He doesn’t really need race days for the ITT. It’s not as if there’s that many ITT race days anyway.
The RR is another matter, and I agree with you for that.
You still need racing kilometres in your legs for an ITT. Actually Dennis would have been my 4th choice as a leader for the World’ RR after Matthews, Clarke and Haig.
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Rupert Guiness has some answers
‘To this day, there are times when I think 'what the hell am I doing?’,’’ Dennis said. ‘‘In 2018 I reckon there were half a dozen times when I thought 'I could quit – right now’ and January last year was the big one . . . I did not want to race my bike ever again. I was over this sport. But after a while you snap out of it and maybe it’s a a bit of a depressed period, for a week or something, then you realise why you like it again. I have these little periods when things aren’t going well, across the board, sometimes it’s a bit tough. It’s the same with every job . . . you’re bashing your head against the wall 'what am I doing? what am I doing?’ Eventually that wall shows a crack and you’re 'that’s why I’m doing it’, but I still go through those periods.’’
great win bombers
de gent winning itt
van aert crashed out.
hurt leg, cut on barrier.
A sensational ITT win by the best rider in the world being Julian Alaphalippe - He’s made the race.
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great ITT
allaphillipe extends his lead by 14 seconds thats huge.
geraint thomas second
Porte made up some time on top ten rivals but still over 4 mins behind.
Good ITT by Porte. Think he can finish 7th or 8th in GC. A rubbish performance by A.Yates. Quintana a bit disappointing. Martin as expected, Kruiswijk, Pinot and Mas good. Alaphalippe will support Mas when he runs out of legs.
This TDF is wide open and expect altitude to create funny results. Interested to see how Pinot goes as one of the few riders who doesnt train at altitude
Yates looking no good today either…
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He’s cooked
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Quintana is done as well
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Amazing…
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Alaphilippe absolutely brilliant
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Pardon a few questions from an ignoramus. I know nothing about pro cycling except a few bits that I’ve gathered from watching the SBS nightly summaries occasionally.
The questions are, can Julian Alaphilippe actually win the Tour? Was he one of the favourites? I’ve never heard his name before this year. Are there any drug clouds of suspicion about him or his team?
Generally, is the sport still as dirty as it was? Or have all the efforts that have been made to clean it up actually worked?
Alaphillipe was not considered one of the favourites prior to the race. He’s never harboured GC ambitions before. Yes, we expected him to win a bunch of stages, but this is really out of the box. Can he win, on what he’s shown, absolutely yes. He may run out of legs in the 3rd week, that’s the only thing that can hold him back now.
Is the sport dirty? No more dirty than athletics. I’m sure there’s riders that push the boundaries, but the testing regime is very strict these days.
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Alaphillipe is like Dylan Clarke: not a complete player but boy what he focuses on is top level.
Yet to establish if he can keep up climbing the real mountains. If you break on just one day, you’re basically out.
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porte loses 2 minutes on GC
but still moves up 3 spots after quintana and Yates and Dan Martin have worse days.
12th overall i think he can get top 10 but not top 5 or podium.
hoping tomorrows stage is just as hard and we see some more cracks.
how good was it watching quintana grab a coke from a spectator as he was cooked and his team was on the front pushing the pace while he was getting dropped lol.
Pinot looked good glad he got the win allaphillipe second and extends lead over thomas who cracked in last 2kms.
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Was an interesting stage. Little in the way of brutal accelerations to try and break the field, but riding hard from bottom to top really blew the peleton apart.
I have my doubts about Alaphillipe being a GC contender. You can often fight for a stage or 2 as a non-climbing specialist, but the extra kgs you generally carry eventually catches up with you. On the other hand I’m also not convinced that there are a bunch of strong climbers in this years tour. Thomas had a bad day, and you wonder whether his lack of preparation is going to catch up with him (and there are obviously doubts whether he’s really a 3 week GT leader, or just someone who was in the right place at the right time with a strong team last year). Kruijswijk and Bernal would appear good chances I guess, but some questions on both of them.
and @Shelton10 Alaphilippe isn’t some nobody who has stumbled into yellow (although that sometimes happens) and is trying to hold on. He’s the guy that is generally considered the best all-round cyclist in the world at the moment (I think, am I getting this right? He’s better than Sagan on this year). He just hasn’t been considered as someone who was going to handle the high mountains across 3 weeks. He’s high quality though, and would be a favourite in most individual races that he contests. Having won a flat stage, and the ITT at the tour so far, and then being second at an HC mountaintop finish is a testament to how good he is all-round. If he gets through the Pyrenees and still has 2 minutes heading into the Alps for stages 18-19-20 then there might start to be a bit of panic amongst the peleton.
I think the fact that last night was a relatively short mountain (117km) stage may have helped him a bit to hang on. But tonight is 185 kms with a cat 2 then 3 x cat 1s, so he might struggle on the final climb today.
But who knows.
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I get the feeling we’ll have to wait for the Alps to see Jumbo really give it a shake, though It’d be great if Kruijswijk really throws down the gauntlet tonight.
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I would imagine they’d try and steal a few seconds tonight, but wouldn’t be interested in getting the yellow until the Alps. Let QS have to protect yellow for a while longer.