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Cycling 2019 - the British are coming.


BigFatCoward

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Don't expect today's stage will have many surprises - probably a bunch sprint finish.

Second week doesn't have too many surprises but the ITT will be interesting. Froome has to be expected to pick up a bit more of a lead from that. Quintana might be able to get it back in the mountain TT though.

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6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

 they have shortened the ventoux stage by 7 km due to predicted very high winds at the top, imagine that. its not like it was named for a reason. 

 

Not sure that's really doable, although i'd like to see them try!

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Some commentators have said that Froome is doing all these crazy exciting things (i.e. attacking on the descent and on a flat stage) because he's obviously worried about Quintana in the mountains and wants to build up a buffer. They also see Quintana as biding his time, being a crafty rider poised to strike at any time.

But I'm beginning to think the above is purely speculative and Froome might actually have this comfortably in the bag. He's made these attacks and not had any trouble at all, and he's obviously in great form after the Dauphine. We haven't seen much from Quintana except that he's kept his place in the peloton. I do hope he is playing the long game here.

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That was a fun stage. Froome really burned through some energy on that break. I'm sure he was happy to hear today's stage will be shortened a little. Quintana better do something soon or he's going to let it slip away.

I'll be curious to see if Nibali will go for a stage win today if Aru falters early.

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Exciting...the climb is going to start soon.

Aru has had mechanical trouble and will get a penalty for drifting behind his car - I think this stage might have broken him.

Gerrans had a big crash too, took out some Sky riders but probably won't affect things.

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Yes I think Porte may be able to do well on this climb. He'll probably pull ahead of Tejay Van Garderen in the GC by the time the stage is finished.

Big question - is Quintana going to do anything? Probably not. Froome seems to be Mr Excitement at the moment and Quintana has become the robotic rider.

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What on earth happened there?

Race organisers might neutralise it though.

Froome ran for a fair bit though and that might get him into trouble.

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Poor guy. Porte would surely have made a whole bunch of time back.

They can't take them at the time of the crash - Quintana et al will argue that it locks in Froome/Porte/Mollema's advantage when they still had room and time to chase them down. They can't take them as they are - it wasn't Froome/Porte/Mollema's fault that they had the crash.

My prediction is that they'll leave all the GC standings (from Mollema downwards) as they were at the beginning of the stage.

 

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Yes, it was probably the right decision. Mollema did get delayed a little bit by the crash so he hasn't gained an unfair advantage by it all. You'd just have to trust the Froome and Porte would have been able to stick with him.

Quintana may be annoyed that Froome and Porte's gains got 'locked in' by the crash - he could argue that he could have closed the gap at least a bit by the finish, but I don't think that was likely to happen and I suppose Froome/Porte could argue they could have conversely pulled away and widened the gap.

I expect Froome will increase his lead on the time trial. And it might be a chance for Porte to get back in the mix too, he's generally a good TTer.

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Dumoulin wins the stage, but Froome destroys all of the other GC contenders, gaining at least 2 minutes on all the other contenders. Barring a mechanical disaster or crash, I think Froome has this sewn up now.

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