Chaves has come to the front - White will need to pull his riders out and concede that Yates is the leader.
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Chaves lost 25 minutes. But Yates got bonus seconds on the intermediate sprint and extends his lead.
I guess that settles the leadership question.
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That’s such a blow. MS held all the cards until today.
Any explanation yet as to what happened?
Not yet.
Hope he’s well enough to at least help in the mountains now. Or do they cotton wool him for TDF, what were MS plans there?
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Stage hunting with Ewan and Adam Yates.
Chaves for the Vuelta you’d think.
Chaves was no where near it in the end (39th overall now), and they had most of the team working for him, and Yates extends his lead. At least the whole team will be working for Yates now.
Dumolin had to change bikes with 20km to go.
Pinot picked up a time bonus only 5 seconds behind Dumolin.
Froome also lost time (10th).
Happy with Dennis overall position still (7th).
George Bennett 6th overall
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Dumoulin had a heavy crash ( his words). Hence the bike change.
I only watched the eurosport highlihgts and they just showed the bike changeover, i thought it must have been a mechanical problem.
The irony is if MS had one leader then Chaves would have got back to the peleton, because MS would have deployed three more riders to bring Chaves back, seeing the chase group got back to one minute - Doubt that Chaves is ill but had bad legs at the beginning - When you are ill you struggle on the climbs or if there is an increase in speed - After the first climb, Chaves was fine going up and down - Chaves had the same issue after the rest day in the 2016 Giro but the stage profile was a bit different that day and there were less riders in the front peleton, so MS could limit the early damage and Chaves got back on a mountain climb - Think the wider issue is Chaves form has been inconsistent in the last two seasons and you have to decide if you want him to be A GT leader in the future - It’s an interesting dilemma.
Ewan finishes third behind the two breakaways in a lumpy stage 3 of TOC that ended on Laguna raceway - This was similar to his win in the TDU stage in 2018, though a bit lumpier - There is a similar parcours in stage 5 of the TDF.
I’m not convinced that if everyone was helping they would have got him back. All the other teams we full gas from the moment he was dropped.
Would have got back. Three more riders to get back a minute and help from QS gets it done.
The fact that it was wet and cold had a fair bit to do with his problems.
Good chance to get Chaves into the break on the Zoncolan stage. Certain Nieve can get Yates up Zoncolan.
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Great race tonight. Yates was brilliant and so strong. Still early days but he looks so good. Chaves not there again. Dennis made top 10 which was a great effort. Great racing and very entertaining to watch.
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Ben O’Connor having a great race too.
He’s now only 5s adrift of Froome in the GC now after Froome lost another 40s.
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Not sure if Chaves was caught up in the Katusha riders crash at the end. No point spending any bickies on that stage anyway.
Yates knows he needs to take more time out of Dumolin before ITT so getting Bonus seconds with the win helps.
Its a pretty exciting Tour.
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The final week suits Yates more the Dumoulin so long as he doesn’t fade. So he can carry a bit of a deficit after the Itt.