Thrusday 10: 12:35–12:45 → 17:15–17:40
It looks like another stage for punchers, but will they be stars of the punch again, or could some breakaway men with some punch (like Healy in his in-shape version) compete? Or might a few sprinters (like Groves) make it through the last climbs?
Vauquelin (🇫🇷 Arkéa) was forbidden to break away by UAE who chased him every time he attempted something. Pogatchar🇸🇮 himself jumped in his wheel one or two times. Very weird.
As far as sprinters go, I had missed the climb to the finish line 👎 😁
At least I got Healy (🇮🇪 EF) right 👍 And damn he was in shape! The first breakaway, then a few tries, then the final breakaway which had to fight for 40 or 50 km just 5 to 20 seconds before the peloton, then the final solo where he kept on increasing the gap with his former colleagues who were not random riders.
Van der Poel (🇳🇱 Alpecin) helpless in the last 20 km or so, struggling to finish last man of the breakaway. Probably the heat, because he hadn’t made the early efforts Healy and Q. Simmons (🇺🇸 Lidl-Trek) made. Q. Simmons was in a great shape too, I would have thought that Storer (🇦🇺 Tudor) would have won their duel for second place.
Pogatchar: what did he do in the end? Did he want to keep the jersey or not? Weird again.
Martin (🇫🇷 FDJ) loses 20 seconds in the final climb, Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) 40.
It seems that except for the last metres, it was Visma who accelerated in the last 2 climbs. And we couldn’t understand what happened because the TV director decided never to show a few seconds of it in 10 or 20 km… (Same problem we had with the TV directors of spring classics who preferred to stay 80% on a solo guy and 19% on a chasing duo whose positions have been fixed for good for 1 hour, and not show at all what could happen behind, where things could still happen.)