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ETA: I do think they are relatively clean, Salbutamol aside.
I'm not being confrontational, I just want to hear your thoughts since I find your insights a bit above other stuff I read.
(by the way, you are the official 2018 #Sworry Trials cycling leg expert and color commentator. Since we ar a non-profit, we are paying you nothing, but we assume your ESPN the Ocho salary is sufficient. Hi to Pepper and Cotton for me please)
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Looks like the winner of the league will be the person with the least abandons at this point.
Fattest BQ on record--- *allegedly
2016 (and last) Rev3 Cedar Point champ- don't google the time though
Queen of All Donut Awards
Groovy Auntie to Roosters everywhere
However, I will redeem myself for the actual trials and dust off my copy of Gimp (only because a software named after a Tarantino character is noteworthy).
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Top 10 on the stage
I guess Gavira isn't such a great climber after all - or perhaps the fatigue of so many days of hard racing just caught up to him. He is a sprint stud for sure, but curious to see if he tries to expand his abilities moving forward or just stays on the sweet train at QS and dominates the sprints.
Sagan just needs to cross the line in Paris at this point to take green - wonder if his soon to be ex wife gets half of this jersey too?
Edit: Just saw Nibali is out after hitting a police moto and crashing the finale. To quote @matt FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
And the battle for Lanterne Rouge is heating up, too. My decision to choose only french riders (Dumoulin sounds french, and its the same flag, just different orientation) in their home tour is proving highly daft.
Not a moto crash! It was a spectator's camera strap to Nibali's right shifter. Shades of 2003.
Come on Nibali - I am sure Porte would not have abandoned!
Today there was a guy who ran up and tapped Froome's helmet in the middle of the road.
When's the next rest day for goodness sake?
Fattest BQ on record--- *allegedly
2016 (and last) Rev3 Cedar Point champ- don't google the time though
Fattest BQ on record--- *allegedly
2016 (and last) Rev3 Cedar Point champ- don't google the time though
@Robert Rankin nailed it, I think. This is the New York Yankees or Paris Saint Germain of professional cycling. Look at the lineup they have here: Froome, Thomas, Kwiatkowski, Castroviejo, Rowe, Moscon, Poels, and Bernal (who buried himself all day and rode a very Roberto Heras-like Alpe to finish just 1:30 behind his leaders).
Half of that team is under 30, and other than Bernal, all are either national time trial champions, top 5 worlds TT guys, or Classics winners. Kwiatkowski has been World Champion and won monuments. Never mind his track success at the Olympics, Thomas has won multiple one-week races. No other team in the peloton has the money to bring eight riders of this calibre together.
The watts these guys can generate is huge, and all but Froome and Thomas get paid to put out X number of watts for Y minutes until they literally have to put their foot down. They know from training and testing how many watts they need to put out to deter 98% of attacks, and they know their leaders can ride at that wattage all day long.
If they would let them, here is what Sky's "Team B" would look like at the Tour, in order of how they line up when they start to string out the peloton:
van Baarle (rouleur and consistent top 10 one-day finisher)
Kiriyenka (Diesel engine, used to tow team bus if they run out of fuel)
Deignan (climber)
De la Cruz (climber)
Elissonde (climber, assuming they can keep his head screwed on straight)
Geoghegan Hart (lieutenant)
Henao (leader)
They might not win the race, but they are going to win a bunch of stages. and have someone in the top ten. This is a Lotto-Jumbo grade team or better. Most teams in the peloton would struggle to put together the budget for that B team plus a slight upgrade on Henao for leadership. Movistar might come closest, but they don't have the focus to support one guy to win. Or they don't have the confidence that they have the one guy to support. (They should after today.)
Sky have the best buses, amazing DSs, great technology relationships, the best service course, the best chefs, etc etc. Their official car used to be a Jag, and they have contacts across the British aerospace and racing industries to figure out the best toys. It's USPS minus the organized illicit doping program all over again in terms of the support they put together.
Anyway, I'm late to commenting today because I cut myself off from the world until I could watch the stage tonight. Nibali's comeback was remarkable, but there was a lot of gamesmanship among the top 5 in the last 3 km. If they had ridden straight up, they would have put minutes into the stragglers that came back to them. Dumoulin is my hero, merci to Bardet for making this fun to watch, and GT has been doing the same thing all year: that Lance thing where you throw down a blistering attack with 800m to go and take a tonne of time. That's maybe a bit harder to do in the steep Pyrenees than the Alps.
Any bets on Sky launching Bernal at some point to see if they can sweep the podium? Wouldn't that be something, and wouldn't the French just looooove that... They would probably line the roads in Festina t-shirts or something
*No team is perfectly clean. It's perfectly legal, but I think the salbutamol/inhaler use in endurance sport is stupid. I believe it was the Sydney Olympics where something like 85% of the triathletes racing had TUEs and were puffing on inhalers on the pontoon before the race. It's the same now. Running has it. Cycling is just as bad. Soccer is probably worse. The North American pro sports... don't even start. I don't like the secrecy around Sky, I don't like deals being cut to have doping suspensions cut or swept away, and I don't like lawyers getting involved in sport (no offense, @Evan).
I'm with you in the same jam @Robert Rankin Son of a bitch this sucks. Porte, Gaviria, Nibali, lost so far for me.
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