Interesting quote from Nibali about the spat with Froome (Nibali threw a water bottle at Froome after the Martin crash believing Froome had caused the accident): “We’ve cleared things up. We’re cyclists not footballers”

the water bottle throwing was described “as heat of the moment stuff” but I didn’t see it on the replay. Is it still heat of the moment if you crawl out from under a panzerwagen, pick up your bike, ride to the finish, hunt someone down, and then throw a bidon at them?

I notice it was also Froome that headed over to the Astana bus opposed to Nibali heading over to apologise…

It is quite a compliment to Froome when Nibali see the yellow jersey crash and instantly thinks “yellow jersey = Froome” 😆

DanW – Member
It is quite a compliment to Froome when Nibali see the yellow jersey crash and instantly thinks “yellow jersey = Froome”

I may be wrong, but from the immediate Nibali interview he knew it was Froome on his right, and assumed he was complicit in bringing him down. Don’t think he ever thought it was Froome in Yellow

Aye that’s how he explained it, still would like to see a video of Nibali launching the bidon!

I keep imagining him throwing it and it bouncing off the back of Froome’s head… I need to know if the look on Froome’s face is as funny as I keep imagining it!!!

Nibili demonstrated what an a-hole he is. I want to see Froome destroy him in the mountains, make him cry and adandon the Tour because he knows he can’t win.

Better still would be if he took something to try and get up to Froome’s level, fail a drugs test and the whole tainted Astana team are (finally) thrown out of professional cycling forever.

Did froome leave him an angry note?? Or have a word whilst looking at the ground shaking his head?

Froome went straight over to the Astana bus, didn’t even take Stannard…

Sagan must be getting sick of finishing 2nd!

Sagan needs to have a word with himself about race tactics then! As a big fan of his, watching him can be sooooo frustrating – he’s a good enough rider, imo, to win a grand tour apart from the fact that his tactical “racecraft” is bloody terrible.

Yesterday, he let that lone rider get a jump and sat up, looking around him to see who was looking to chase, and by the time he figured out that the answer was “no one” and they were all seemingly watching him (Sagan) to see what he was going to do, it was far too late and the stage was gone.

Everyone can have a “bad day” as we saw earlier in the week with Cav’s normally reliable lead out misjudging the distance badly, but Sagan seems to consistently get it wrong more often than he gets it right.

Nibili demonstrated what an a-hole he is. I want to see Froome destroy him in the mountains

He’s another guy under massive pressure with a big time gap to make up. I can’t fault him too much if things get a bit heated. For years the Italian media have been giving him a hard time as a perennial underachiever and even with GC victories in all GT’s people still don’t see him as as big a rider as he really is. I can understand a little frustration. Anyway, given Froome’s reputation it seems harsh to call another person a comparatively bigger A-Hole 😆

he’s a good enough rider, imo, to win a grand tour apart from the fact that his tactical “racecraft” is bloody terrible.

You can’t have watched many Grand Tours.

Sagan’s tactics are sound 90% of the time, why would he want to drag everyone else up to the finish? To win you’ve got to be prepared to lose, Cancellara taught him that…

I see it the opposite way. You watch Sagan in the Classics and other one day races and you’ll see he gets his tactics wrong 90% of the time. He is so used to his raw power winning him races as he came up through the ranks that he didn’t have to learn to ride savvy. There is a reason he has so many second places and so few victories 😉 That works fine in for the Green jersey but not in the races where winning is everything. In yesterdays stage he didn’t care about winning but played everything soundly to get the points he needed.

Except you’re comparing him to people who’ve won with big team support, something he’s never had.

In yesterdays stage he didn’t care about winning but played everything soundly to get the points he needed.

Not sure I agree with that – if he’d won the stage, he’d be in green today wouldn’t he? I think he was VERY keen to win the stage, but got caught napping by a jump near the finish, and compounded that by hesitating far, far too long before reacting to it.

After the crash he found himself in a bad position, the worst thing for Green would be to chase after Stybar and come in way down the order. He did the sensible thing of sacrificing the very very slim chance of victory for the safer option of the next best number of points. I actually thought it was a rare moment of good tactics from Sagan!

the peloton was caught napping by a brilliantly timed jump near the finish after the confusion left by the crash, and compounded by the group hesitating far, far too long before reacting to it Sagan managed another podium without a team around him and didn’t jeopardise this by dragging the rest of the group to the finish

FTFY

He’s another guy under massive pressure with a big time gap to make up. I can’t fault him too much if things get a bit heated. For years the Italian media have been giving him a hard time as a perennial underachiever and even with GC victories in all GT’s people still don’t see him as as big a rider as he really is. I can understand a little frustration. Anyway, given Froome’s reputation it seems harsh to call another person a comparatively bigger A-Hole

Well maybe you had to be there but it was pretty obvious to most people how the crash came about from Nibali’s LH side, not the right where Froome was. I can forgive Nibali for getting the wrong end of the stick in the heat of the moment but throwing a bottle at another rider has led to expulsion from the Tour in the past so in my book Nibali should be out now.

He didn’t even seem sorry in the post race interview or offer any apology to Froome and it was Froome that went to the Astana bus to sort things out so how does that make Froome and a-hole? I’ve never seen him act like Nibali and he always seems gracious in interviews in both defeat and victory.

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Well maybe you had to be there but it was pretty obvious to most people how the crash came about from Nibali’s LH side, not the right where Froome was.

Obvious when you’ve seen it a few times. From Nibalis perspective you *could* say everyone was moving right and Froome cut him off. Bit far fetched but sometimes in crashes you don’t really know what happened and the last thing he would have seen was Froome coming around and in front of him.

throwing a bottle at another rider has led to expulsion from the Tour in the past so in my book Nibali should be out now

Same rules after the stage? It is rare to see the rules rigidly applied as we saw with Contador removing his helmet during a stage this Giro and countless other examples both past and present. Would be harsh to chuck him out for something like that.

how does that make Froome and a-hole?

It doesn’t. It was just a tongue in cheek reference to all the hate Froome gets normally 😀

Froome’ twitter feed says he won’t wear the MJ out of respect for Tony Martin