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Chaotic so far today - no break allowed to go clear, all sorts of attacks, counter attacks and failed moves. Bad crash for Skelmose who seemed to clip a traffic island but is now back up and riding.
Geraint Thomas in what passes for a break at the moment albeit only 30" up the road, certainly not an established gap.
Evenepoel looks wrecked. Getting dropped already.
Yeah, he's broken.
Interesting factoids about Lennie's family & biking. Must admit that Miguel is the only one I coudld've named but a couple of others in there too
I imagine Remco is fighting an infection. Who hasn’t felt wrecked and then come out with a cold a few days later.
The UAE rampage is beginning., they've closed down nearly 2 minutes to the break.
I really hope Pogacar doesn't close it all down, then ride off the front and win again. 🙄
FFS, pog may as well be wheelying up the road here
Well that was a bit of a nail-biting finale.
Once again, stunning performance from Oscar Onley.
FFS, pog may as well be wheelying up the road here
Everyone else comes to a near standstill on the finish line, virtually collapses. Pogacar strolls off casually like he's just ridden back from the shops.
I've raced the final climb a couple of times in Winter triathlons, pity there wasn't a view because it's lovely up there. Also done on a tandem with junior in the kiddy seat.
Is it me or does Ineo’s kit clash horribly with the colour of their bikes?
Ineos needed that win
Imagine how demotivated Vingo must be feeling. At least he gave it a go.
Off to ride stage 19 tomorrow
Imagine how demotivated Vingo must be feeling. At least he gave it a go.
Pogacar is strong enough to use anyone else's team as his own personal leadout train. The whole point of the old USPS / Sky days etc was you have a load of really strong mountain domestiques who set a killer pace that whittles everyone down, knackers everyone out etc then your leader makes his bid for glory and everyone else is so wrecked that they can't follow.
That just does not work when Pogacar is 10% stronger than everyone else. You can set whatever pace you want and he'll just sit there at 80%, not remotely in trouble. It's like everyone else is in a diesel estate and he's in a sports car. At some point he'll just pull out of the convoy and floor it.
Barring some kind of massive disaster like a huge crash or a severe illness, he's pretty much unbeatable on virtually all terrain.
I'm really glad he didn't win today and also that Martinez did such a great ride to earn the polka dot jersey properly, not just wear it cos he's second in the rankings.
I still reckon Pogacar will win on Ventoux though.
Everyone else comes to a near standstill on the finish line, virtually collapses. Pogacar strolls off casually like he's just ridden back from the shops.
Surely no one can be that far in advance of the rest without some help that is, at best, borderline outside "the rules".
I think that
help that is, at best, borderline outside "the rules".
is the peloton norme but that he's just better than the others. When I was competing my cardiologist drew me a normal distribution curve and pointed out where he thought I was - on the very right of the graph. Then he went a bit further right and said that some people were there, then even further right and said "that's Bernard Hinault". At least I knew where I stood, I'd get some reasonable results but never win.
It's interesting to see the other riders' attitude to Pogacar - he's not disliked and there's respect, like there was was for Hinault or Merckx. Unlike say US Postal or Team Sky.
Surely no one can be that far in advance of the rest without some help that is, at best, borderline outside "the rules".
On which note, there's no questions around doping any more?!
Armstrong got asked again and again especially towards the latter of his Tour "wins". Constant insinuations, not just around him but other riders too, post-race press conferences scattered with questions around it.
Now... Nothing.
There is a huge difference between passing the doping tests and being clean. That doesnt just apply to Pogcar or even cycling but Im struggling to see how he can be that much better than the rest
Anyone know how badly (if at all) that Spector was injured when the Ineos team car hit them?
It's probably not the first time something like this has happened but it's the first I can recall where it was televised.
There could be serious repercussions if it was a serious injury, particularly as many of the team car drivers aren't paying 100% attention to the road....(witness the in car footage from "Unchained"...)
Surely no one can be that far in advance of the rest without some help that is, at best, borderline outside "the rules".
Im struggling to see how he can be that much better than the rest
See that normal distribution curve Edukator mentioned. There have always been outliers in any sport. Always will be.
Pogacar only needs to be 1% better than all the other freaks he's racing to make it look easy.
Anyone know how badly (if at all) that Spector was injured when the Ineos team car hit them?
I was watching that on the live ITV4 coverage.
He was trying to push forward, past the breakaway to get to Arensman who was a minute up the road by that point. Fair enough and the best place to do it is on the climb rather than the descent.
But I was watching the driving and just thinking "WTF is he playing at?!" cos it was atrocious. He came close to a couple of the riders, couldn't get through the crowds, kept pushing...
I've driven a fair bit in race convoys, including the Worlds, and I've seen plenty of shit driving but that was insane.
You're right about the drivers too. All the UCI nonsense about socks and bar width and rim depth; meanwhile there are DS who are driving the car, watching the race on TV, handing up bottles, trying to sort race tactics, talking on the radios...
Quickest safety win - the driver does driving, the rider has to receive bottles, clothing etc from a soigneur or mechanic in the passenger seat.
When you get that far to the right of the distribution, it’s not normal. And as said small difference get hugely magnified once your taken to the edge. And that’s the point of stage racing. Pog will be the most tested athlete in the peloton by far. Blood passports have removed the silly high (and dangerous) historic haematocrits
But there is plenty of science around metabolism being explored by teams. It could simply only come down to who has the best gut adaptation to absorbing huge carb loads (not me based on my recent 100 TT), or best heat adaptation. Or infection control. Every factor will be considered to maintain an advantage. Not to mention the best pillows 😉
Dont forget, when US Postal raced, they were a superhuman TEAM. The UAE team are good, indeed many GC riders are sacrificing their ambitions as domestiques for high salaries, but I don’t think the team look any weaker or stronger than VLAB or others. Of course both of the top two have their own Yates twin. Convergent strategy indeed.
Pog said he had a blocked nose in post-race interviews yesterday. No big attacks either - though Jonas described it as one of the hardest stages he's ever done, which might explain it. Seems like he's coming down with something anyway, so will be interesting to see if it impacts the race.
See that normal distribution curve Edukator mentioned.
Unfortunately he then justified this by citing someone who was racing outwith the rules on "pharamceutical help". It's not convincing and post EPO I'm not convinced that the sport has cleaned up.
It's not convincing and post EPO I'm not convinced that the sport has cleaned up.
BikeRadar did a surprisingly in-depth article on it the other day:
https://www.bikeradar.com/features/12-years-after-lance-armstrong-how-clean-is-cycling-really
It outlines some of the challenges around the current system - while it's obviously put a stop to massive doses of EPO, it's still got issues and problems and it's a fair bet that the teams, especially the top-funded ones, are a step or two ahead most of the time.
There's also the image thing (which the article references). Football and tennis manage to sweep most of it under the carpet for example. Maintain their nice clean image. Cycling - if Armstrong had actually failed a test* during his competition, it would have destroyed the Tour. Same now with Pogacar. If he gets pinged, the entire event will fall. It came very close during the Festina scandal.
* I'm aware that he did fail one and managed to produce a back-dated exemption certificate for it which in itself is another example of how the system could be beaten back then
Yeah, but at any particular level of widespread "pharmaceutical help" the outliers will still be stronger. Within any sport you'll have the dopers and non-dopers. In some sports they compete alongside each other, that was the case in triathlon in the 90s, those of us that didn't took the start with those that did and had been caught and served bans right up to world championship level. However in cycling I'd be surprised if a rider way off the right of the chart didn't use anything they'd get onto a professional team today. Back in 1997 Bassons was recognised as the only clean rider in Festina and oossibly the whole peloton at the Lille trial.
That Lille trial Festina doping protocol (from a selection of about 100 products IIRC) was tested by one athlete under the supervison of a federation and found to be worth about a 15% increase in sustainable power output - and non of the Festina riders ever tested positive. Since then I don't think the science has gone backwards and the riders haven't got any slower even accounting for aero improvements. So I don't think Pogocar is doing anything those just behind him aren't - he's just better. And if there are any riders that take absolutely nothing then hats off to them for even getting in before the deadline.
Don’t confuse “use something” with doping. If it’s currently legal, they absolutely WILL be using it. That’s the definition of being a professional. If there is some new gut formulation that enhances carb absorption, or CO breathing to simulate altitude, teams will consider this in their training. Not to mention recovery post stage. They aren’t racing on bread and water. But the legal question is different.
The biggest dopers in cycling are vets racers in gran fondos. It would be easy to take banned substances in domestic low level racing as the testing is basically non-existent. I’ve raced a couple of hundred times and never seen a tester. Normally it’s done on tip offs from other riders. National events will be subject to testing, but not always.
The biggest dopers in cycling are vets racers in gran fondos. It would be easy to take banned substances in domestic low level racing as the testing is basically non-existent.
I sent that article to a mate who lives in southern Spain and regularly races Gran Fondo and various gravel things himself. He didn't bat an eyelid, just said that it was absolutely rife over there. Said there were guys he'd beat 10-15 years ago who were now setting times faster than anything they managed from that era and he didn't stand a chance against them now.
That thing about abandons/non starts when the dope testers turn up was how Madame Edukator got her French national championship title. We also did a European championship event in Spain where there was panik in the bike park and a number of non starts and abandons. Thinking it's a uniquely continental problem is an error, the first place I was told by a club mate I'd never win anything unless I doped was in the UK around 1976 - I just resigned myself to never winning anything (but did). In triathlon we noted a number of athletes who'd been very average suddenly improving around the time the Lille trial made the Festina protocol public, notably a doctor.
Sandwich - can you please justify your (rather sweeping) comment re. Bernard Hinault? I am not aware of anything to justify it, whatever the true situation at the time may have been. To quote Wikipedia: "Hinault never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during his professional career and was never implicated in any doping practices"
In any case that has sod-all to do with the point Edukator was making.
if Armstrong had actually failed a test* during his competition, it would have destroyed the Tour.
He failed a test for cortisone and lied every time he said he'd never tested positive. He claimed the positive test was due to having used a bum cream and the complicit authorities accepted the excuse and never declared him positive. Tested positive but never declared positive. Riders had been using low levels of cortisone for decades but rarely tested positive because the test wasn't sensitive enough. Then in 99 they validated a test that detected lower levels and... .
https://www.letemps.ch/sport/lance-armstrong-justifie-traces-corticoides-decouvertes-urine
He failed a test for cortisone and lied every time he said he'd never tested positive
I'm not saying he wasn't a massive cheating **** but he could argue that he never "failed" a test - he had an adverse finding but the explanation (however sus) was accepted and no penalty was applied
Didn't Hinault and a few others once refuse a sampling at/after a race? Again, no penalty was applied (eventually) but, y'know ...
Didn't Hinault and a few others once refuse a sampling at/after a race? Again, no penalty was applied (eventually) but, y'know ...
Hinault certainly refused to submit to a doping test at least once with something along the lines of a "don't you know who I am, how dare you treat me like this?!" argument. Back then, there was no sanction for refusing to submit to a doping test.
Anyway, back to the race...
This is all over the place on the road. The break still hasn't got properly established, there's dozens of riders trying all sorts of things.
I haven't watched that much so far but Powless is looking very "economical" at the back - can he make the climb?
Wow, stunning attack from Tim Wellens! After a climb where everyone in the break was beating each other up, he caught everyone napping. Former Belgian National TT Champion, current Road Race Champion... not really the kind of person to let disappear up the road!
Talk of cross tailwinds on the boring pancake expedition to Ventoux tomorrow.
Drat, MvdP is out. A real shame to see one of the most exciting riders go:
https://www.domestiquecycling.com/en/news/mathieu-van-der-poel-abandons-tour-de-france/
hope he recovers well.
Did he really ever intend to finish?
What's up with WvA, he seems to have been awfully anonymous. I guess he's got a reasonably successful Giro in his legs and I'm sure I saw something on Strava suggesting he had been ill before the tour?
Some really big names have abandoned so far.
It does seem as though some lurgy has been travelling through the pelaton (Adam Yates wasn’t firing on all cylinders for ages).
Two riders stand out for me so far - Capt America and the absolutely wonderful Oscar Onley (who I picked for my Velogames team 😀). Q. Simmons has just been a joy to watch.
Fingers crossed that Oscar can get into the young riders jersey at some point soon.
What's up with WvA, he seems to have been awfully anonymous.
Keeping his powder dry for today?
Not nice for MvdP.
boring pancake
Ride that flat bit then tell me it's flat. 🙂
Q. Simmons has just been a joy to watch.
The problem is that he then opens his mouth. By all accounts he's not a particularly pleasant guy - he got suspended by his team for a month after some racist comments (I think aimed at Biniam Girmay) and he's generally a bit of a MAGA / Trump idiot. His whiny outburst after Tim Wellens left them all for dead didn't help his cause either.
I think today is going to be absolute chaos to get into the break - Lidl-Trek will want Milan up there for green jersey points, Visma-LAB might try firing a few riders up the road as potential help for Vingegaard later on, UAE may want it all under control and there's the third step on the podium (and potentially first place in the White Jersey) to play for too. Lots of little sub-plots going on.
And then it's going to get to Chalet Reynard and Pogacar is going to ride off into the distance and win. 🙄