling that the real battle may be Valverde vs. Tejay for 3rd. I don't think even Tejay thinks he'll take back time on Froome or Nairo.
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The race for the podium spots are going to be interesting, well for this at least (Quintana probably had second locked up). Lots of guys right around each other on time and about the same level.
As long as it's not Contador.
Froome and his team have been great but I'm really hoping to see Quintana and Valerde make this thing interesting over the next couple days. Quintana seems to get better in these 3 week Tours traditionally. I think Contador is struggling after the Giro (understandable) and Tejay is just not quite at the same level as Froome and Quintana. I'm hoping he can stay on the podium though.
Valverde is 35 and often fades in the last week. I'll be surprised if he gets a podium finish.
With Froome having things almost locked up, the suspense at the front is kinda low, but I watch for great efforts by other riders and teams. Geraint Thomas for one, has been riding out of his mind, and MTN Qhubeka is riding so much better than anyone thought they would. Polka dots for a few days, a stage win, and always have a guy or two up the road, I love the way they ride. I'm a cervelo guy though, so I might be a bit biased.
Ettix QuickStep on the other hand have really been no-shows. Martin had yellow for a little bit, Cav won one stage and that's about it, right? For a team as high powered as them, that's a bit dissapointing.
Finally, I love that Astana is doing nothing. Shouldn't even be racing.
that creep can roll, man.
Yeah, a pretty blah Tour aside from the yellow jersey crashes earlier. Hopefully there will be a good final week.