I think Jumbo-Visma winning the TTT wasn't exactly unexpected (as it was always possible), however, what is unexpected was by how much they won by.
FDJ also had a very good TTT to keep Pinot in the GC hunt. It appears that EF adding Tejay was very helpful for their TTT.
On the other side we have Movistar, Trek, and AG2R with poor TTTs. Landa and Valverde both said they are where they expected to be and lost what they had expected to (this was before Jumbo went). Then something about they are a team for the mountains and they were never going to be that close in a TTT on a stage like this one.
I usually don’t get excited by TTT stage but this was pretty cool! This yellow jersey is as stoked as anybody ever.
Interested to see how Valverde does, could be the perfect storm for him. Also Nibali!
My personal favorite is that Russian guy, Zacharian, might be a long shot and I don’t know his team but that guy is like Dan Martin(another favorite of mine), the definition of HTFU!
Agree bout the TTT stage....great race!! And tip of the hat to Bob Roll.....no way he can fill shoes of Paul and he respects that....doing a fine job Bob........regards.
Glad you're enjoying Bob, I can't stand listening to him do broadcasts and it's likely the combination of him and Phil are part of why I'm very quickly losing interest in this Tour. Why can't we legally get Eurosport or Australia's coverage?
Looks like we're stuck with daily cut-ins with LA. You'd think the UCI or ASO would forbid this interaction in the same manner that I am sure they would not provide him with press credentials. Hope they catch wind of this travesty.
It’s so funny how perspectives on things change with time and experience. Rewind to last offseason and Trek Segafredo was heartbroken because they thought they had signed the talent of the summer in Ivan Sosa only to have his agent pull out the deal at the last moment so that he could join then Team Sky.
In an attempt to recover from the loss, Trek turned its attention to a young Italian and “settled on him" as a replacement. Sosa hasn’t done a whole lot to stand out this year, but today that scrawny Italian kid they settled for pulled on the yellow jersey and is the current leader of the sports biggest race. He has been lights out all year as well. Sometimes our losses are really blessings, we just don’t know it yet.
It’s sad day for cycling, NBC, and the TdF when people that are actually interested in the sport are primarily talking about how much they don’t like Bob Roll and LA commentating on the race instead of the race itself. Pro cycling is in some serious trouble in the U.S. lol....
Well, I am off to watch the XCO MTB races I missed this weekend on Red Bull TV. Heck I might take in some skateboarding too.
Nice to see Ciccone get the yellow. I'm fairly sure he was one of the two young Italians who were climbing well 2-3 years ago in Colorado's race.
Then we have yet again horrible and stupid tactics from Movistar. I just hope due to almost all their riders being out of contract at the end of the season they do close to a total rebuild of that team. What a waste of energy by the riders on their team for absolutely nothing.
Well, I have to agree with you. You can't expect to beat a guy like Thomas or .... using team tactics like Movistar does. If you are going after the GC all your teammates have to sacrifice themselves to the death for their GC contender! They cannot have their own individual agenda. Look at guys like Kweokoski as an example. Maybe it's a team leadership problem.
And like clockwork Ineos positions Thomas and Bernal in 2nd and 3rd place overall as things start to head for the mountains. Not looking good for anyone not wearing an Ineos jersey right now.
What Valverde was doing was quite reasonable from his team's point of view if they wanted to get Landa back on after he was run off the road by Warren Barguil (who was the guy who ran Thomas off the road in the 2015 TdF). Rowe asked Valverde to stop it and Valverde agreed to sit on with Quintana in the lead group.
It all appears to have been quite amicable and mature. They all know and understand the game.
There is no question he was getting Team direction. But, Landa was in the 3rd group at 1:07 down and 40 seconds down from the 2nd group containing 5 additional GC contenders. To me this means Movistar has little-to-no confidence in Quintana's GC fight compared to Landa's.
Time to ban Phil, Bob and LA from Le Tour (shame on the organizers to let LA have anything to do with Le Tour). The daily rump swabbing from Phil and Bob has gotten ridiculous.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🇫🇷 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TDF2019?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TDF2019</a><br><br>Our priority is the welfare of all our riders so will launch an immediate investigation but will not be commenting further until we have established what has happened to <a href="https://twitter.com/RohanDennis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RohanDennis</a>. <br><br>Meantime we continue to support our riders who are mid-race.</p>— Team Bahrain Merida (@Bahrain_Merida) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bahrain_Merida/status/1151844844911964160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 18, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">An angry-looking looking Rohan Dennis leaves the <a href="https://twitter.com/Bahrain_Merida?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Bahrain_Merida</a> bus without saying a word, marching towards the finish line with his manager Andrew McQuaid. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TDF2019?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TDF2019</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tdf?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#tdf</a> <a href="https://t.co/cN2HBRaeUq">pic.twitter.com/cN2HBRaeUq</a></p>— Sam Edmund (@SammyHeraldSun) <a href="https://twitter.com/SammyHeraldSun/status/1151857208923025408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 18, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I'm sure that whatever issue he has will come out shortly. He didn't seem ill, so it has to be one of 2 things:
a) He's fed up with the team, either for not offering him enough money, or for management problems, or
b) There is some reason he might not pass a drug screen, so removing him was the best option.
If it's a), we'll know soon. If no info comes, it's likely b).
It really seems like he got hit with a huge case of the *#@^-its. That happens to all of us. You know - the pace lifts, someone attacks... any other day, you could easily hang. But, then the *#@^-its hit, and you just let them go. Kinda rare at this level though.
So, Alaphilippe goes and ruins the “a different rider wining every stage” by smashing the others in the individual TT today with a simply unbelievable performance
Lots of GC people not doing so well e.g. Yates, Quintana, Bernal, Martin but Pinot did well.
The Wout crash was unbelievable, so unfortunate. Crazy TT day!
So far this year's race has been interesting.
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