I'm so done with this season.

The one time we do everything right.
The one time our best suited rider joins the break.
The one time he's also the strongest rider of said break.

THAT ONE TIME

THE TWO TOP FAVORITES IN THE RACE CHASE FOR THE LAST TWO MOUNTAINS?!

INSTEAD OF LETTING THEIR SPENT TEAMMATES SLOW DOWN THE PELOTON TO A STANDSTILL???

LIKE EVERY

FUCKING

SINGLE TIME BEFORE SO FAR THIS YEAR?

Whew, really glad Reis came back here after yet another one of his blackouts. Really inexplicable why he simply gets dropped every now and then... He was definitely luckier than in the Giro, though, where he never made it back...

On another note, great show by Plucuisinier, and more great red news for Tenorio, hopefully making for a tense race until the end
Kritskiy as rock solid as ever, probably cruising to his second GT podium of the year. Congrats to those Top 3!

Not an ideal result for Haig, as I was hoping for him to stay in the Top-5 mix. Given the TT advantage over Reis (iirc), he's obviously still in reach for it. But today's losses against the best were quite huge eventually. No disaster though, which is maybe the most important yet.

Harper is not the ideal rider for those breakaways, but since it didn't make it to the line anyway, I'm okay with it. A pity he's too weak for the KoM fight though. Still a good thing, that we're in the lucky mix of breakaway teams. Ofc.

EDIT: Well, Haig's TT advantage ain't really worth a thing

Lecuisinier can have the stage win, we will happily take red back. What a thrilling finish this could be if Tenorio can actually show some urgency to keep the leader's jersey on his back this time. Lecuisinier still hasn't rode away from him, so just mark the attacks and put this thing away in the TT.

Finally something to cheer about again. No red jersey yet, but atleast Gesink is now (I think) out of the picture. And with us not yet leading the race I have to hope for us to look for another stagewin soon. We need a lot of time (aproximately 2 minutes) before the final TT, so we can't win like this though.

Bongiorno doing exactly what was expected of him, and destroys the break and the remaining pack. Too bad we couldn't get Barta or someone similar to that up a bit, as the Team GC is crumbling, while we really should have a team capable of atleast top 3 there!

This is btw my new favorite picture of the Man-Game of all times



Just outside the KOM points, while we slowly close the gap to Smit and Grosu in the sprint competition. Still everything is very open due to the possible amount of breakaway luck.

A good solid win.

We got the wrong men into the attack but at least we tried to attack the KoM. Really rate the effort even when we might not got away with the big price and being in the race we might be able to make an attempt later as it is still damn close.

Despite not getting the KoM lead or any stage points from the break, i have to be quite satisfied with the stage. Climbers #3 and #4 into the break and both collected a couple of KoM points where i now have multiple options for the week while Tvetcov had an insane day. Still hope he will go into attacks later but he might still be too good positioned for that for the next couple of stages and the drop in GC is basically pre-programmed. However, with his great GC position he might set himself up for an outstanding GC result if he gets into the right third week break.

Congrats Sotd, another stage win for you that also propels Lecuisinier up in the minor classifications. Still on track to end up as a huge points haul!



Next stage looks like a break stage so i definitely want to see my team in the moves early on. Maybe Eislers can attack since he doesnt like bunch sprints anyway?

Well not great from Shikai, but as tsmoha said, not horrible yet. Still kind of expected to beat Reis today after he dropped, so not sure what happened.

At this point Shikai just needs to hold his Top 10, and we have our domestiques join the breaks. With so many good climbers and Shikai obviously not being good enough, we might as well go for stage wins.

I might have send a team too dedicated to Grosu here. But Brambilla is climbing really well so far and is sitting in a very good place in the GC. With a repeat of last year's breakaway, he might break into the top 10 once again

This is shaping up to be a close one between Lecuisinier and Tenorio, I'm excited to see how this pans out. Otherwise I'm happy to see Schelling staying in the middle of the top-10. Would be nice if instead of helping with the chase, we left it to the stronger teams so he would have support later on.

Great race so far, thank you Nemolito!

Awful stage. Again Toupalik... Not even strong enough to join the break... Obviously.

The whole team taking a day off... All but Koep who was impressive as 48th... Far before better climbers Ciccone and Carboni. And basically alongside Valls, Velits... Later at least with some kind of comeback after being dropped early.

If none of those two finally attacks now this Giro Vuelta lineup totally failed as I expected at least a bit more mountain stage results from breaks from a 76 77 78 79 climber lineup.

Too bad Gesink cracked so hard at the end. The podium looks like a distant possibility now.

Anyway, great report and deserved victory for SotD.

Great to see Reis coming back from one of his infamous bonks.

Super positive stage finally, Kenny taking the Kom comfortably and Warchol finishing well inside the top-10 and moving inside the top-15 GC is great to see. Unlike Brenes, Elissonde actually has the ability to recover between stages so hopefully if he starts going crazy joining breaks from here he doesn’t wipe himself out.

Another great report and Kritskiy did every thing right this stage, attacking at the perfect moment and still saving enough energy to not loose contact at the finish. Hopefully he can get some rest tomorrow because after that there are 8 very hard stages! Maybe we can go for the team rankings but EA looks really strong as a team.

Another stage far from ideal for Evonik. Dont understand why it was Skujins to attack today as he has a crucial stage tomorrow where he needs to deliver. And my sprint duo was hilariously bad once again. Fingers crossed for tomorrow...

Congrats roturn!

Damn. That's one stupid way of missing a stage victory. Letting the breakaway win by 10 minutes would have been way less painful.

But at least the team fought well until the final kilometers.

And Brambi didn't lose any time in the end either. Would have been awful to have the GC leader lose time in this stage and Grosu miss out on the stage win like that.

Nice one!

Pre Stage I thought, good stage for van der Poel or Ballerini.

Seeing finally not Toupalik in there but one better suited rider, it was good.
Seeing him closing a gap wasn`t ideal then as this often needs too much energy.

Also the peloton coming closer was not looking good as I expected the sprinters to take it. In the end they probably should have actually.

I brought Ballerini into this GT and into the team in general with those kind of attacks/wins in mind. So it`s great it worked out here. With the GC riders having started to fail already, a stage win is a good way to compensate and as the lineup was there to attack, it`s good to see.

And thanks for the Toupalik mention. Already kind of sick from those myself.

uhhhhh...

nevermind?

Both good and bad I guess. Letting the break take the most points keep Lecuisiniers fight for KOM and PTS more open, but Bouglas in 4th would have been great I have to admit!

Congrats on the win! Also to cio for the almost (pointswise) win!

Lady luck smiles on roturn and cio this time around, congratulations, both of you!

Not much to say here for my team when we've decided to race this Vuelta passive and not join the fun. I struggle to understand why, but that's how it goes, it seems

Thank you again for the reports, Nemolito!

Decent work by Tarvis, though he didn't play it smart on the KOMs and in the sprint. Still nice to score some points.