The third and last week stays in the Alps – that we already reached on Sunday, except for the last day which suddenly ‘jumps’ to Paris.
Standings after week 2
General Classification:
Unless he undergoes an accident, the race is already won for the Slovenian rider. The battle for podium is however still open, after the unfortunate withdrawal of Vingegaard🇩🇰. The top-10 didn’t change much, but it ‘stretched’, and Pidcock and Jegat entered it.
- Tadej Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE
- Remco Evenepoel 🇧🇪 Bora: +5′00″
- Isaac Del Toro 🇲🇽 UAE +5′58″
- Paul Seixas 🇫🇷 Decathlon: +6′23″
- Florian Lipowitz 🇩🇪 Bora: +6′48″
- Juan Ayuso 🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek: +7′28″
- Mattias Skjelmose 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek: +9′38″
- Lenny Martinez 🇫🇷 Bahrain: +10′28″
- Thomas Pidcock 🇬🇧 Q36.5: +11′19″
- Jordan Jegat 🇫🇷 Total : +19′12″
5 other riders follow close to Jegat, at less than 25 minutes, and can thus hope to enter top-10: Voisard🇨🇭, Carapaz🇪🇨, Van Wilder🇧🇪, A. Yates🇬🇧, and Piganzoli🇮🇹 (Visma) who will have to make up for Vingegaard’s withdrawal. The rest is farther than 40 minutes.
Points classification (Green jersey):
Merlier🇧🇪, who was in 4th position, couldn’t finish the race in time on Sunday and withdrew. Philipsen did the best 2nd week.
- Mads Pedersen 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek: 417 pts (+149)
- jasper Philipsen 🇧🇪 Alpecin: 191 (+195)
- Biniam Girmay 🇪🇷 NSN: 361 (+138)
- Max Kanter 🇩🇪 Astana: 271 (+99)
- Olav Kooij 🇳🇱 Decathlon 210 (+100)
Mountain (Polka Dots jersey)
Those who try to fight for points cannot seem to be able to beat Pogatchar who doesn’t, and other GC guys aren’t far either. Martinez didn’t go for points this week, and Baudin disappeared.
- Tadej Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE: 67 pts (+39)
- Valentin Paret-Peintre 🇫🇷 Soudal-QS: 45 (+33)
- Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF: 39 (+38)
- Paul Seixas 🇫🇷 Decathlon: 34 (+22)
- Remco Evenepoel 🇧🇪 Bora: 31 (+26)
- Isaac Del Toro 🇲🇽 UAE: 30 (+20)
Stages
Stage 16, Tuesday 21
26 km, D+ 500 m, Individual Time Trial
This ITT presents an unusual profile, with an horrible 4,5% strongly uphill false-flat right from the start which lasts for 10 km (!), then a steeper descent and only finally a flat section.
Press to see the map
Stage 17, Wednesday 22
175 km D+ 2400 m
This stage will probably be disputed between a breakaway which could leave in the small/medium climbs of the first 60 km, and sprinter teams. Perhaps Pedersen will attempt to go into the breakaway.
Press to see the map and the finish profile
Stage 18, Thursday 23
186 km, D+ 3900 m
Many climbs, long and short, but never too steep. There is a finish on top, but it might still be good for breakaways if GC guys wait for the 2 harder stages which follow.
NB: the way the profile is drawn makes it look almost flat, but there is almost 4000 m of total elevation to climb, it is really a medium mountain stage.
Press to see the map
Stage 19, Friday 24
128 km, D+ 3600 m
The first Alpe d’Huez stage presents climbs in the beginning and in the end, with smaller and smoother hills in the centre part. It is short. A breakaway might succeed if Pogatchar doesn’t want the stage (who else would ride for it after the withdrawals of Vingegaard and Lipowitz?).
Press to see the map and the profiles of Noyer Pass and Alpe d'Huez.
Stage 20, Saturday 25
171 km, D+ 5600 m
Another finish at the Alpe d’Huez after 3 Hors-Catégorie climbs for the main and last mountain stage. As the stage also starts from the bottom of the Alpe d’Huez, I fear about the crowd being too important, as it will also be compacted on this reduced version of the climb, and those risks come on top of the race staying 2 days in the same place and this stage being on a week-end.
Stage 21 (final), Sunday 26
133 km, D+ 1600 m
Last year’s experiment is renewed: 4 laps of Champs-Élysées only (7 km) and then 3 longer (16 km) laps including the climb to Montmartre and its somewhat scary downhill. The finish is located a bit farther from the last top: 11 km instead of 6, which may cause more regrouping and favour punchers a little bit less.
Special regulations: if the streets are deemed slippery, times shall be taken on the 1st crossing of the finish line, or any later crossing of the line. Riders must complete the full distance in any case. Only one car per team is allowed on the circuits.
Stage 16, Tuesday 21
26 km, D+ 500 m, Individual Time Trial
This ITT presents an unusual profile, with an horrible 4,5% strongly uphill false-flat right from the start which lasts for 10 km (!), then a steeper descent and only finally a flat section.
I watched little of the race. In other times, the horrible flat climb would have caused a few riders to miscalculate their effort by not finding their pace on this bastard slope, but in the days of computerised cycling, it cannot happen.
Therefore there were very few surprises. The profile, a more regular version of the Gavarnie stage finish, looked perfect for Evenepoel (🇧🇪 Bora) and Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE), and so it was. We might have believed Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) to make a difference over Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE), but Sunday’s stage was a big warning that one shouldn’t be overconfident about that, and in the end there was almost no difference. Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) confirmed as well the more serious troubles he experienced on Sunday. Skelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) may have done a bit better than expected, but he is used to ITT top-10s.
In fact, the only true change in top-10 is caused by Lipowitz🇩🇪’s crash (on the flat section) and withdrawal.
Among the 6 contenders for places 9 and 10, Voisard (🇨🇭 Tudor) did the best time. Yates (🇬🇧 UAE) probably didn’t give a damn, which allowed Piganzoli (🇮🇹 Visma) to gain 2 ranks in order to try to save GC for his team.
Feel bad for Lipo. Hope he recovers and gets back soon.
Outside of the top GC guys, Tarling made for an entertaining early portion. He was screaming down the course.
Zero chance del toro doesn’t get p2 with the way UAE have been controlling. Happy for Remco’s stage win but that’s the end of that surely
I’d typically agree, but as incredible as Del Toro can ride, he’s had a couple of “off” days that have shown that he’s not invincible.
Remco might be able to build a bigger lead on some of the other guys in this TT stage, but then we’ll see what happens for Alpe d’Huez.
Remco certainly seems due for an off day too, but who knows. I could see him going into the red, getting angry, gesticulating wildly at motos and other riders, and losing 3 min in one of the Alps stages. He’ll probably win today and get a minute or two on Del Toro, but not sure if that’s enough buffer for his eventual Remco© moment.
One thing we’ve learned so far is that no one besides Tadej is unbeatable. They all are at risk of a bad day that changes the standings.
I hope you are right!
Highlights of the race for me:
-
mads climbing for those green jersey points… what a madman, i love it.
-
Pogi playing domestique for IDT. Those two are so wholesome.
-
Carapaz attacks
Disappointments:
- vinge crash
- bini
-
Stage 17, Wednesday 22
175 km D+ 2400 m
This stage will probably be disputed between a breakaway which could leave in the small/medium climbs of the first 60 km, and sprinter teams. Perhaps Pedersen will attempt to go into the breakaway.
I won’t comment much on this one, as I only carefully watched the first 2 miles, then was hearing fragments from another room, until I
satlay in front of the telly for the last 50 km in order to reconnect properly with race… and slept through a good 45 of them, although a lot of things were happening.Veistroffer (🇫🇷 Lotto) was a km-0 attacker, but blew up as soon as the first gentle slope started.
Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) was dropped at some point with sprinters. Nobody took advantage of it.
A. Yates (🇬🇧 UAE) got sick or fully depleted his batteries, and was dropped from all groups.
Jegat (🇫🇷 Total) managed to get into the right, big breakaway. As the peloton only came 9 mn behind, that gives him a lot of breathing space to save his final GC rank (top-10: 9th at the moment). He left the territory of those around 25 mn, to get close to the guys ahead of him: L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrain) and Pidcock (🇬🇧 Q36.5), at 13 mn, are now just 1 minute ahead.
Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) was extremely active today. Yet at the end of the day, Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin), who spared no effort either, is now at the same level as him in the fight for the Green jersey.
Bit of a wasted day for Pedersen, tried to both win and win the jersey and ended up doing neither. Let’s see if he gets clear today and wins some points.
I don’t know why he stopped riding when he was in the group of 6 (?), and one guy (Stuyven?) broke away. The group was more than 1 minute ahead of the rest of the big breakaway. That’s what happened, right? (everything is fuzzy in my mind)
As for today, he will certainly be tired from yesterday’s expedition. Same thing for the teammates who helped him.
One positive point however is that there is 0 transfer: they restart from the same town where they arrived yesterday! I put an exclamation mark because what should be the norm is incredibly are these days 😄
Another problem is that, although it doesn’t look so, today (stage #18) is very hard: it presents more elevation gain than the first Alpe d’Huez stage will. The I.S. is 55 km from the line, however, thus not all this elevation gain has to be ridden of course.
If I were Alpecin, I’d send at least Van der Poel with the mission to stick to Pedersen’s wheel as soon as he moves an inch. Goal: 1. be a deadweight 2. beat him on the sprint by harassing him.
Glad to see that Philipsen in fact CAN maintain a straight line in a sprint
Stage 19, Friday 24
128 km, D+ 3600 m
The first Alpe d’Huez stage presents climbs in the beginning and in the end, with smaller and smoother hills in the centre part. It is short. A breakaway might succeed if Pogatchar doesn’t want the stage (who else would ride for it after the withdrawals of Vingegaard and Lipowitz?).
Standings before the first Alpe d’Huez stage:
General classification
- Tadej Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE
- Remco Evenepoel 🇧🇪 Bora: +4′32″
- Isaac Del Toro 🇲🇽 UAE +6′51″
- Paul Seixas 🇫🇷 Decathlon: +7′11″
- Juan Ayuso 🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek: +9′22″
- Mattias Skjelmose 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek: +10′14″
- Lenny Martinez 🇫🇷 Bahrain: +12′50″
- Thomas Pidcock 🇬🇧 Q36.5: +12′58″
- Jordan Jegat 🇫🇷 Total : +14′04″
- Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF: +21′00″
Points classification (Green jersey):
- Mads Pedersen 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek: 477 pts (+60)
- jasper Philipsen 🇧🇪 Alpecin: 445 (+54)
- Biniam Girmay 🇪🇷 NSN: 361 (0)
- Max Kanter 🇩🇪 Astana: 271 (0)
- Olav Kooij 🇳🇱 Decathlon 230 (+20)
Mountain (Polka Dots jersey)
- Tadej Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE: 70 pts (+3)
- Valentin Paret-Peintre 🇫🇷 Soudal-QS: 69 (+24)
- Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF: 63 (+24)
- Remco Evenepoel 🇧🇪 Bora: 36 (+5)
- Paul Seixas 🇫🇷 Decathlon: 34 (0)
- Isaac Del Toro 🇲🇽 UAE: 30 (0)
In the last mountain stage on Saturday (stage #20), they will be as many points to grab (70) as the Mountain classification leader possesses presently after 18 stages 🙄
I have 3 points I need to express:
- Absolute masterclass by Pogi today. Nothing anyone can do but just watch in awe. One can only wonder what that race would have looked like if Jonas and Lipo were still around contending for GC.
- Looks like Lenny Martinez is public enemy #1 amongst cycling fans today. Everyone is blaming him for not helping enough on the breakaway, causing Carapaz to use up all his energy and ultimately letting Pogi catch them. Personally, I don’t care much about that and think it was entertaining and dramatic either way. Seeing Carapaz look back and Tadej is just methodically pedaling closer and closer made me think of the Terminator films. Either way, hats off to the EF team for another fantastic stage.
- I definitely have a love/hate relationship with the crowds in this stage. The atmosphere is great and it creates a real sense of drama watching it unfold, but its so dangerous and unnecessary for everyone to be waving flags in the cyclists faces, stepping in the way to get on camera, tripping over themselves to try and slap the riders on the back. These people get swept up in themselves (along with alcohol) and just have no idea how much risk they are putting their favorite riders in. Not to mention that Remco was trying to attack but got caught behind a traffic jam because there was no room for him to move on either side. Then we have Rubio getting a DNF because the UAE car needed to slam on its breaks to avoid running over someone who had stepped into the course in front of it. That was brutal.
And that’s not even including all of the little close calls that occurred (I saw one guy try to cross in front between a rider and a motorcycle with maybe a 5 meter gap between them. Motorcycle had to swerve a bit; lots of hand gestures ensued.
Apparently Pog has never won on d’Huez. So I don’t see how anyone else wins the stage given he’ll be hungry for this. A breakaway with like 10 minutes at the base of the Alpe is probably the only way someone else wins it. UAE being weakened right now, and the potential need to make Del Toro a full domestique, makes this slightly interesting.
Edit: I’ll be rooting for Kuss to get in the break. Somebody like him has a real chance if the break is allowed to get a big gap.
A confirmation of previous tendencies:
- Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) gets a tiny bit weaker every day. Too bad he never pushed his advantage when he was a bit stronger than several of his opponents. That’s AG2R’s tradition 🙂
- Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) gets weaker much, much faster. According to stage results, after his breakaway, Q. Simmons🇺🇸 had to babysit him up the final climb, once gain.
- Conversely, Evenepoel (🇧🇪 Bora) and Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) appear slightly better now.
- L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrain) is a pain in the ass and he fails to understand that riding like he does may be fine when he and the other guy(s) with hum detached from the rest of the riders because they were the strongest in the race; but it is absolutely not fine, when you are a breakaway of weaker climbers than the GC leader(s) coming fast behind you. Even more so when you also play a GC position.
- Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) is damn, strong in this 3rd week. Same as last year’s 3rd week when he was on fire. And, again, he isn’t afraid of playing with others’ nerves once he has already secured a victory. Another confirmation is that he cannot outsprint V. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS) but he lasts longer.
Non-Pogatchar GC leaders only climbed faster than Carapaz🇪🇨/Martinez🇫🇷 by about 1 minute, in a 14 km climb! And it’s not like those two climbed in an optimal way…
L. Martinez🇫🇷 takes over both Lidl-Trek riders in GC (not only the declining Ayuso🇪🇸 but also Skjelmose🇩🇰 for a handful of seconds). In a way, it is thanks to the Lidl-Trek riders in the breakaway; however Lidl-Trek pulling the breakaway a bit unnecessarily may have been the result of a deal between Lidl-Trek/Pedersen🇩🇰 and EF/Carapaz🇪🇨. I previously noted that Pedersen🇩🇰 could ride for others in recognition of another team/rider’s attitude.
Jegat (🇫🇷 Total) blew up early, and loses a position in GC to Carapaz🇪🇨 and his good finish.
Carapaz🇪🇨 will wear the Polka Dots jersey tomorrow. For real, but only 1 point ahead of Pogatchar🇸🇮. Vingegaard🇩🇰 then V. Paret-Peintre🇫🇷 wore it for many days (since after stage #6 (Tourmalet)), but Pogatchar🇸🇮 was the actual leader of the classification. Carapaz🇪🇨 was losing only 2 points to V. Paret-Peintre🇫🇷 each time the latter was passing a summit just in front of him, and scored points for 1st and 3rd places in the last two climbs.
Only 2 stages are left to avoid the very rare humiliation of a Tour de France without a French victory (only occurrences: 1999 after the Festina case, and 1926 the longest Tour with 1,500 miles more than the current edition and Belgians all over).
Stage 18, Thursday 23
186 km, D+ 3900 m
Many climbs, long and short, but never too steep. There is a finish on top, but it might still be good for breakaways if GC guys wait for the 2 harder stages which follow.
NB: the way the profile is drawn makes it look almost flat, but there is almost 4000 m of total elevation to climb, it is really a medium mountain stage.
No clear breakaway managed to form before the top of the first climb, where V. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS) and Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) jumped off the peloton to catch and overtake the small new breakaway which already held 2 EF riders. They passed the summit in that order, and their attack brought the peloton back at the front, with Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) passing this (admittedly overrated) 1st category in 5th position. He doesn’t look tired!
Pedersen🇩🇰 managed to get in a breakaway soon after that, and while there were a lot of reconfigurations within breakaways along the stage, succeeded in reaching the Intermediate Sprint ahead today!
One more time, V. Paret-Peintre🇫🇷 won all GPMs before Carapaz🇪🇨 except the final one, even though he was in the final group of 6. This pair previously had to jump from a breakaway to another at some point in order to be able to pass first in climbs. In the end, this effort must have stayed in the French skeleton’s legs, but Carapaz🇪🇨 flew in the final climb, after a long period during which the 6 riders were looking at each other. Well, 5 riders, as R. Garcia P. (🇪🇸 Movistar) was struggling to remain with/near the group.
On a very different type of finish, Schmid (🇨🇭 Jayco) beats Jorgenson (🇺🇸 Visma) for 2nd place. Jorgenson has no sprint at all, and Schmid🇨🇭 made 2nd yesterday already, amidst real sprinters; so, there wasn’t much of a chance of a different result 😄
The only survivor from the other breakaways, which included a large number of riders, was another Movistar (Castrillo🇪🇸) who barely managed to stay a few seconds ahead of the peloton. The two Movistar riders finishing 6th and 7th bring 100 UCI points to their team.
The peloton did nothing at all.
When the gap with the breakaway went over 8 minutes, Total and Q36.5 started pulling, because Carapaz🇪🇨 was getting a bit too close to Jegat🇫🇷 and Pidcock🇬🇧 (and of course, it was Carapaz, not a sprinter who would have died in the final climb but a climber more or less as good as they are).
No one tried anything at any time, despite seeing how UAE was losing men.
The final climb was a long procession. The peloton was reduced to barely more than top leaders, yet nobody tried anything at any point, not even in the last mile or half-mile.
In spite of the presence of Ze Elect (🇫🇷 Decathlon) on the race, we are getting closer to witnessing a Tour de France without a single French🇫🇷 stage victory.
It would be the first one since '99, I reckon. And in '99, they had an excuse, as all hadn’t removed the handcuffs they got in '98 🤣
Before that, the only time it happened is exactly one century ago, in 1926… 😱
The third and last week stays in the Alps – that we already reached on Sunday, except for the last day which suddenly ‘jumps’ to Paris.
What a move my Richie! Very happy to see EF on the board before the end of the tour.
Meanwhile things are looking a little more difficult for UAE as a virus tears through their team. They ruled the peloton with an iron fist in the first few stages, but its going to be harder and harder with guys dropping out or being sick.
Stage 20, Saturday 25
171 km, D+ 5600 m
Another finish at the Alpe d’Huez after 3 Hors-Catégorie climbs for the main and last mountain stage. As the stage also starts from the bottom of the Alpe d’Huez, I fear about the crowd being too important, as it will also be compacted on this reduced version of the climb, and those risks come on top of the race staying 2 days in the same place and this stage being on a week-end.
Mostly another series of confirmations.
I’ll start with the main difference: Ayuso (🇪🇸 Lidl-Trek) who had lost more and more time on previous stages, decided to take an offensive approach today and join the first breakaway, hoping for a stage victory or a GC rank gain. He also tried a few small attacks from the breakaway but was punished each time by Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) or another of the top breakaway riders. While ultimately he failed at both objectives, he tried well, and at least he didn’t lose more time in GC.
Otherwise, it was much like yesterday.
- In the first HC climb, we saw a crazy Green man🇩🇰, dropped by the main peloton, then catching up with it, then attacking from it to attempt to join the breakaway of climbers, and succeeding in joining it after the top, in order to win the I.S. at the bottom! All these efforts he did alone, he didn’t have the ton of help from his team he got on previous stages.
- Very good Carapaz🇪🇨 and Kuss (🇺🇸 Visma) again, with Hindley (🇦🇺 ) replacing L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrain) in the final trio.
- Kuss🇺🇸 lost the stage and scared everyone by crashing twice in half a mile while he was leading the race, the second time ending in the last yard of nets over the precipice! Polka dotted Carapaz🇪🇨, who had been hanging between 5 and 20 seconds behind for, what, 30 minutes? benefited of this to close the gap, overtook the American and rode the last climb up to his 2nd victory in 3 stages.
- Carapaz🇪🇨 finishes the week much better than V. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS). The Frenchman put up a fight in the first HC climb, but this time could only finish 2nd as the Ecuadorian rider had chosen a long-range attack today (starting 3 km away from the top); then he blew up as the second climb started, while Carapaz🇪🇨 was in demonic shape.
- Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) lost another stage by trying to help Del Toro🇲🇽, and sticking to that single mission while it was already accomplished. He never changed plan and stayed with him until the end, which was completely useless.
- Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) has definitely weakened. There again, he and his team stuck to their plan of having teammates (Prodhomme🇫🇷, and then it was supposed to Riccitello🇺🇸 coming down from the breakaway, but the American was as unhelpful as usual) pull the final group for him, in spite of the fact that it was clear, again and again, that Seixas🇫🇷 was suffering more from that pace than the other guys. Ultimately, after his teammate(s) stopped, it was his own turn to pull according to the predefined, not updated, strategy; and the only rider who was dropped as a result of his effort was… himself! He lost almost 2 minutes to L. Martinez🇫🇷 (and Skjelmose🇩🇰) today, somewhat endangering his 4th place in GC.
Behind, Ayuso🇪🇸’s presence ahead, with a gap that went over 4 minutes, pushed UAE and Bahrain to pull the peloton.
Evenepoel (🇧🇪 Bora) attacked way too late. He could have attacked in multiple places before, he had ample time for it: in the Sarenne pass (his teammate Hindley🇦🇺 could then have helped him), or anywhere in the bumpy 5 miles transition after; but he waited for the last 2 miles of Alpe d’Huez, and could never see Carapaz🇪🇨’s number sign.
He took over the poor Kuss🇺🇸 just before the line, despite having absolutely nothing to gain from it.
Kuss🇺🇸 got the Combative award for the stage, as consolation prize. 👍 He also got penalties of 75 UCI points, 1500 FS and 1 minute for littering!!! 🤣
I thought that Piganzoli🇮🇹 would be today’s main card for Visma in the breakaway, but it was Kuss🇺🇸 who had used yesterday as a warm up 🙂. In GC, the American therefore ends up just before the Italian: 13th and 14th. The Italian never made it into the top-10 of any stage.
Jegat (🇫🇷 Total) was busy limiting damage today, after losing one GC rank yesterday. He will save his place of 10thin GC, exact same as last year.
When the breakaway was reduced to about 10 riders only, there wasn’t a single Frenchman in it any more… (I reckon last one was Braz (🇫🇷 FDJ), dropped soon after V. Paret-Peintre🇫🇷, right?)
Only one chance left to avoid the humiliation, and with the level of Grégoire (🇫🇷 FDJ) this month and Alaphilippe (🇫🇷 Tudor) this year, hopes are thin. (Surprisingly, Alaphilippe🇫🇷 stayed with the peloton a long time today.) Who else do we have in stock?
I am not sure how, but in spite of the reduced areas where they were allowed, the crowd wasn’t dense today. A good thing, I just don’t understand how it happened so, as logically it should have been worse than yesterday in spite of the presence of the Galibier on the way.
With Vingegaard out, it’s been a joy to see Mads Pedersen boss the peloton around. What a champion. I hope he wins tomorrow to top it off!
Meanwhile we, French, had to watch the future Hinault slowly turn into the future Bardet, day after day. 😄
Also the Cotton Bud from Soudal-QS, and the Wheelsucker From Outer Space too 🤣
I don’t know, I think Seixas has exceeded all my expectations. He’s 19, his recovery and physical development will improve. When Pog and Vingegaard quit in a few years he will be just as likely to win as Remco or Lipo or Martinez.
He’s 19, his recovery and physical development will improve.
And his crash on the Dauphiné didn’t help his preparation.
But I was alluding more to the attitude: extremely conservative and stereotyped. A vibe of Romain ‘take the risk’ Bardet who just signed up before the Tour to be a manager at Decathlon; he is not supposed to be in charge yet, but it feels like he is already 😆. Bardet is a rather bland rider and a very bland character who sees himself very differently, almost opposite to what everyone else see in him; for example he got the sentence “take the risk or lose the chance” (in English) printed on his bike, which made everyone roll their eyes. 😄 We can still hope that he applies his vision and not his actual attitude unto others.
Back to what I called extremely conservative and stereotyped attitudes:
- A “the race is still long” attitude that reminds me of horrible periods when all riders were always acting like that, just looking at each other until the last half-mile of each stage, until the last two stages of a race.
- Not taking advantage of his good shape in the first two weeks or the first half of the race. After many stages, he declared: “I could have gone faster”. Well…
- Unable to perform any attack. The only thing he does is taking the lead and trying to suffocate other riders by accelerating progressively, like a caricature of Evenepoel. This only can ever work on a weaker field, not when others are as strong or stronger. Only in the Basque Country did he show a different way of doing.
- Particularly obvious on this last mountain stage : everyone in the team seemed remote-controlled from the team car, sticking to the plan and orders without communicating between Seixas and his domestiques or even looking at each other, in order to assess locally the situation and adapt. That’s different from what we saw on previous races, where Seixas seemed to be the one calling most shots, and doing rather OK with it. This concurs to point (2.): no tactical decisions (or bad tactical decisions) were taken on the field when appropriate to the current shape of Seixas and the perceived shape of others. Perhaps he could lift his eyes from his watt-metre from time to time to look at other riders and what happens around him. But he was like this already at young age (I mean, when he was 15 years old), never changing anything to the instructions that had been given to him, never getting a little bit away from his ‘watts’ plan…
- The team’s attitude in general. They are lucky that they were forced to take Kooij because he immediately scored victories in the very few races he could ride when he returned from injury shortly before the Tour of France, otherwise everyone would have stayed with the leader from day 1 to 21, and they would have been at the mercy of their leader’s GC result; like they did on the Giro d’Italia, like they did on the Dauphiné. Well, actually, they did that here too, as bringing a sprinter only changes the result, not the fact that the whole team can stay with the leader, as everyone stays together on sprinters stages. If you will, Decathlon is the exact opposite of Lidl-Trek who tries (even on the same day) to play on two different classifications and at the same time to win the stage on top of this.
When Pog and Vingegaard quit in a few years he will be just as likely to win as Remco or Lipo or Martinez.
But in a few years, a new marvel will have appeared from nowhere, if we trust it keeps happening at the current rate. 🙂
Unless he gets fed up – which is possible, Pogatchar is likely to stay much longer than Vingegaard: younger (he was riding for White jerseys not long ago), less broken, more versatile and still getting better. Not only getting better, but getting better faster than others, young and old, get: Evenepoel prepared as much as humanly possible for this Tour, with utmost dedication, yet he didn’t get closer to Pogatchar by an inch, compared to 2 years ago. What I mean is that it seems that he hasn’t reached his peak/plateau and rides most of his races with a safety margin (the only case without margin I remember must have been in Romandie this year, and yet he won 4 stages, GC and points…), so we can’t see the beginning of his future decline yet.
I hope he doesn’t crash! I feared he would, when I saw him going after the breakaway, and he needed to catch them up in the descent of the Croix de Fer for of course he wouldn’t be able to catch them up in the climb.
Carapaz is the pocket climber version of Pedersen 🤣 To each his terrain.
Stage 21 (final), Sunday 26
133 km, D+ 1600 m
Last year’s experiment is renewed: 4 laps of Champs-Élysées only (7 km) and then 3 longer (16 km) laps including the climb to Montmartre and its somewhat scary downhill.
!! CHANGE !! The race will only take place in Paris, the 50 km of approach are cancelled, and a couple of Champ-Élysées circuit laps are added.
The claimed reason is the lack of availability of firefighters (who in France are paramedics as well), police and civil defence forces, due to the megafires in Southern France, as well as the ending fire in the Fontainebleau Forest near Paris.
The longer distance after the climb indeed favoured regrouping. Also, the leader and/or their rare launchers weren’t often able to kick right from the start of the climb, so less difference could be done.
Decathlon was the main chasing force in all 3 laps. As often in such case, their sprinter got beaten in the end.
Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) shouldn’t have chased the top-3 guys after the second climb. He made a big effort chasing alone, and then took relays in that group of 4, but the group couldn’t survive given the peloton’s chase behind with quite a workforce left in teams like Decathlon who had riders like Seixas🇫🇷 leading the chase. He paid those efforts in the next (and last, thus the most important) climb. However Pedersen🇩🇰 is Pedersen🇩🇰 and he didn’t give up like Evenepoel🇧🇪 did.
Van der Poel (🇳🇱 Alpecin) owes his victory to both Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) who relayed him until the end without an afterthought, and his teammate Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin) who would probably have won, should the lone guy ahead have belonged to another team.
Kanter (🇩🇪 Astana) survived and made a nice 4th place but that doesn’t allow him to get a seat on the Green jersey podium; he needed someone to withdraw for that.
Veistroffer (🇫🇷 Lotto) was the first rider to disturb the peace of the UAE parade, to launch his teammate for the first attack of the day on the flat(-ish) first circuit. He also attacked solo later, and got the I.S. prize one more time!
A single but huge change in GC: thanks to his breakaway, Guernalec (🇫🇷 Total) beats Kwiatkowski (🇵🇱 Ineos) for 109th place! 😄
French riders were sorely lacking at the front each time there was a climb. Turgis (🇫🇷 Total) gets an OK 8th place for his team. But here we are: that’s only the 3rd time in 113 Tours de France that the French riders didn’t win a single stage. The first time since 1926 that they didn’t win a stage nor a jersey, and that may be because there was no jersey but the yellow in 1926, otherwise it might have been the very first time in history… 😭
How strange this is, happening right at the same time that Seixas🇫🇷 appears and there are 3 Frenchmen in GC top-10… Naturally, if those 3 had popped out GC classification, they might have gone for jerseys (well, the Polka Dot jersey was the only reachable one) and had better chances at stages victories.
At Lidl-Trek, Vatsek🇸🇰 started the Tour very strongly, after a surprisingly good Tour de Suisse, but vanished as time passed. I am not sure what to expect today, as he didn’t seem to have especially rested during the week, but has worked for others.
What’s procy cling?
