Inexos made a blunder
Shoudnt have raced in
Connor would have lead
Put pressure on Pogacar

It was still a little disappointing to see ineos surrender the race to pogacar on day 9. He isnt just beating them on the road, hes mentally destroying them, by the end of this race ineos are going to be fetching his bottles and asking his permission to attack

What could Ineos do??
This race has been attritional and Pogacar is in a different league to his rivals.
Despite  what all the other teams say the race isnt about winning the tour any more its about obtaining 2nd or 3rd and then hoping some unforseen ailment befalls Pogacar .
Carapaz gave his all friday and saturday trying to break Pogacar and ended up gaining nothing timewise.
Yesterday he was spent.

As an aside stay away from robbing b@skets Bet *65
Current Prices to win tour
1/14 Pog
9/4 Carapaz
9/4 Oconnor
7/2 Uran
4/1 Vingard
@ least Dick Turpin wore a mask. No wonder Denise is 1 of the richest women and highest taxpayers in the uk

thought it was odd?
But why would Pog be quoted @ 1/14 for a market without?

Didn't see any cycling today was busy, how much more did "he" extend his lead by today?

Didnt Ineos try to isolate him  via Carapaz(2nd best climber in the race) on friday and  tried to go with him on Saturday as well and ended up with naff all.
He was isolated last year in the mountains which made no difference whatsoever .
His team is stronger this year and Costa /Majka/Formolo/Mcnulty(until he made a schoolboy error) rode well in support on Sunday.

Carapaz aint even on the podium yet and if he carrys on trying to beat Pog he wont be either. Uran and Vinegaard are better time trialists than him havent even showed their hand yet and are still in front of him. They have to find a strategy to get Carapaz into 2nd place as trying to beat Pog is like banging yer head against a brick wall.

Mark Cavendish sprinted to his 33rd stage victory at the Tour de France to move within one win of Belgian legend Eddy Merckx's all-time record.

The Manx rider, 36, held off Wout van Aert and Jasper Philipsen to win stage 10 in Valence after a perfect lead-out.

Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Cavendish also won stages four and six of this Tour.

There are two more sprints this week and two more in the last week, ending with the Champs-Elysees finale, where Cavendish has won a record four times.

Defending champion Tadej Pogacar finished safely in the main bunch to retain the leader's yellow jersey.

Cavendish also extended his advantage in the green jersey points classification and now leads Australia's Michael Matthews by 59 points, with Italy's Sonny Colbrelli a further 23 behind.

"It was an old-school, run-of-the-mill, like you read in the cycling magazines, textbook lead-out," said Cavendish, who won the 2011 green jersey.

"We got the lads on the front to pull as fast as they can so no one can come past you.

"I didn't really do anything until the last 150m because of my team."

Of his three wins in this year's race, this victory was perhaps the most reminiscent of the usual way he surged to his 30 stage wins between 2008 and 2016.

With the strongest sprint train in the race dominating the front, Cavendish was able to stay on the wheel of Michael Morkov, widely regarded as the best lead-out man in cycling, to launch late and have time to put his arms up in celebration, even as others closed in.

He once again lavishly praised his team-mates, saying he was "humbled" to have the likes of Tour of Flanders champion Kasper Asgreen and world champion Julian Alaphilippe pulling for him.

Many other elite sprinters are missing, with Caleb Ewan breaking his collarbone in a crash on stage three, which was won by Tim Merlier, who has since abandoned, while Dylan Groenewegen was not selected.

However, that does not diminish the achievements of Cavendish here, having not been used to riding with this sprint train, which had been preparing to ride for last year's green jersey winner Sam Bennett.

Cavendish had already made a resurgence earlier this year with four wins, but he has taken the opportunity to step in for the injured Bennett brilliantly and completely repaid the faith shown in him by Deceunick-Quick-Step in re-signing him after years of illness and loss of form.

Having not contested the intermediate sprint, Cavendish said after the stage finish that he is only focusing on stage wins and that the green jersey is a bonus.

Yet with his nearest green jersey contenders not threatening in bunch sprint finishes and record seven-time winner Peter Sagan seemingly not challenging for it this year, Cavendish is looking increasingly likely to claim his second green jersey - as long as he makes it to Paris.

Wednesday's Stage 11 is a decisive day for the general classification contenders, featuring two ascents of the famous Mont Ventoux.

I bet Van Eart yesterday PMSL , been matched at 400 plus to day , never realised he was such a good climber ,Bet Mollema today thought I was in Business when he Joined them

Ineos in disarray
Rowe outside time limit yesterday
Imploding

The Flying MANX equals
Freddies record

3 sprints end of next week  , will just keep him in race till then No one can live with him the lead out  2nd today

great achievement Mark and your lead out guys this tour are the best i've ever seen as you know and have acknowledged

The games over for GC barring accident/illness/drug bust and the rest know that . Any of the other contenders in the top 10 are actually putting more pressure on 2nd and 3rd contenders not UAE. The next 7o r 8 after Pog appear to be very evenly matched. Whilst hes in a different league.

Defending champion Tadej Pogacar took a sublime victory atop the Col du Portet on stage 17 of the Tour de France to extend his lead in the yellow jersey.

The Slovenian, 22, kicked clear of Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz with 150 metres to go to win his fifth Tour stage overall and second of 2021.

UAE Team Emirates' Pogacar now leads Vingegaard by five mins 39 seconds, with Carapaz four seconds further back.

Rigoberto Uran slipped from second to fourth after cracking at 8km remaining.

Pogacar, who won the stage five time trial before taking the yellow jersey on stage eight, has four days left to defend it, though Sunday's final stage is a processional run to Paris where convention dictates the leader is not attacked.

"We were 50-50 - do we go for the win stage or just defend? - but in the end we tried and I am super-happy," he said.

A gruelling day in the Pyrenees featured three long and steep climbs in the final 60km, but Pogacar's UAE Team Emirates team-mates were always in control of the race.

They set a fierce pace to reel in Anthony Perez, the last of six early escapees to stay clear, and then launched Pogacar to go it alone halfway up the 2,215m Col du Portet.

Only Vingegaard and Carapaz could stay with him, ensuring they both replaced Uran in the podium places, before the stage win was decided at the very top of the highest finish of this year's Tour.

Carapaz had appeared exhausted and stayed on his rivals' wheels for most of the climb before trying a surprise attack in the final kilometre, but he could not catch Pogacar out.

"Jonas said to me that he thought Carapaz was bluffing and I knew it also," Pogacar explained. "It was nothing unusual - this is the tactic in cycling and he tried to attack. I had the drive to catch him but it was super hard.

"It was a fantastic day. To win in yellow is something I cannot describe."

Earlier in the stage, Britain's Mark Cavendish had kept his grip on the green jersey by limiting his loss to his closest rival, Australian Michael Matthews, to just one point.

Cavendish tracked Matthews over the line in the intermediate sprint that came after 113km of the 178.4km route, and now leads the points category by 36 points.

The Manxman was quickly dropped by the main peloton once the riders entered the mountains, but he still finished safely within the time limit for the stage.

Perhaps he really was exhausted, the contents of the jiffy bag taking longer to kick in than is normal

Pogacar first to shake it up, 3.2km to go ....

Grabs the polka dot jersey to go with the yellow ......

Cav is in

Should have waited to the last 1/4 mile rather than further out

he still would have lost

Cav to wait for Paris
A much easier option and
Sock it to the FRENCH
iN THE CAPITAL