OT: Tour de France Stage 19 Postmortem
Stage 19 cancelled mid-descent with what appears to be a mud/snow/rain landslide that overtook the road ahead. Bernal looks to be taking the yellow jersey from the decision to take everyone's times at the top of the previous climb. And Pinot abandons the tour with a torn hamstring.
What did I just watch?
Climate change. #nopolitics
yep. as we all know, landslides never happened until global warming.
inclusion of the "/s" signal should apparently be mandatory in all such posts
I guess it should .... apparently the (what i thought was clear) sarcasm was missed in my comment as well
Having been on this earth almost 70 years, it has become obvious to me years ago that many, if not most , people will always jump to a negative conclusion.
Using your logical construction: since Michigan did in fact have positive rushing yardage when Drevno was the offensive line coach, that clearly precludes the possibility that a different offensive line coach could ever have a more potent rushing attack. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
Don’t even know where to start:
1. The question of whether there is a link between climate change and landslides has nothing to do with politics. It is in fact a scientific question
2. Since a significant contributor to landslides is extreme rainfall events and since climate change exacerbates extreme rainfall events, it is not ridiculous to think that in some cases an increase in landslides could in fact be related to climate change
3. If one were to take the 10 seconds it would take to do a websearch, one would actually find a fair amount on the topic
Come on man. This has nothing to do with global warming but that a cow farted and that is what started the avalanche.
Not saying this specific instance has anything to do with global warming. Just pointing out:
1. How stupid any of the myriad of comments that people make like, “it was hot in the past, therefore being hot now can’t be related to climate change is:
2. There actually is a pretty obvious potential link between some kinds of landslides (e.g. those caused by extreme weather events” and climate change.
But if you’d actually taken the time to read my post, you’d already know that.
Holy landslide Batman!
Wish I could have seen it. Don't know if I will be able to see the rerun tonight.
Kind of a radical approach to covering up those graffiti on the roadway.
I could have won a stage in the Tour de France - on my fat tire bike! Opportunity lost...
Chaos. The wildest Tour... ever?
Today's abrupt finish was definitely disappointing. The final vale and the final climb hadn't happened, and who knows what was coming next. Would Bernal run out of gas in the runup to the final climb? Could Alaphilippe make it back to the other leaders on the descent? It was all to race for.
I suspect that Alaphilippe would actually have lost more time at the end of the stage, but that's just a suspicion. He didn't get a chance to show it. Pinot's abandon was really disappointing, too.
But Bernal really crushed it up Izeran, and he's not an undeserving leader. If he weren't on Ineos I would be more excited about it, but it's now his race to lose.
@cyclocosm is angry that the stage was retroactively halted without everyone knowing the finishing point, and he has a point. The tactics are entirely different if everyone knows they will finish on top of Izeran. It really looked like the non-Bernal group was staying together on purpose, planning for extra miles. Let Bernal tire himself out while saving energy in the group. If it had been the final climb we might have seen more attacks from the leaders, and perhaps someone like Kruisjwijk finishing closer to Bernal. Or Thomas actually trying to gain time rather than just mark the other leaders in teammate mode.
Disappointing way to end things. Still a lot to talk about.
Them not knowing the Izeran was the finish would change everything. Their entire race plan changes. Feel bad for the French today, Alaphillipe loses yellow and Thibot abandons.
They should have just let it continue and had it be a quick cyclocross adventure, just as if it were a sandpit.
Safety is important, I understand why they would stop the race. Keeping the times as they were mid-stage is not right though.
I'd argue it was probably less safe to ride in some of the heat they've been battling than having to hop off the bike and walk across some mud. Seemed like the hail accumulation was far enough ahead that it may have melted before riders reached it. Also, wouldn't be the first time they've had a wet descent. Agreed on safety, though. I'd imagine the officials knew the situation at hand. The outcome is a far cry from the right avenue, though. Not sure what is.
Heat's an issue in a lot of stages (and even more so in the Vuelta) but there can be adjustments made with regard to food, hydration and so forth. A slippery, icy road is just dangerous to ride over. You can't do too much about that.
You saw the conditions after posting this - not a cross country course by any stretch at that point. Pretty wild environment out there.
They all have their little cars following the riders. How could everyone not be communicated with at the same time? I also have to believe there are people stationed throughout the race course so it's not like the lead rider came around a bend and suddenly the road was closed so they called it.
The issue is that the riders, when planning their strategy for the day’s stage, had no idea that the stage would end at the Iseran. Bernal happened to attack on that climb but others may have been waiting for Tignes. They didn’t get their chance.
How could everyone not be communicated with at the same time?
That's not the problem, the problem is that they didn't know before the stage began that it would end on the Iseran.
In cycling you don't go 100% all the time - that's not possible. You pick specific moments to attack, and you have your teammates positioned at certain points so that when you're not attacking, you have them there to reduce wind resistance. This stuff is all planned out in the morning before you race.
On this stage there was a major climb (the col d'Iseran) followed by a descent, followed by another major climb to end the stage (Tignes). Riders most often attack on the final climb and conserve energy before then, but some bold ones try to attack early and build a lead - which sometimes blows up in their face by the end when they have less energy than the others. Egan Bernal attacked on the Iseran and had gotten separation from the other yellow jersey contenders. They were trying to gradually catch up to Bernal when they were informed that the race had been called and the times atop the Iseran would be the final times for the stage. This is problematic, as no one knew in advance that would be the case. If they had known the stage would end atop the Iseran their tactics would have been different.
Imagine being a basketball coach and sitting your star in the 3rd quarter because he's in foul trouble. Then there's a power outage in the arena and the game is called. The referees decide that the game will count, and the score after three quarters is the final. Well, that's not really fair to you, as you didn't know the game would end then. If you had, your strategy would have been different (you'd have played your star).
Fortune favors the bold....
Ineos tactics may have been to have Bernal crush it to the top, ease off on the descent to let GT catch up and they work together on the final climb. Probably are 1-2 in GC. The stage being cancelled kills GTs hopes for the win.
Not sure if this is accurate but like you said... lot to talk about.
It's a shame that the stage was stopped but after looking at the amount of snow/hail/ice & water on the road, just northwest of Val d'Isere, it would have been crazy unsafe for the riders to have to go thru that.
You could argue that Bernal wouldn't have been caught because Yates and he were descending, into Val d'Isere, together. Those two would have worked as a pair, at least for a short time, on the climb to Tignes.
Based on the way Alaphilippe descends, I wouldn't have been surprised if he caught the Thomas group on the way down into Val d'Isere (or crashed). But, would he have had anything left on the next climb? I tend to think not.
You could argue that this might be 'justice' for Teams Ineos and Jumbo-Visma after the organizers disqualified Tony Martin and Luke Rowe for their contretemps two days before. A lot of folks were saying the punishment was too harsh and that it benefited Team Decuenick-Quick Step to keep Alaphilippe in yellow.
Yes, much to discuss....
If you strong-arm another rider, you put yourself at the mercy of the jury. Sky guys have done that crap before. I didn’t feel sorry for them.
This is true but I think the punishment was too severe. I'm not saying they shouldn't have been punished. A (big) fine would have served the purpose. What I found interesting is that Luke and Tony had resolved their issue long before the stage ended and even shook hands at the finish. If they had messed with each other, for the rest of the stage, I could see them being DQ'd.
Can’t tolerate deliberately touching other riders, even if nothing comes of it. Sets a bad precedent.
disappointing to be sure. Even knowing that the yellow was losing time and most likely to lose more (after gaining some back in the valley) this is not the way to hand out places and time. Cancel the whole thing. start tomorrow from the same time as this morning and put it all on a full ride with all teams and riders knowing the score. This doesn't just effect a couple riders, all the top 10 would have riden differently. You are rewarding 1 rider that decided to use the mid race attack strategy.
I suspect that, especially given the short race today, all the riders will be ready to go for broke tomorrow and we will see the Ineos guys battling it out for the win which is what we would have seen anyway. Too bad weather and some iffy decision making is today's story instead of the great and wide open race that is happening.
The problem is if you punish riders who attacked early doing it the other way. There's no fair way to handle something like this. It just is what it is.
I actually feel just as bad for Bernal because it likely cost him a stage win and if he takes yellow to Paris, there will always be an asterisk to his victory.
As far as Allephillip, he probably benefited from them calling the stage early. There was a good chance he doesn't get into the chasing group and gets totally isolated on the final climb.
Allephillip had already gained back a minute and was 5 seconds down to the chasing group on the downhill when the called it. This really sucks for him.
He was cooked. Gaining back time on the downhill is just bike handling, as soon as the road went up again he would've lost that and more.
Wiggins was saying on the Eurosport broadcast that from what he saw on the motorbike he thought they could have kept the riders in a tunnel right before the landslide, got them through/around the affected road (he said it was only about 300-400m), and then restart the race on the other side. But that's that, I guess.
I get that BW is a former winner and bike pro but, from what I saw on TV, the amount of ice/water on the road, outside of Val d'Isere, would have been really scary. There was a big front end loader pushing hundreds of gallons of ice/water into the road-side creek. It didn't look like it was going to melt/drain anytime soon and it had to be ankle, if not shin, deep.
We never saw the mudslide, on TV. Tonight's broadcast will be really interesting (for the things we didn't see).
Here we go.
Well, as someone tired of Sky/Ineos, this stage is a big buzzkill. I feel terrible for Pinot. He was right in position and then his leg gave out.
And then this is a mess. Just cancel the whole stage. The riders who happened to attack on the middle climb get a gift. Alaphilippe probably wasn’t going to keep the jersey but he didn’t get a chance to battle it out to the end. Ugh.
It goes without saying that, every time Alaphilippe hears The Victors, he'll cry every time we sing "HAIL".
The storm actually may have saved him a spot on the final podium. He might have been able to claw back some time on the descent from Iseran but then he may well have lost more time on the final climb. He lost the chance to gut it out to the end of the stage but I don’t realistically think he was keeping the jersey.
I’m pretty sure Thomas and Kruijswijk aren’t happy about the storm though.
It’s frustrating that we’ll never know. He may have blown up early and dropped 10 minutes. Or, he may have caught back up with the Thomas group, and at the lower elevations with company been able to stay with them up the final climb while Bernal collapsed. That is very possible and has happened in cycling before.
Solo attacks on non-final climbs don’t happen often because they’re extremely risky. A solo rider has to cover a lot of ground in the wind on his own. Bernal, even if he had two full minutes at Val D’Isere, had a number of miles of flat to cover before the final climb occurred. The pack behind him had coalesced, in part because the strategy at that point was to work together to reel Bernal back in. Thomas wouldn’t help, being a teammate, but he’d get helped all the same.
Bernal spent a lot of energy that no one else was willing to spend so early. Maybe he crushes everyone, Pantani-style. But there’s a good chance that the Kruisjwijk-Thomas group claws back some or all of that time later in the stage. And if Alaphilippe had somehow managed to catch back on...
One thing I haven’t seen answered. Time gaps on descents are always useless, but that doesn’t stop people from wondering why Alaphilippe didn’t seem to be gaining. After the stage halted he did appear to be closing on stragglers, but that’s all we saw.
But before they called the stage, the drama that I heard nobody talking about was in that Thomas group. Vincenzo Nibali was there. He’s an all-time great descender. If he was the one leading the descent, Alaphilippe would have been in big trouble. Nobody ever identified where in the group he was.
For sure. It’s a shame we couldn’t see what could have happened.
I don’t think Alaphilippe is too down though. His Tour has been incredible as it is, and in his interviews he’s been pretty grounded the whole time. Given his history as a classics rider and the weak team around him, this performance has to have massively exceeded his expectations.
Kruijswijk sounds pretty frustrated though - apparently he was planning to attack on the climb to Tignes and got denied that chance.
I was watching it and Allephillip had already gained back a minute on both Bernal and the chase group
Well, that kind of sucked. Bernal is rewarded for his attack but the others didn’t get a chance to counter. And what a shame for Pinot.
Postmortem? Who died?
The stage. And all the world is a stage.
This tour has been crazy.
The best bike handler crashes in a TT, the worst bike handler (GT) will end up on the podium. Fights, dude had a tantrum then quit, JA catching and passing the favorites on the descent yesterday was incredible, team tactics out the window on Ineos, Movistar, a runner (UM guy I hear) has been in the break a few times, oh yeah...landslide, Pinot quitting and balling. There are like a hundred story lines in this thing.
I haven't cared or watched a tour in ten years. I was curious to see how Van Aert would do given my CX interests. I got a Sling account and have been glued to the tv for weeks now.
I’ve been a fan of the TdF for many years and, juiced or not, these are unbelievable athletes. I’ve never seen a staged canceled like this, but can’t say I’m bummed out about it. No way was the road safe for racing, and it was kind of fun to see Bernal rewarded for busting his ass while the rest of the GC crowd was pussyfooting. What a Tour!
Video recap of how it all went down...
They had to cancel it but Alaphilippe already had gained back a minute on the descent. On the climb he probably was thinking “i’ll get the time back on my descent and go all kit on the last climb” which was a short climb. He could have been even at the bottom. So that really sucks. It makes tomorrow uneventful and ruins the rest of the race.
Well, unfortunately Pinot’s injury killed the suspense. No one else had the legs to challenge Bernal, it seems. Blah ending to an otherwise excellent Tour.