Road Cycling
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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...
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Fascinating day of racing on what the commentators think is the the hardest stage. It had a bit of everything, including losing the TV coverage for about 10 minutes of key action due to a major rainstorm.
Racing continued to be waaay different to the usual TdF patterns.
The big contenders let a big group of riders away up the road - more than 3 minutes - including some of their key teammates (e.g. Fuglsang, Kuss and 2 others from TJV, and Soler) and even someone like Kelderman, who is something of a GC threat.
Coming onto the big final climb, Lopez attacked really early and broke away. George gave Roglic a little bit of help to chase, but was struggling and quickly slid out the back.
A smallish group continued to chase Lopez, with Quintana and Valverde also taking it in turns to attack Roglic - who they clearly wanted to break with the ITT pending. Meanwhile some of the key men from the breakaway in front sat up and waited for their leaders - most worryingly, at the time, Fuglsang waiting for Lopez - and those two powered on. Sepp Kuss dropped back and provided some key support for Roglic.
Around this time the TV pictures disappeared and the rain poured down.
While that was occurring, Valverde, Quintana and Pogacar broke away from Roglic. Lopez somehow managed to crash on a graveled section. Edit: Turns out Roglic also crashed on the gravel section - a motorbike somehow got in his way.
When the TV reappeared, Lopez was riding with most of the remnants of the breakaway. V,Q and P were rapidly closing on him and Roglic was 20 or 30 seconds further back. Marc Soler had broken away and was heading towards winning the stage.
Quintana and Pogacar rode past Lopez and made a break on the others. Roglic came surging back and caught and passed Lopez and eventually Valverde.
Much to his disgust, Soler got reined in to wait for, and help, Quintana - allowing the Stage win to fall into Pogacar's lap.
Net result is that Quintana gets the red jersey, 6 seconds ahead of Roglic with Valverde and Lopez both within 30 seconds and Pogacar 1.42 back. Pogacar is a guy who is going to be a major force with Bernal in coming years - I watched him thwart George on the climb up Mt. Baldy in the Tour of California earlier this year.
George battled on, but is now 7 minutes behind in 15th place (though probably 10th in terms of genuine contenders). That's surely enough rope that he'll get a chance to escape up the road and hunt a stage win.
Meanwhile, it's a rest day then attention turns to Patrick Bevin and whether he can win the Individual Time Trial, in which he'll be a major contender.
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And Roglic pips Bevin by 25 seconds to win the stage.
Bevin must have been sitting there for an hour with an individual stage win in his grasp!
Roglic now 1.52 ahead of Valverde in the GC, Lopez 2.11, Quintana 3.00; and Pogacar 3.05.
George rode an identical TT time as Quintana and moves up to 13th.
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Quiet day yesterday - no-one threatening in the breakaway and TJV parked themselves on the front of the peloton and cruised.
With Roglic sitting on a handy lead, I'm not sure George will get much scope to go stage hunting from here. His job seems likely to be changed to "Help Protect Roglic".
His best chances might be getting permission to attack near the end of Stages 18 or 20 - mountain stages that don't finish on top of big mountains - if he's able to be up with the leaders and Roglic is feeling secure.
Patrick Bevin might be more interesting to watch in the meantime. He was talking about trying to be in some breakaways now that he's missed winning the time trial.
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George definitely working for Roglic last night - did a significant stint on the front on the final climb - ended up costing him a few seconds, when Lopez attacked near the top and George couldn't quite stick with the lead group.
TJV look a little bit vulnerable to me with George not in his best form and Sepp Kuss also getting dropped on that last little climb.
Tonight's stage is massive - seven categorized climbs and the last one looks like the North Face of the Eiger.
Roglic will need help if he's not going to be isolated by Movistar and others - good night for George to really stand up.
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@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:
TJV look a little bit vulnerable to me with George not in his best form and Sepp Kuss also getting dropped on that last little climb.
TJV had a great day in the mountains yesterday - with Sepp Kuss getting the green light to go for and get the win.
Amazing how much talent they have in that team at the moment. And Tom Dumoulin joining next year...So there will be:
Dumoulin - previous Giro winner and TDF runner-up
Kruiswijk - 3rd at TDF 2019
Roglic - 4th TDF 2018, 3rd Giro 2019 and likely first Vuelta 2019Plus: Bennett and now this youngster Kuss who can obviously climb!
and then add Tony Martin, and Robert Gesink.And just in case you want to sprint: Dylan Groenewegen and Wout van Aert
Bloomin unbelievable strength.
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@Billy-Webb And Laurens de Plus who was quite impressive helping George support Kruiswijk on the TdF climbs.
Commentators were saying last night the team budget is about half of INEOS'.
I reckon George might have been sick last night. When Marc Soler set off to join the breakaway, initially George marked him briefly - but, next thing George had dropped back to support Roglic and Sepp Kuss was instead sent forward to chase and catch Soler. (So my theory is that Kuss won George's stage).
Next thing the pace went on and the peloton fractured and there were only two TJV riders with Roglic and I was pretty sure neither of them were George, though I didn't get a really good look.
A bit later that lead "peloton"more or less sat up and everyone re-joined - including the whole TJV team (except Kuss who was up the road).
On the final climb when the elite guys ramped the speed up, George immediately disappeared - and rode up with Tony Martin.
Roglic looks like he has things well in hand and supremely confident - despite being left on his own he immediately marked Valverde and there never looked to be any hesitation about letting Kuss ride to win the stage.
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My understanding is that Bennett has another 2 years after this with TJV...?
I do hope they give him a more than super-domestique role at one or two of the grand tours next year. -
@Billy-Webb Problem is that George is only 4th in the pecking order if Dumoulin should arrive and, as we're seeing with the Vuelta, if George (and pretty much anyone else - except Valverde) ride the TdF, then they're too knackered to do a lot at the Vuelta.
I think George's best bet is to ride as a super domestique for someone in the Giro in exchange for a similar deal as he's had in the Vuelta this year .
But, I suspect he's too valuable for the team at the TdF - so he'll have to hope that his cartilage operation works and he goes to another level. Otherwise I think he's going to be Wout Poels.
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@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:
@Billy-Webb Problem is that George is only 4th in the pecking order if Dumoulin should arrive and, as we're seeing with the Vuelta, if George (and pretty much anyone else - except Valverde) ride the TdF, then they're too knackered to do a lot at the Vuelta.
I think George's best bet is to ride as a super domestique for someone in the Giro in exchange for a similar deal as he's had in the Vuelta this year .
But, I suspect he's too valuable for the team at the TdF - so he'll have to hope that his cartilage operation works and he goes to another level. Otherwise I think he's going to be Wout Poels.
A lot will depend on that op. At the moment TLJ won't take a risk on him as a lead rider because of his side stitch so he does the best job he can.
My guess is that he may be given another crack at ToC where he has a good record to see the difference post-op. Ride support at the Giro then see what is happening with the others' form/fitness.
His other big problem in these tours is the ITT component. He may be able to mitigate that loss a bit by being dragged in the TTT but it still means that he has to be part of a decent break somewhere to get on level terms with some of the others. -
@Crucial To be fair, he is a protected rider in this race - or he was - just doesn't have the legs to do anything much.
I'm somewhat hoping he's saving some gas for the last couple of mountain stages, when he might be allowed a similar role as Kuss got the other day.
George did do some good work last night, riding on the front for several kilometres at the start of the final climb - but, he'll be a bit pissed that Lopez chose to launch his attack near or at the end of George's stint, so that Gesink and Powless who were due to take over got blown away and didn't have to work!
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Looks like TJV made a blunder in the early part of a flat stage, last night.
Let Quintana escape in a big group and had to spend the day chasing hard to limit the damage. Still handed back five minutes to Quintana - which puts him in second and Valverde in third.
With two mountain stages still to come, that could still burn Roglic badly. They can again double team him with attacks if they can isolate him.
Have to say - TJV management seem to go to sleep at the wheel occasionally in a way that you don't often see from Ineos. They fucked up at the Giro and they let George get caught out at the TdF.
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@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:
Looks like TJV made a blunder in the early part of a flat stage, last night.
Let Quintana escape in a big group and had to spend the day chasing hard to limit the damage. Still handed back five minutes to Quintana - which puts him in second and Valverde in third.
With two mountain stages still to come, that could still burn Roglic badly. They can again double team him with attacks if they can isolate him.
Have to say - TJV management seem to go to sleep at the wheel occasionally in a way that you don't often see from Ineos. They fucked up at the Giro and they let George get caught out at the TdF.
It was crosswinds again. TLJ need a better weather forecaster.
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Just watched the highlights - one of the fastest ever stages in a Grand Tour.
Movistar completely outsmarted TJV.
The peloton split in two and they had Quintana up the road with support and then on one of the small, later climbs they went to the front of the Roglic group with Soler and Valverde - put the hammer down and blew away Roglic's remaining support riders. Isolated him and then sat up.
Luckily for Roglic, Astana still had some firepower available and they chased the Quintana group (for Lopez) and saved Roglic's ass.
I reckon TJV would be pretty concerned at how their team is fading around Roglic.
Tonight will be massive, with questions as to who's going to turn up with some power in their legs after today's stage.
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@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:
Just watched the highlights - one of the fastest ever stages in a Grand Tour.
Movistar completely outsmarted TJV.
The peloton split in two and they had Quintana up the road with support and then on one of the small, later climbs they went to the front of the Roglic group with Soler and Valverde - put the hammer down and blew away Roglic's remaining support riders. Isolated him and then sat up.
Luckily for Roglic, Astana still had some firepower available and they chased the Quintana group (for Lopez) and saved Roglic's ass.
I reckon TJV would be pretty concerned at how their team is fading around Roglic.
Tonight will be massive, with questions as to who's going to turn up with some power in their legs after today's stage.
Damn. I missed the entire stage. Thanks for the great summary @Chris-B
It would be a shame for Roglic if he fades now and blows his chances. (disclaimer: I am a Roglic fan).
But I guess that makes the race more exciting. -
With only the ceremonial stage into Madrid to go, Roglic holds on reasonably comfortably to win the overall tour.
Some great racing over the final stages - pretty much every stage had surprises and drama.
Second-to-last stage, Roglic and Lopez were involved in a crash - Movistar launched an attack while they were down, which pissed a lot of people off - and especially Astana (for Lopez).
Final stage, Pogacar was the man with the most left - he attacked about 40 km out and built a 90 second+ lead that he never relinquished; supplanting Lopez and Quintana in the process. The remnants of Movistar and Astana wouldn't cooperate properly with one another in a chase and for a while it looked like Valverde might even surrender second place to Pogacar (though I suspect Valverde was always saving a little bit in case Pogacar got really close).
George did some good work for Roglic early in the stage, helping to control Astana's efforts to send men up the road, and eventually was the last TJV man with Roglic, but still fell away when the big attacks came - from Lopez and then Pogacar.
Somewhat disappointing tour for George. He never seemed properly right after that big crash at the end of the first week. I wondered whether he'd got sick, but also wondering whether he was carrying something from that crash - or whether his TdF efforts just caught up with him, as they did for plenty of others.
Amazing tour for the Slovenians - first and third. Pretty amazing that Valverde rides the TdF and still manages second. Slightly disappointed for Lopez, who created a lot of the GC excitement, but eventually attacked himself into the ground and comes away somewhat empty handed (5th).
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Not worth a new thread for the World Champs, but just to note - Patrick Bevin finished 4th in the ITT - two seconds off the podium! Rohan Dennis defended his title - pretty comfortably.
Men's road race goes on Sunday - Bevin probably our best shot in that as well. It looks like a "Peter Sagan" sort of course. Maybe enough climbing to get rid of many of the pure sprinters, but not enough to benefit the climbers. Seven laps around Harrogate at the end, so likely a big bunch finish.
Our team is George, Bevin, Jack Bauer and Dion Smith.
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