Giro d'Italia
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Um, about 15 years ago Floyd Landis did a similar thing, only he gained a much more spectacular lead.
Of course he was doping at the time.
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@Chester-Draws do you think Froome found his super inhaler at the bottom of his kit bag?
Tell you what though. If Froome wins this and the UCI do him for the Vuelta 'incident' there will be some rather pissed off Giro organisers.
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@crucial Yates has had arguably the best team up to now. The only guy who hasn't really contributed has been Chaves (though he did get a stage win before capitulating). Haig and Nieve have been superb as has NZ's own Sam Bewley.
Yates is just exhausted. He'll win a GT and will learn a lot from this about how to control his energy for the 3 week duration.
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@crucial said in Giro d'Italia:
@Chester-Draws do you think Froome found his super inhaler at the bottom of his kit bag?
Tell you what though. If Froome wins this and the UCI do him for the Vuelta 'incident' there will be some rather pissed off Giro organisers.
I'm only a casual follower of cycling but the first thing I think when I read about this 'amazing attack' is 'he's dirty', which is really sad for the sport. I'm sure the real fans still enjoy watching the racing but will the reputation ever be restored?
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@chester-draws said in Giro d'Italia:
Um, about 15 years ago Floyd Landis did a similar thing, only he gained a much more spectacular lead.
Of course he was doping at the time.
Around the same time there was a Danish guy - Michael Someone, who was having big days out like this. He was doping as well.
An amusing part of the day was near the top of one of the climbs there were a couple of guys running beside Froome dressed as doctors and one carrying an enormous (like bigger than a metre) asthma inhaler.
Edit: here they are:
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Anyway, in summary, a huge day and the standings were given an enormous shake.
Yates eventually finished almost 39 minutes behind Froome and consequently falls to 18th in the standings.
The big winner on the day was, of course, Froome, while Yates was the massive loser. Other big winners were Pinot, Lopez and Carapaz who jumped to 3rd, 4th and 5th respectively.
George was a winner, though it could have been even better if he'd managed to stick with Dumoulin on the Finestre climb. Not sure whether he just couldn't or whether he chose not to bury himself. As it is - he jumps over Yates and Rohan Dennis into 9th overall, but lost time on everyone else ahead of him. Only a handful of seconds to Bilbao and Konrad - but, those could be crucial. He's 16 seconds behind Konrad and 1 minute 27 seconds behind Bilbao. I think if he could jump over Konrad and secure 8th place that would be pretty much what he deserves in the GC. I think he also deserves to be ahead of Bilbao, who just sat on the back yesterday doing no work (as far as I could see) and sprinted at the end. Not Bilbao's job to drag Pozzovivo any closer to his teammate Lopez, but nonetheless fuck that guy! George doesn't really deserve to be ahead of Yates - so 8th would be a good reflection of his efforts. Those are the two he can realistically still beat - anyone else ahead of him will be beating themselves if George gets past them.
The other losers on the day were Dennis (dropped out of the top 10) and Pozzovivo (dropped off the podium). Ben O'Connor who crashed out and Fabio Aru who also withdrew (seven guys were DNFs yesterday).
Dumoulin was a loser on the day, but could yet turn out to be the big winner if Froome has damaged himself too much. A strange day for Tom, who gained the virtual Maglia Rosa (the leader's pink jersey) and then slowly had it prised off his virtual back by Froome. In the end he's lost 12 seconds on the leader but the leader has become Froome and not Yates.
My guess is that Froome is going to be too strong and that both Dumoulin and Pozzovivo, who did lots of work at the front of their bunches will have hard days tonight.
@Crucial - Sky, Movistar, Astana and Michelton-Scott all have really strong teams and have been massive helps to Froome, Lopez, Carapaz and Yates. George has had fuck all help from his team. They actually tried to do something last night and Van Poppel managed to deliver Koen to the foot of the Finestre climb nearly a minute ahead of the peleton. However, once Sky put the hammer down, they caught and passed him like Dan Carter with a dry ball. He had a few seconds to say "gidday" to George before he was spat out the back.
Tonight's stage is yet another motherfecker. Three Category 1 climbs.
I'd imagine that Sky will plan to control the race and I'm not sure who will have the strength (individual and team) and motivation to attack.
I'm doubtful whether Dumoulin's team has the strength to try to make things tough for Froome. Lopez and Astana look happier to defend the white jersey from Carapaz rather than attack Pinot for third. Carapaz and Movistar might try to make things tough for Lopez, but I'm not sure they'll do too much.
I'd guess Sky will ride a pretty quick tempo and everyone else will hang in and hope their target opponents crack.
Hang in there George!
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https://twitter.com/LottoJumbo_road/status/1000105610489286662/video/1
George "expresses surprise" at Froome's performance!
A bit surprised Lotto posted this up!!
They've added a disclaimer on their website: Disclaimer to avoid any misinterpretation: this is not an insinuation, but a way to express the admiration for an exceptional achievement. Congratulations to Chris Froome and Team Sky.
They're going into Tui ads.
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They've also put a nice feature video on George up.
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I don't see why you would bother watching cycling if you think Froome doped last night. If Froome is doping, others must be too. If you are cheering on Bennett, what is the point if the leaders are doping? He will either have to dope to beat them or he will never beat them.
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@hydro11 It would be nice to think that it is getting cleaner and that everyone has shown significant weakness somewhere along the line in this race - and most have repeatedly - is a good sign IMO.
Froome - well, who knows for sure, but in my experience of watching cycling, when something seems too good to be true it's usually proven to be.
If Froome or anyone else doesn't like it they can go talk to Armstrong, Landis, Rasmussen (the guy I was trying to think of) and the hundreds of other drug cheats who have gone before.
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I don't think it necessarily implies doping. Pantani was able to ride days like that before he doped.
Froome is a whole class better than the guys he's riding against. Many would have put money on him being way ahead at this point.
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@chester-draws said in Giro d'Italia:
I don't think it necessarily implies doping. Pantani was able to ride days like that before he doped.
Froome is a whole class better than the guys he's riding against. Many would have put money on him being way ahead at this point.
Yeah, this. Dumoulin is not a natural climber. Yates is young. Pozovivo's previous best finish in a GT is 5th. Aru is probably the best competitor but he is off the pace. Nibali, Quintana and Porte all aren't here and one of them will probably beat Froome in the tour.
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@machpants said in Giro d'Italia:
Froome was amazing, I'm not a huge cycling follower, but how often does some one, written off, turn it around on one stage like that?
all the time. this needs to be put into perspective. Froome took one and a half minutes over two climbs today - that's happened frequently in this tour.. and not been questioned.. the other time he took on descents by taking crazy risks.
80kms out - so what? people who have an issue with it are making it sound like he was holding off the entire peloton. He wasn't at all. His team blew everyone out the back, he attacked.. then it was basically man against man as Dumoulin had fuck all help and none of hte other guys had teams to help him.
and at the end of the day he held off guys that he's got a proven track record of being a better cyclist than.
he crashed before the start, he always said he was looking to hit form in week 3. much has been said about him being able to hold of Dumoulin - but it wasn't a TT, and Tom showed during the Giro TT that he wasn't in top TT form - which of course makes sense cause he's trying to win a GT which involves LOTs of climbing.
no one questions Yates - who's just coming back from a an Asthma doping ban himself..
i'm not really a fan of Froome - but the hysteria around this is stoopid. oh and the other thing is that they had his wattage on the screen.. averaging 350 for that 80 clicks - that's nothing 'out there'.. (for comparison kiwi Aaron Gate did a race today and averaged 385 for 2 hrs)..
anyhoo looking forward to seeing how many matches he and Tom burnt yesterday - all the other climbers will need to go nuts - Sky won't really need to do too much..
funny thing is if Froome looks comfy today everyone will say yeh he's doping for sure..
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pinot just blew a gasket under zero pressure. great for Bennett! will move him up another spot based on the way pinot looks at the mo.
good example of what i was saying about what matches did guys burn yesterday -
I hope all those non-helping non-attacking motherfuckas from yesterday blow up today, especially the two who rode off Dumoulin all day.
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If Froome has an unfair advantage it is his team.
Without them he couldn't have blown all the other teams before he attacked yesterday.
Several times on other days they dragged him back when in trouble.
Dumoulin needed a team effort like that today, because he had no uphill sprint. He needed everyone exhausted by the time they reached the base of the climb. But he doesn't have a team of that calibre.
Bennett would be further ahead with a good team too.
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Final "competitive" stage last night and the only really big thing that happened was Thibault Pinot blew up on the second climb and eventually finished 45 minutes behind the winner.
There was a bit of fun up the final climb as Dumoulin attacked Froome (and vice-versa) and Carapaz attacked Lopez, but neither were successful and they eventually finished in a group sprint.
George finished half a minute behind these fireworks, closely marked by Konrad and Bilbao who were the two guys he had a realistic chance of overtaking in the standings. So he gained a place to get the eighth I thought he deserved - though I think he's had a better tour than Bilbao and Konrad, who've sort of snuck their way into their positions as others have faltered.
George's lieutenant Gesink finished second on the stage - he might well have won it if Yates hadn't blown up yesterday, because the Stage winner was Yates' key lieutenant, Nieve.
On Froome, Willie makes some reasonable points, but I think some counterpoints are that:
(i) This time last week, several times, Froome was struggling to hang onto the coat-tails of not just Dumoulin and Yates but the lead group. But yesterday he was able to blow everyone away, ride 80kms facing the breeze on the most brutal stage of the Tour and put substantial time into Dumoulin, who at least was getting some respite and help from Pinot and Reichenbach. Here's what George has to say about riding the 30kms across the flat - and he was getting plenty of help from Pozzovivo.
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(ii) Froome's already under a doping cloud.
As I said earlier, who really knows. They'll doubtless bottle Froome's piss and stick it in a freezer somewhere and, if he was doping, maybe in ten years they'll have a test to find it.
If he wasn't doping, he can put some dogshit in an envelope and post it to Lance Armstrong!
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@chris-b But part of that is because Froome knows that you win a three week tour in the third week.
Also you are wrong about a week ago. A week ago Froome won the major mountain stage handsomely.
You are thinking of the first week. Having had a couple of falls Froome was off the pace on the road stages then. Still did well in the time trial though. (He was likely overweight too, so he still had some energy left for week three).
Meanwhile Dumoulin is known to struggle with the final stages of a Grand Tour. This is not the first one he has lost in the last two days.
