Road Cycling
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@gt12 Just reading that Sepp Kuss has covid and won't start, so that's even worse. They've still got a good team, but Sepp is the guy you'd expect to still be there at the end of the mountain stages.
I'm prepared to give Jonas some benefit of the doubt - and Tadej rode the Giro, so that may catch up with him at some point.
TAB has:
Tadej 1.62
Jonas 3.50
Primoz 9.00
Remco 17.00Everyone else over $20. Given the likelihood of crashes, covid and unexpected cracking - someone like Remco or Joao Almeida ($41) might be worth a small punt!
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can't see it being anything other than a cake walk for Pog. Hard to have that much time off and get the required level of fitness back. (see Pog last year after his busted wrist).
reckons he's fully recovered from the Giro and better than ever (noticeable how much leaner he is this year... which seems absurd considering how skinny they are..)
was funny listening to poddy with Geraint and him on it - G asked him out of 10 how rooted he was after the giro - answer was a 7.. G was basically 'ruined'.. and had to come home and spend time immediately doing stuff with his kids, Pogi 'no idea how you can do that - i just spent 2 days on the couch with the missus, good to go.'Can't think of any kiwis at the tour this year.. no pithie or dion smith...
another year of waiting for our first stage (solo) victory!Carapaz might be a good dark horse for a podium
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cycling world has lost its sh*t on the internet after she only ended up losing the tour by 4 secs....
in other news - close for Corbin Strong last night - 3rd in stage 2 of the Vuelta - no much press considering one of the best ever results for a kiwi in a stage in a grandie
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A very strange day. The peloton gave Ben O'Connor a win by 6.31 - he's much too dangerous a rider to gift that much time. He now leads Roglic by 4.51 and Primoz & Co will likely have a long hard battle to claw that time back.
George finished with the reduced peloton. Some "sort of" good news for him personally is that his team mate Riccitello didn't (edit: just read he had a crash so that's not good).
Israel Premiertch started the race with three protected riders - Riccitello, Michael Woods and George.
Woods lost time on the first mountain stage and is 3.5 minutes behind George, while Riccitello is 7 minutes behind. If they're going to continue to ride for GC then George has surely become the de facto team leader - for now, anyway.
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What is more bizarre is that the Vuelta was won in exactly this fashion last year on stage six.
Roglic must be a very slow learner.
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@Chester-Draws said in Road Cycling:
What is more bizarre is that the Vuelta was won in exactly this fashion last year on stage six.
Roglic must be a very slow learner.
Getting in, chasing, and losing that break also cooked on of his domestiques. Bora looked short of help today and they’ll all need good legs when they get to the mountains.
Kuss was a fucking legend chasing Soler to get Wout back in contention for the stage. It was a huge effort from a GC guy on the flat.
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Stage 9 and Adam Yates did a Ben O'Connor to bring himself somewhat back into the equation - as did Carapaz. UAE needed to do something after Almeida dropped out of contention yesterday and dropped out of the race with covid today.
O'Connor was able to ride with the small Roglic group - Mas was able to break away from that group on the final climb, but it wasn't a mountain top finish and they reeled him back in on the flat after a descent.
George had a mechanical right at the bottom of the final climb and lost 3 minutes on Roglic.
Shades of the Giro if a few years ago. I guess we'll never know whether he could have ridden with that group - in theory the climb might have suited him - but potentially being about 10th turns into 16th.
GC
O'Connor
Roglic
Carapaz
Mas
Landa
Lipowitz
Yates
Gall -
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@gt12 Yeah - he didn't have a great day - O'Connor even made a few seconds on him in the sprint bonus points.
That's why I'm annoyed about George - guys he finished with the previous day - Lipowitz and Gall were able to ride with Primoz!
Lots of big mountains to come and none of the teams able to exert a lot of control so plenty to come.
Did you see Enric Mas save himself on the descent. Lucky lad! Should be covered in gravel rash!
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@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
@gt12 Yeah - he didn't have a great day - O'Connor even made a few seconds on him in the sprint bonus points.
That's why I'm annoyed about George - guys he finished with the previous day - Lipowitz and Gall were able to ride with Primoz!
Lots of big mountains to come and none of the teams able to exert a lot of control so plenty to come.
Did you see Enric Mas save himself on the descent. Lucky lad! Should be covered in gravel rash!
I can understand why cycle pants are generally black.
You'd need a change after looking out over that drop.
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holy shit!!
that's a lucky run off! if that's not there he's over that barrier
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George's turn to pull an "O'Connor/Yates".
Pulls back 4.04 on OÇonnor and moves up to 10th overall. Interestingly, though, he says his priority is more a stage win than a high GC placing. The guy in 6th place is only 23 seconds ahead!
Roglic, Mas & Co made up 40 seconds on Ben O'Connor - so the GC battle definitely still all on.
'A horrible dynamic' - George Bennett praises teammates' hard work in massive Vuelta a España breakaway
New Zealander disappointed at failure to claim stage win but moves into top ten
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@gt12 Some sort of sadist must make up the Vuelta route. The remaining stages are:
Hilly
Mountain
Medium Mountain
Mountain
Rest day
Mountain
Medium mountain
Medium moutain
Hilly
Mountain
Time trialAnything can happen. For a while today, George was in virtual second place.
If he can recover well overnight (and seemed like he didn't have to do too much work in the breakaway) then a top five GC position isn't far away.
Mas and Roglic appear to be the strongest riders in the race - but, neither of their teams nor AG2R seem to be able to control breakaways so someone could easily burgle this Vuelta (as O'Connor may have done already - but, he's possibly played his hand too soon).
