Yesterdays stage was awesome, really enjoyed it (except for Sanchez snapping his collarbone)
TT today, Wiggins will gain time but how much?
Yesterdays stage was awesome, really enjoyed it (except for Sanchez snapping his collarbone
TT today, Wiggins will gain time but how much?
Wiggo delivers, now 1'53" up on Evans.Originally Posted by Chrien
Yesterdays stage was awesome, really enjoyed it (except for Sanchez snapping his collarbone
TT today, Wiggins will gain time but how much?
Froome moving up to third overall. Looks like the lad may need to move teams at the end of this season, or persuade Wiggo to be his domestique next year.
I'd wait till we see some mountains before assuming victory. Wiggins is undeniably in a great position to win the tour but 2 minutes is nothing if he cracks on a mountain. Its what happened in the Vuelta last year and that was to Cobo who isn't in the same league as guys like Menchov, Nibali, Evans, Van Den Broeck. That said I think Wiggins will win overall because of the 2nd TT.
As an Englishman one has to have a little hope about our first tdf victory since Simpson
As you quite rightly mentioned there are nearly two weeks left and anything can, and probably will, happen.
Lots of people on forums such as cyclingnews are going "OH NOES ITS OVER" based upon this TT and the climb to La Planche, as if that climb was some 20km monster when it was 5km with no lead up climbs. None of this disqualifies Wiggins from winning and its the most likely scenario but its not a certainty either. Wiggins is a great TTer, actually I was surprised how dominant he was in the TT because he smashed not only Evans but Cancellara who is imo a better TTer than Wiggins, but he was obviously just up for it and is in great form.
The last few stages since the rest day have been good with riders challenging SKY and Wiggo's position (special mention for Nibali) and seeing Evans losing time on the final climb yesterday. Also props to Voeckler for his efforts on Wednesday taking the stage win, polka jersey, and most aggressive rider all in one day.
Nice to see a stage win from Millar today too, since his ban for doping a few years back and having worked his way up to be a pro again.
looool buttchin (evans) and others punctured at top of hill.
1 min lost on wiggins
e-
looks like they are waiting for evans
ee-
Evans swaped 3 wheels in as many minutes
wiggo picked it up, evans should catch him
eee-
wiggos group picked it up to pick up someone who attacked, caught him.
now they have stopped for evans
official word is tacks on the road being reason for all the punctures
Last edited by ctrlchris; July 15 2012 at 03:25:20 PM.
Your posting is medium, its not rare and its not well done
- Krans 26/7/12
Something like 40+ punctures, can't believe someone would do that
So far its been an exciting race despite the boring GC competition, I'm hoping something will happen on the final two mountain days to provide some entertainment but Sky is just too powerful with its combination of Rogers/Porte/Froome/Wiggins. Its been a while since a team has brought such a complete team of mountain domestiques to the Tour and clearly their competitors were unprepared for it.
I'm surprised how easily it seems to have been for SKY so far, as you say there just haven't been any other convincing teams, just Nibali and Evans that seem to be riding on their own in these mountain stages. Been impressed with Sagan's performance in the Alps too, never too far from the front.
As for the tacks, it's just a bit sad that someone felt the need to do that.
Theres a couple of reasons its looked so easy for Sky.
1. No other great teams in the mountains - as I mentioned previously no other team has the same power in the mountains in terms of domestiques. Radioshack has the power if not more in Schleck, Kloden, Horner and Monfort (and Gallopin is a rising mountain talent) but those 4 are all wannabe leaders they won't work as domestiques on the front sacrificing themselves for someone else. Plus none of them has really looked in form (Kloden just looks past it). Only other team with mountain power is Liquigas but their two key workers in the mountains, Smyzd and Basso have shown nothing. Smyzd has been a star pace maker in the Giro in previous years but has failed to show the same form at the Tour (probably because hes tired from the Giro) and this year Basso is meant to be working for Nibali but he looks out of sorts, once again probably due to riding the Giro earlier.
Without team mates to set the pace they basically have to go off alone against 4-5 Sky riders. In the mountains I'd argue that maybe only Froome is the equal of Evans and Nibali at climbing but the team situation neutralises that advantage.
2. The course this year is just strange in places. This race doesn't actually have that many TT KMs in it. Obviously it has more than last year but in the 1980s, 90s and even up to 2010 or so there were 100km of TT, be it ITT or TTT. However the race had alot more mountains. This years race just really lacks stages where climbers can take advantage if they can break the Sky train. This also exaggerates the Sky dominance. So far in the mountains they've only really had to ride 2 stages all out, that being stage 10 and 11. On Stage 7 they only drilled the lead up to the last climb. The flat lands and easy stages have been handled by the likes of Boassan-Hagen, Eisel and Knees who are flat riders, the fact that we've seen both Knees and Boasson-Hagen riding a slow temp on some climbs on some stages just demosntrates how ridiculous it is at times. Take yesterday's stage design (stage 14), it had two tough cat 1 climbs, and the last one in particular had 10%+ for the last 3km and was narrow and basically perfect for attacking climbing, except form the summit its 40km to the finish. Obviously they can't finish in the middle of no where but the finishing town of Foix is actually at the base of the climb, but for some reason they designed it so they do a full loop of the town adding 20km to the stage which is a huge disincentive to attacking. Stage 12 is also strange, two Cat 1s at the start then 150km of flat... wtf? why bother with the climbs. Stage 16 and 17 do look perfect though, 16 is going to be great entertainment and the final finish up the Col de Peyresourde in 17 is going to be very tough. Sky should be tired by then and less effective... I hope.
3. Lack of real GC climbers - this ties in to point 2. Because of the lack of real mountains it hasn't really the best climbers to be in the best shape for the race. This is why Frank Schleck looks so bad, he was never going to race the Tour because hes terrible at the TT and knew he couldn't win. Also Contador is banned and he would have really put some fear into the Sky train. Andy Schleck is also missing due to injury but like his brother he probably wouldn't have won due to the ITT but he might have challenged the Sky dominance.
4. Crashes and bad luck - Two big riders were taken out due to crashes & bad luck - Gesink and Van Den Broeck. Gesink demolished opposition at the Tour of California but then he crashed in the big smash early in the competition and retired. Van Den Broeck punctured at the base of the first big finish and lost big time as a result. Both would have animated the race. Now VDB is racing just to get a podium at best so he doesn't have to challenge Sky he just has to beat either Nibali and Evans.
So to summarise - Sky is a good team, but their advantage is accentuated by other factors. I suspect next season we will see another team try to put together a team with 3-4 mountain domestiques. Or alternatively Froome/Wiggins will fracture due to both wanting to be the leader. I suspect Richie Porte won't hang around long term because he will want to ride for himself too, maybe at the Australian Orica-Greenedge team. Rogers is also very unreliable, this is the first good season hes had since he broke his collarbone in 2009 when riding himself towards a possible yellow jersey.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/17/sp...tml?hpt=isp_c1
Doping at the tour? My word!
Last edited by Pacefalm; April 9 2011 at 9:52 PM.
Doping in cycling more like...
Shame its happened because cycling is cleaner than its ever been, you just have to look at the average speed of racing which is down significantly over the last few years since they got good tests for blood doping and epo. If they had the comprehensive regime of testing in other sports such as Athletics they would be busting people every day.
Eh, everybody in athletics is also doped up to the max. Pretty much all professional athletes are.
Chrien, have some rep for your long post.
An interesting & recent article by some sports scientist boffin types about doping and power output here, specifically looking at the 'Les Planche des Belles Filles' climb from last week:
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012...iscussion.html
Looking forward to today's stage, Tourmalet today. Allez!!
Nice link Calks and its in line with what I've read in other articles over the last two weeks. One could almost go so far as to say that Sky's success doesn't represent a massive step up in Britain's ability to produce talented pro-cyclists but rather that the field is lowering back to their level due to the cleaning up of the sport. The fact is that the big two sources of performance boosts in cycling have been removed in the past few years, this being EPO and blood doping. Reliable testing and the UCI's biological passport system have made it incrediably difficult and risky to use such substances in competition. Of course theres always the next performance enhancing substance, so those combating doping in cycling need to remain proactive to stop it becoming endemic like it clearly was from the 1990s through to the end of the Armstrong era. The best thing that can happen is the emergence of more teams like Garmin and Sky which have stressed the importance of creating a clean riding culture. For too long doping has been an acceptable part of cycling culture and its only in the last 5 years that its really turned around.
I'm really looking forward to today's stage. I hope that either Nibali, VDB or Evans somehow manages to crack the Sky team and forces them to decide between Froome and Wiggins but in all likelyhood any gains today will be marginal. Its somewhat of a shame that the Tourmalet is so early in the race and is really just going to be used to soften riders up. If only there were teams capable of riding tempo on it to put pressure on Rogers/Porte before the final two climbs because if its just Froome and Wiggins then the other top climbers can attack repeatadly and tire them out by forcing them to close the gap.
Well at least Evans didn't give us Aussies any false hope. Dropped on the third climb, not sure whats wrong with him this tour but hes underperforming big time
Yup, just waiting for Nibali et al to put the hammer down on this last climb... We'll see if Evans has the energy to do anything after closing the gap before starting this ascent.
Voeckler going for polka dot in a very convincing way too.
I think everyone is surprised at how little competition BMC have put up this tour. Froome will be getting some very nice offers once this is all over too.
big up Voeckler
Your posting is medium, its not rare and its not well done
- Krans 26/7/12
Wiggo! Not a single second was given.
Great show from Voeckler
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