Road Cycling
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@DrivingMaul Should be an exciting stage tonight that starts to sort out the GC. It's classified only as "hilly", but finishes with an 11 km climb - second half of which averages about 10 degrees.
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@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:
@DrivingMaul Should be an exciting stage tonight that starts to sort out the GC. It's classified only as "hilly", but finishes with an 11 km climb - second half of which averages about 10 degrees.
That last half looks brutal
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You can get daily highlights on GCN channel on YouTube
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@DrivingMaul said in Vuelta a Espana:
You can get daily highlights on GCN channel on YouTube
As a quick (under 10 minutes) package that GCN one is good..
The ITV one is an hour long and usually shows the last 5 km or so in full. -
Big thing that happened last night was a crash that took out (permanently) Uran, Roche and de la Parte - all guys ahead of George in the GC.
However, that's pretty shit in terms of the overall race.
The racing is way more unpredictable than the TdF - in part, I think, because none of the teams is overly confident they've got the best guy. Certainly, no-one is making a concerted effort yet to control things.
As a result, Dylan Teuns grabbed the GC lead from a breakaway last night, while several others temporarily vaulted themselves into the top 10 - de la Cruz and Gesink.
In terms of "genuine contenders", George is probably up to about 10th.
First "Mountain"stage tonight - and look at the profile of that final climb!
A little section at 25%, a lot at 13%+ and finishing at 17%.
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Anyone else listening to the Cycling Podcast?
They are doing daily shows including 2 riders who are giving their view of what it was like in the bunch rather than the story of the day -
The big question, given the interest shown even on this board is why we aren’t getting any of this (or other tour) coverage in NZ.
Eurosport in Europe shows just about everything going both live and with highlights packages. Eurosport in NZ is piss poor. I would buy a streaming subscription from them if the content was available and it looks like others would be interested as well -
@Bovidae Yep - they're also playing replays of the final two hours many days, although the timing jumps all over the place (sometimes at quite reasonable hours). E.g. Tonight it's at 11pm, but Sunday it is 2.15pm.
I've got no idea why, when they've got at least 10 sports channels they can't do it at the same time every night.
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Didn't realize that George was part of that big crash. Doesn't sound like he's completely unscathed, which doesn't bode that well for tonight.
"It was real nasty. I don't feel too good after it, but I feel a lot better than the guys in hospital. That's part of racing – crashing. It was all going all right with [Primoz] Roglic's results, but we keep hitting the deck, and that's not good."
"What can you do?" he asked reporters. "If you crash, you can't really sulk in a [WorldTour] race. You just got to get on with it, because no one gives a s... if you crash. You've got to keep going," he said.
"It's unfortunate that Tony, Neilson and I all went down, and I'll maybe talk to the doctor. I know the other two are all good. We'll have a look and hopefully in a few days' time we can forget about today."
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Watched that last climb - pretty sure I would have been off and pushing my bike very early on!
Valverde wins, from Roglic, Lopez and Quintana and those four are grouped at the front of the field. Commentators saying the eventual winner will come from those four and it's hard to disagree. On the other hand, one or more of them is bound to crack badly before the end.
Much better climb by George today - he crosses the line ninth. Behind a few guys that he usually looks a bit better than, but still a good effort - especially after yesterday's crash. Moves up to eighth in the GC - but, now 3 min 34 sec behind Lopez. Also has Majka, Pogacar and Esteban Chavez ahead of him - and Aru and Kelderman just 2 seconds behind.
Hilly stage tomorrow - not too awful, followed by the second mountain stage and then a rest day.
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This might be interesting for Bennerr fans
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@DrivingMaul I think he's got a lot more freedom to ride for himself in this one compared with the role he was playing in the TdF.
Sepp Kuss was setting the pace on the lower slopes of the climb.
When Quintana launched his initial surge George may, or may not, have initially marked him. The commentators said is was Bennett, but next thing we saw (a minute later) was the Big Four riding away from everyone, so I'm inclined to think it was actually Roglic all along. Need to have another look.
George certainly hadn't done enough that in his TdF form he wouldn't have been able to go with the Big Four for two-thirds of that climb.
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Davide Formolo yet another victim and withdrawal from that crash....
Rigoberto Urán and Hugh Carthy both suffered broken collarbones, CCC Team's Victor de la Parte suffered multiple fractures, and former race leader Nicolas Roche required 12 stitches in his arm.
This is also quite interesting and quite hopeful in regard to George's future...