Road Cycling
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The Giro grinds on - a time trial in which Almeida extended his lead slightly over Wilco Kelderman and a bit more signficantly over most of the other contenders (picking up a minute on people like Nibali, Pozzovivo, Majka).
And last night - a mountain stage where Kelderman clawed back almost all of Almeida's advantage. Covid permitting, it looks like Kelderman's to lose to me.
Almeida is still in the jersey, but WK is just 15 seconds back. Australia's Jai Hindley is up to 3rd, but 2.56 behind - with Geoghegan-Hart, Bilbao, Majka, Nibali and Pozzovivo all within a minute of third place.
Since I'm doubtful that Almeida will manage to hang on with three mountain stages to come, it will only take Kelderman to have a bad day and any of these guys and a few others, could still grab victory.
But, it's all a bit supporting cast....
Meanwhile Van der Poel and Van Aaert went Head to Head in the Tour of Flanders - with VdP a bit surprisingly getting the better of Van Aert in a sprint. Julian Alaphilippe was contending with these two, but hit a motorbike, flipped and has broken his arm/wrist/hand (?) something like that.
The Vuelta starts in the next couple of days and Jumbo Visma are rolling out most of their TdF team - Roglic and Dumoulin as leaders, Sepp Kuss, George and Robert Gesink - along with Paul Martens, Lennard Hofstede and Jonas Vingegard. They look easily the strongest team, presumably making Roglic the favourite - depending on how he bounces back from the Tour.
Ineos has Froome and Carapaz. Movistar has Valverde, Mas and Soler.
WtW's Flying Mullet is riding for DQS and Dion Smith for Michelton-Scott.
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good ride from Bennett in opening stage of Vuelta overnight - last rider dropped from front group so ended up in 9th place. Dumoulin was dropped well before that.. great result as he thought he was overweight and still had shit form..
most painful watch was the end of Froome.. got dropped early, he was about 3 metres off hte back for AGES and he just couldn't close the gap.. quite unreal to watch, then even worse only about 10m off hte back going over hte second to last climb, and he lost loads more time on the downhill - usually a strength - looked super nervous. Stick a fork in him, he's done!
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Even better day for George in Stage 2.
He got dropped just before the summit of the final climb by the lead group of about 10, but got back on during the descent and then did most of the chasing of Soler for Roglic to limit any damage.
Wonder whether it might have been an even better day for him if he'd managed to get back to the leaders before Soler attacked? He might have been sent forward with Soler and had a chance to fight for the stage.
George is up to 8th overall - with teammates Roglic and Kuss ahead of him. Dumoulin lost a chunk of time and is no longer a factor.
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@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
Meanwhile Van der Poel and Van Aaert went Head to Head in the Tour of Flanders - with VdP a bit surprisingly getting the better of Van Aert in a sprint. Julian Alaphilippe was contending with these two, but hit a motorbike, flipped and has broken his arm/wrist/hand (?) something like that.
VdP raced in the 3 Days of De Panne yesterday (1 day race) and crashed at speed into a ditch 16km from the finish, in the lead group. Quite windy so there were echelons and he got squeezed and ran out of road. Took an age for him to move and he was really unsteady on his feet afterwards. He’s so dominant though and has an aggressive riding style where he is quite often happy to be on the front and just ride guys off his wheel. I love it! Other riders probably like it less so as more often than not if they are with him when the final selection is made, they’ve got little show of winning.
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@WillieTheWaiter said in Road Cycling:
good ride from Bennett in opening stage of Vuelta overnight - last rider dropped from front group so ended up in 9th place. Dumoulin was dropped well before that.. great result as he thought he was overweight and still had shit form..
most painful watch was the end of Froome.. got dropped early, he was about 3 metres off hte back for AGES and he just couldn't close the gap.. quite unreal to watch, then even worse only about 10m off hte back going over hte second to last climb, and he lost loads more time on the downhill - usually a strength - looked super nervous. Stick a fork in him, he's done!
Sad with Froome. He’s a positive guy but I think he’s done as well. Seems to be a changing of the guard a bit this year; Nibali is another example.
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Slightly better day for Froome, today - he was able to do some work on the front for Ineos on the lower slopes of the final climb.
Not quite such a good day for George. He couldn't quite keep pace with the leaders on the final part of the climb and finished 55 seconds down (with Valverde) and slides to 10th place (just under 2 minutes behind Roglic).
Showing enough form that if the cards happened to fall right, he could get a chance at winning a stage. In terms of the GC, when we get to the mountains he's going to be required to burn all his candles making the pace for Roglic (or for Sepp Kuss if something were to happen to Roglic) so bound to lose a chunk of time somewhere.
Dan Martin won today, a few inches ahead of Roglic and Carapaz. 13 seconds covering these three in the GC - with Mas, Carthy and Kuss all within a minute of Roglic. Chaves and Soloer both had bad luck with punctures/mechanicals and lost a bit of time today.
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In the Giro, Jai Hindley and Teo Geogeghan-Hart got away from Kelderman on the climb, while Almeida finally cracked.
Kelderman has the leader's jersey, but Hindley is just 12 seconds down and Geogeghan-Hart just 15 seconds. Bilbao in 4th is 1.19 down, so perhaps not entirely out of contention, either.
Flat stage tonight and then the winner will be sorted out on the final mountain stage.
On today's form, you'd almost have Australia's Hindley as the favourite!
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@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
In the Giro, Jai Hindley and Teo Geogeghan-Hart got away from Kelderman on the climb, while Almeida finally cracked.
Kelderman has the leader's jersey, but Hindley is just 12 seconds down and Geogeghan-Hart just 15 seconds. Bilbao in 4th is 1.19 down, so perhaps not entirely out of contention, either.
Flat stage tonight and then the winner will be sorted out on the final mountain stage.
On today's form, you'd almost have Australia's Hindley as the favourite!
I actually think the final day TT will decide it. Kelderman is the best time triallist of the 3, and Hindley is the worst. If Tao gets some more time on Kelderman tomorrow, then it’s game on.
Also must note the astonishing ride that Rohan Dennis did yesterday. He basically dragged TGH and Hindley away from the other contenders all the way up the Stelvio , through the descent and valley, and up to the final climb.
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@scribe Seems like something pretty similar happened last night - Dennis pulling TGH and Hindley away from the rest - and finishing third for good measure.
TGH and Hindley effectively tied going into the TT, while Kelderman is 1.32 back. I haven't looked at their relative capabilities or the course, but Cycling News suggesting too much time to make up.
TGH favourite to win, now.
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And Geogeghan-Hart is quicker than Hindley in the TT and wins it all. I guess there have been occasional surprise winners of Grand Tours over the years, but TGH is certainly among them.
Over-shadowed a bit (in my mind anyway) by an exciting mountain stage in the Vuelta.
TJV somehow got shredded on a descent and Roglic (having trouble with his rain jacket) got distanced from the peloton with mainly only George (and maybe Dumoulin?) to help him back. On the final climb he only had George to help him and when the attacks came he wasn't able to cover them. Carapaz, Carthy and Martin were all able to put time into him.
So Carapaz has the Red Jersey, with Carthy 18 seconds back, Martin @20 seconds and Roglic @30 seconds.
George slips to 13th overall @3.22 - but, just 22 seconds behind Valverde who is 10th.
Don't know what happened to Sepp Kuss - but, he finished 10 minutes off the pace.
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An "interesting" day for George on Stage 7.
He and Sepp Kuss were sent up the road in a large breakaway group - presumably with two purposes. Firstly, for George to pick up some time in the GC and move back into the realms of being a contender; and secondly, to force Ineos to chase.
That Valverde was also in the breakaway group certainly helped with the second purpose, which I'd say worked pretty well - but, perhaps more for Movistar than TJV. At the end of the stage Movistar has Mas (5th), Soler (7th) and Valverde (9th) compared with TJV having Roglic (4th) and George (10th). But, based on that stage, anyway, Valverde is a stronger card for Movistar than George is for TJV.
Valverde made a number of strong moves - the first on the flat saw him and two other riders put 20+ seconds on the large breakaway. George evidently saw this as potentially a significant move and chased with two others, but the breakaway decided not to let this six get away and about the time that George was catching Valverde, the breakaway caught him - and that perhaps expended his "go fast" for the stage.
When Valverde's next significant move came near the top of the final climb - four other riders were able to jump across to him, but not George (and I think Sepp Kuss stayed to support George).
That group of five eventually fought out the finish, while George and a dozen others chased them across the flats and eventually finished 13 seconds down on Woods who won. So George picked up 43 seconds on the GC leaders and jumped up to 10th - with a time bonus, Valverde picked nearly a minute.
I guess, overall, all the big teams will be satisfied with their day - EF the most because Woods won and Carthy stays 2nd in the GC, but Movistar next due to Valverde's gains. Ineos defended ably and TJV have jumped George up with Roglic solid.
Mountain Stage tonight, which I think will sort out some pretenders.
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Big statement on the final climb by Roglic last night.
Movistar did most of the pace-making up to the climb - apparently to set up the stage for Mas. Valverde even launched an early attack on the climb to burn off the stragglers - not a very serious one, because he was quite quickly reined in by the lead group with Gesink still pacing them.
But, quite early on the lead group was down to about a dozen riders - the top 10 and a handful of others - most notably Sepp Kuss, Vlasov and Wout Poels.
Carthy attacked (very and too early) and Sepp Kuss covered him - dropping anchor on his wheel. That attack pretty much spat all the pretenders out the back including Grosschartner, Soler, Valverde, Chavez and George.
Carapaz slowly rode back to Carthy, bringing Roglic, Martin and Vlasov with him.
Vlasov had a crack and they let him go, briefly.
Then Carapaz attacked and only Roglic was able to go with him. Finally, Roglic made a couple of big attacks and was evidently the strongest, beating Carapaz by 13 seconds, Martin by 19 and Carthy by 33. The others in the top 10 trailed in between one and two minutes down. George lost 1.49 and slipped to 12th a few seconds behind Wout Poels and Mikel Nieve. Now 4.21 down on Carapaz though.
Carapaz holds the red jersey by 13 seconds from Roglic.
Martin is 28 seconds back
Carthy 44 seconds
Mas is the best of the rest at 1.54
and Grosschartner probably out of it 3.5 minutes down.A couple of flat stages the next two days - then two consecutive mountain stages.
A big problem for Carapaz, especially (but probably all of these guys) is the Stage 13 time trial, where he'll surely lose a decent chunk of time to Roglic.
And after the time trial there's only one more genuine mountain stage - though several hilly stages.
Those mountain stages at the weekend are going to be critical.
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Another statement by Roglic, who wins an uphill sprint to take out Stage 10 and claim back the red jersey from Carapaz, though they are equal on time.
George finished in the group 3 seconds down on Roglic and made up a few seconds on several of the people ahead of him - jumping over Nieve into 11th.
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Two mountain stages - the first one, the big guns largely neutralized one another and let Soler grab a couple of minutes and a couple of places in the GC (but, he got beaten for the stage win by David Gaudu).
Soler paid for that last night - blew up on the horrendous L'Angliru and lost 14 minutes.
L'Angliru looked awful - some parts I reckon even those guys would just about have been quicker if they'd got off and pushed!
In the end - and much to my surprise - Hugh Carthy had the best legs and was able to ride away from Mas, Carapaz and Vlasov and won by 16 seconds. Kuss helped to drag Roglic and Dan Martin over the line another 10 seconds further back.
George bailed early to ride the hardest part at his own pace and finished 12th on the stage, but 3 minutes behind Carthy. He remains in 11th overall.
So Carapaz takes the red jersey again.
Roglic is 10 seconds down.
Carthy is @32 seconds
Martin @35 seconds
Mas @ 1 minute 50Wout Poels is 6th, but more than 5 minutes down. George is 7.40 down in 11th.
All of the top three will be pretty satisfied with their day. Carthy won the stage and jumped ahead of Martin.
Carapaz took the red jersey.
And Roglic survived without any major time loss to Carapaz.
The next stage is a 34km time trial, where Roglic will expect to do some pretty significant damage to all his rivals.
Then there's three "Hilly" stages (though one looks pretty close to mountainous to me), a Mountain stage, and a final flat stage into Madrid.
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Roglic wins the time trial, but his competitors do better than I expected them to.
Carapaz is just 39 seconds behind in the GC and Carthy is @47 seconds.
Dan Martin the loser on the day, he's now in 4th and 1 minute 42 back.
George was fast enough to jump over Mikel Nieve, but not fast enough to stay ahead of De la Cruz, so he remains in 11th.
Jumbo Visma has been happy enough to let George more or less ride for himself for several days and keep himself on the edge of the mix. My theory - and it's probably good for George - is that they're planning to send him up the road during the final week and force some of the other teams to chase him to protect their positions in (or aspirations for) the top 10. So instead of TJV having to do all the work at the front of the peloton, they may be able to sit back on a day or two and let others chase George. Which might give George a chance to go for a stage win!
Anyway, it's a theory...
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The GC remains largely unchanged - yesterday the lead group split by a few seconds and George finished in the second group - losing a few seconds to David Gaudu and slipping to 12th - one second down.
Dion Smith was in the mix at the finish today - finished sixth in the sprint.
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Another hilly stage and Dion Smith gets even closer.
He was fourth on the stage, but the 3rd placed finisher (Rui Costa) got relegated, so Dion gets to stand on the podium of a Grand Tour individual stage. Not many NZers have done that - pretty certain none have ever won - not sure who else has come in the first three on an individual stage. I'm guessing Julian Dean probably would have somewhere. George had a 4th in the Giro. I think Jack Bauer got swamped when he nearly won at the TdF.
Dion was only a couple of bike lengths from the winner (Cort-Neilson). Roglic came second so picked up 6 bonus seconds and I think has locked up the green (sprinters) jersey. George sort of led Roglic out in the sprint so was briefly leading inside the last km - so probably NZ's most competitive stage!
Final mountain stage tonight.
Roglic with 45 seconds on Carapaz and 53 seconds on Carthy. Like the Tour - it's his to lose!
Also a test of my theory of whether they'll let George go up the road.
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A pretty exciting final mountain stage.
Dan Martin dropped away from the lead group leaving Carapaz, Roglic and Carthy to fight it out.
Carthy made a couple of feints, but Carapaz attacked hard with about 3km of the climb left and broke away.
At his peak he put 25 seconds between himself and Roglic. TJV had put Lenard Hofstede in the breakaway (the role I thought they might give George) and he was able to sit up and wait for Roglic and provide a bit of support for Primoz.
In the end, Carapaz made up 21 seconds on Roglic - but not enough.
Not sure what the protocol is on the final stage, but I think it will be hard to do much unless Roglic crashes or goes to sleep.
