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New Cycling season

This is where it gets interesting - tired riders taking on 3 days in the Pyrenees. We know that Pog's team isn't strong but Vingegaard has now lost a couple of key lieutenants too - Van Aert will do what he can but there's only really Kuss left for the high mountains. Pog's an aggressive rider who won't die wondering so there should be some real Mano a Mano stuff. Vingegaard hasn't really had a bad day yet, maybe he's due one.

Last proper stage is a 40k TT so if Pog's within striking distance there it's all up for grabs.

Wonder how Ineos will play this. Thomas will do what Thomas does but he won't make up the time to move up the rankings unless Pog or Vingegaard blow. Maybe he just marks Bardet to try to secure 3rd. Yates is the wild card - 4 minutes down is quite a bit but he's an attacking climber. Will he be given licence to attack for himself or to support Thomas? Only a minute down on Bardet - maybe they'll play a 1-2 to draw the sting from him.
 
And doing it very well. Good sprint.

2 GC stages left - one mountain, one TT. Pog will fancy his chances on the TT but not 2 minutes worth so it's all set up for the final mountain stage. If Pog can claw back 30 or 40 secs there, maybe it's game on but Vingegaard has shown no signs of weakness.
 
All over bar the shouting. Amazes me how willing riders are to gamble on downhills. For Pogacar it made sense, he had to gamble to have any chance of winning and his crash is one of those things. But Vingegaard is lucky he never threw away the TdF there with his near miss. You are 2mins 30secs up with two teammates to help pace you in the stage. Just let Pog get 10 seconds on you and trust in yourself and your team to keep things well under control. Geraint could have won it all today if they'd both crashed.

Crazy time gaps from p3 onwards. Good TdF but it really missed a fit Bernal, Roglic, O'Connor, Mas and Adam Yates to put the top two guys performances into context. Personally I think everyone else was massively sub par (possibly residual Covid) or over the hill.
 
All over bar the shouting. Strongest rider with the stronger team. Kuss after a quietish tour has come into his own in the last few days and Van Aert is the supreme super domestique. Hats off to Vingegaard. Pog has tried but hasn't quite looked at 100%…and needs a better team.

G in splendid isolation in 3rd, which is a fine achievement for this stage of his career but he's never looked like threatening the top 2. @Bruce_ma gooshvili is right - we need a bit more competition at the top end. Looking to the future, Pidcock will be better for this and Evenepoel, who wasn't here, is a hell of a talent who will do some proper Grand Tour damage some day.

Looking to the past shame Froome couldn't start today due to COVID. He deserved a finish.
 
I found it increasingly absurd as the race went on sadly. The performance the top 2 plus WVA were putting in stage after stage without any apparent cost to their energy the following day started to beggar belief. The 4th place finisher was 14mins down overall.

I'm not saying every winner from 2008 onwards (the big scandal followed by biological passport) was clean, we know that wasn't the case. But it wasn't a pantomime of commentors running out of superlatives day after day.

Blood doping and EPO can cause blood clots. Blood thinners can be taken to counteract these issues, but run the risk of increased blood loss in general (nose bleeds, cuts not stemming). Vingegaard had a bloodstain on his skinsuit at the elbow when starting the ITT (3mins 27sec on this video). A fantastic race turned really, really sour for me unfortunately.



Apparently in 2019 Vingegaard was 27th out of 50 odd in the Danish national time trial. Now he is a world beater?
 
Yep and we know all about cycling's history.

But….

There weren't really any other serious contenders. Most of the rest of the top 10 are never quite good enoughs or past its. It's not like they stuck 10 minutes into peak years Froome. Judge the rest of the pack by Thomas who took many minutes out of them - excellent rider but a few years past his best and a solid climber but without the acceleration that can break the best.

Pog and Van Aert I'm happy to put down to being freak talents, their history says as much and they're both also aggressive racers unlike Thomas. Van Aert is 9 years younger than Thomas and in absolute peak years territory, Vingegaard is a bit younger but coming into his peak, Pog younger still.

Vingegaard has come from nowhere in the last couple of years but definitely had the strongest team around him - I think we'd have been looking at a different result otherwise. You mention 2019, that was the year he became a World Tour rider - up until then he was balancing his riding with working in a fish factory. So a comparatively late start making it no real surprise he's got massively better since then - full time, more rest, better kit, top aerodynamicists etc. Whether anyone really saw TdF podium potential is another matter.
 
All fair points. Losing Roglic and O'Connor as reference points doesn't help in drawing conclusions. But it appears we have uncovered 3 'once in a generation' freaks of nature in three years.

I would say my overall suspicion of breakaway riders this year (Giro, Dauphine, TdF) has been very low with Bahrain seemingly put back in their box after police scrutiny. So I'm clinging to that desperately as a sign of hope.
 
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tour de femme had a couple big crashes early on in the wet roads. Another sprint finish though. Vos and TJV with the win, tomorrow they head to a little more mountainous route.
 
Bruce_ma gooshvili said:
All fair points. Losing Roglic and O'Connor as reference points doesn't help in drawing conclusions. But it appears we have uncovered 3 'once in a generation' freaks of nature in three years.

I would say my overall suspicion of breakaway riders this year (Giro, Dauphine, TdF) has been very low with Bahrain seemingly put back in their box after police scrutiny. So I'm clinging to that desperately as a sign of hope.
Click to expand...
My other great sporting love is athletics and that forever lets you down. We can't be complacent in cycling but I think we're in a much better place than in a long time.

Back in the day the finger of suspicion used to get pointed at most top athletes, particularly from certain countries. Now it's more likely to be those chasing the superstars but who didn't get that extra sprinkling of stardust, although you still get a few top performances that make you scratch your head. But every sport throws up generational talents - for Pog and Van Aert read Warholm, Duplantis and McLaughlin.
 
Yeah, I literally don't watch track and field from the last 10 years because I think there has been less effort to curb PEDs and sanctions that are far too lax. I've been hanging in there with cycling. The Giro a couple of months back looked very credible and completely passed my sniff test (I.e. if people are cheating, they are seriously restricted in the extent of what they are doing).
 
Where there are humans involved some will always cross the line. But now it seems to be much more at an individual level than anything organised. I hope.

On the time gaps I'm just always amazed they are as tight as they are. I get how racing works and while 10 minutes sounds a lot, over 3,000 km (a chunk of which is seriously uphill) and 80+ hours over 3 weeks it's minuscule really. I can vary that much over a 30 mile loop!
 

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