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TdF Stage 10.
TdF Stage 10.
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I want to lay Nibali at 1.25 but I'm not sure I can. I can see him having a bad day somewhere but not losing enough time to make a decent difference in the GC.
Can't help thinking if that chase group worked with Porte there would be less of a time difference for them all. |
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Unless he falls, we have the 2014 Tour de France winner.
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Porte can probably make 30 seconds on the TT. Can I see him picking up 2 minutes in the mountains? No.
Can I see the rest picking up 3 mins+ in the mountains? No. Have to agree with you, unless we get something unexpected Nibali has this. |
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looked brilliant today
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Feel sorry for the upcoming abuse VDB is going to get.
Jurgen Van den Broeck: "It was Contador's own fault. He stepped on the pedals to overtake and rode in a hole." Real quote or not Contador fans are going to use that against him and they are vicious. |
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wow fractured his tibia and still rode for a long way trying to get back on, shows some heart !
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He was actually catching the peloton for a large amount of the time before he climbed off. Not sure he'll be at the Vuelta if that injury is confirmed.
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Tour de France: Alberto Contador abandons after heavy crash on stage ten
By Matt Westby. Last Updated: 14/07/14 7:21pm Share: 2 0 Alberto Contador had been lying ninth overall Alberto Contador had been lying ninth overall Sky Bet Claim your free bet now! Up To £30 Free Matched Bet Alberto Contador has abandoned the Tour de France after breaking his right leg in a crash on stage ten. The Spaniard fell heavily with just under 100km of a mountainous day remaining and although he remounted his bike and tried to catch back up to the peloton, he was unable to continue and quit the race around 20km later. It initially appeared that Contador's right knee had taken the brunt of the impact, with medics applying bandages to a cut, but subsequent X-rays revealed a fractured tibia. Tinkoff-Saxo team manager Bjarne Riis said: “Alberto crashed on a fast and straight part of the descent. He was reaching for his pocket and the bike was swept away under him, probably because of a bump or hole in the road. Surgery "Alberto has broken his tibia just below the knee. It’s not a complicated fracture, but it probably requires surgery. He will stay with us tonight and tomorrow he will travel back to Madrid to undergo further examinations and a surgery if necessary." Contador retires from the race Contador took more than four minutes to remount his bike after the incident and although he started gingerly, after about 5km he looked back up to full speed and had closed to within just over three minutes of the main bunch, which had temporarily slowed to wait for him. However, he was then forced to receive further treatment from the race’s medical car and his deficit subsequently grew back out to over four and a half minutes. With the pain still not easing, Contador began thanking the team-mates who had tried to pace him back to the peloton and then climbed off his bike and into the Tinkoff-Saxo team car. Froome offers sympathy "Big loss for the TDF today. Recover well @albertocontador & I hope to see you at the Vuelta." Chris Froome Contador, who was bidding to win the Tour for the third time following triumphs in 2007 and 2009, had been lying ninth overall, 4min 8sec down on leader Tony Gallopin. The 31-year-old's withdrawal leaves Vincenzo Nibali, who regained the race lead by winning stage ten solo, as the strong favourite to claim overall victory. Contador falls to the same fate as Team Sky rider and defending champion Chris Froome, his fellow pre-race favourite for victory, who abandoned the race on stage five after a spree of crashes. Froome offered his comiserations to Contador on Twitter, and inadvertently revealed he will race the Vuelta a Espana later in the summer. He tweeted: "Big loss for the TDF today. Recover well @albertocontador & I hope to see you at the Vuelta." |
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a great shame for the neutral as race needed him...gutted myself
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I think the main thing I took away from that stage is that OPQ can be quite commercially-driven with their approaches sometimes, like a corporate entity is at the heart of their decision-making process. They've got an absolute future gun in the Polish rider Kwiatkowski, and they throw massive pressure on his small shoulders by apparently setting him up for failure.
 Certainly not the stage to sacrifice the Panzerwagon with him backing-up after his marvellous win, for a stage victory and time gain for Kwiatkowski, who was a carrot too big for the Peloton to ignore. Kwiatkowski just hasn't developed enough to approach a final climb of that difficulty and hold a gap to win. Never once considered he'd win this stage.Would've been interesting to have seen, had Bertie not crashed and Nibali still attacked, if Bertie might have been capable of answering the Italian's brilliance. I think Bertie might have danced for a while to get up to speed and then buried himself to keep a few metres between them, but I don't think he would've been stronger. But we'll never know, since he unfortunately crashed. Top ride by Purito to back up in fine fashion, that polkadot jersey sure means a lot to him now. I thought Purito was a fair chance to hang on for the stage win given how well he was going in the breakaway, but those mountain point sprints against Voeckler caught up to him by the finale and he faded badly. Nibali gets full credits though, along with his team AST who have been riding brilliantly in terms of strategy -- he was just too fresh by the finale and dominated the GC group with a devastating kick. JC Peraud looked like he might land a good bet for 3rd place, but that's cycling. Cheers, SP P.S. Enjoy the rest day with a highlights package perhaps -- just confirming the general consensus that the race has had some amazing racing and a lot of surprising happenings. P.S.2. Just to pick up on Clay's point, I don't think anyone wishes a rider to crash in order to win a bet. Some might be into cycling betting for some fast money with no actual love of the sport, and that's fine if it works for them, but at the heart of cycling is a very interesting concept, and you see it occasionally when two opponents share a water bottle on a really hot day or when two breakaway riders - who have combined together like team-mates - shake hands after being caught by the peloton. I think that if we are as fair with our comments as the riders are with themselves when cycling is as pure as we hope it is, then we all will somehow understand more. |
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@itcanbedone:
Already "shown my face" mate, but thanks for the concern. |
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Swinging Pick - interesting summary as per usual but I do disagree with your assessment.
If we use Pinot as a 'form guide' I would have been absolutely stunned if Bertie hadn't have put a minute into him yesterday yet he was only 15 secs behind Nibali at the finish. Also, as Richie Porte pointed out, the stage would have been even harder with Saxo at full pelt as they would've brought their train to the front on the penultimate climb and probably would have isolated Nibali. Instead Nibali was able to obtain an arm chair ride behind Fulsang and then Scarponi and then attack with no pressure applied. I see it the opposite way. I think Nibali could have raised his game more and would've have probably finished 20 secs behind Bertie yesterday. And in the grand scheme of things that would have left Bertie still a big bridge to overcome on the GC standings. Nibali has never been as good as Bertie in the mountains. But as you say we will never know. |
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Hey Clay, always great to speak with you, your love for the sport is obvious and I appreciate your opinions and views, so thanks for your reply.
I'm not sure using Pinot as the basis for this comparison is correct, and I'll accept some responsibility for that, since I missed the important fact that Pinot is from this area originally, his father is still the mayor of the local town, I believe. Pinot would've known this climb quite well and that would've been a big advantage which is difficult to use in a comparison such as this. I therefore think you're better going with Bertie's finish on stage 8 into Gerardmer when he gained 3secs over Nibali after attacking when in sight of the line. Nevertheless, I'm not convinced Nibali would've been isolated, since he still had Scarponi with him when he attacked the GC group on the final climb of stage 10, and he would've had more of his team-mates if not for AST shedding riders in pursuit of Kwiatkowski up the road with Martin. Kwiatkowski gaining time would've been bad for Bertie also, in fact worse, so TSC would've contributed to the pace if not took control outright, which evens out the teams and makes less likely the notion that Nibali would've been isolated. Yes, he got an armchair ride as you put it, but Nibali went a long way from home and sustained that kick quite consistently for the entirety of his ride, that's actually what finally emptied Purito and put him into reverse, and Nibali never once looked back for help from him, he just kept drilling the pace and Purito couldn't cope beyond his first attempt to get out of the saddle and try to keep pace. It was a very strong ride by Nibali. I'm not the biggest fan of the Shark, and at his best Bertie is better, I'll agree with you there. But comparing Bertie's best attack on Nibali in stage 8, and Nibali attacking the GC from some distance on such a tough climb in this stage 10, and him then going past Purito with ease, and gaining good (15secs) time on Pinot and 20secs on the first of the rest in Valverde -- suggests to me that on this evidence Bertie was losing time to Nibali on this stage, also. And to be fair, I'll go back to the Crit Dauphine stage 2 when Bertie was answering Froome's devastating kicks, which looked a lot stronger and much more vicious than Nibali's here, however Bertie just wasn't close to that form at the Tour, and in any case Froome got the best of him by the end of that stage. Cheers, SP |
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If Bertie didn't have a clusterf*ck and rule himself out, then I have no doubt he would have won that stage by a long while. Clay wouldn't agree with my reasons though. Just a quick opinion to compliment? both of yours.
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