Vuelta a España - Discussion
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tsmoha |
Posted on 25-02-2021 16:09
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Argh. Hate to be in a winning breakaway, but not benefit from it.. Bayly usually a promising breakaway pick, but in this race he's not been hanging on with the best escapees.. Would have preferred to see Tom David again
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cio93 |
Posted on 25-02-2021 17:40
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This deserves an actual post (and thank you SotD&ember):
How in the world did a 71fl and a 69fl rider make it to the end from such a large and strong break??
I was ready to be annoyed again at having my worst two riders of the lineup in that break, and nothing during the stage indicated that Meiler and Oka would get anything out of today besides experience, but the youngsters showed up big time!
And even from that select group contesting the sprint, I was certain the sprint abilities would matter much less than simply the amount of energy left in the tank.
But Oka managing to bridge to Kruijswijk (a difference of 8 flat, not to mention the energy stats!) and using as much of his slipstream as possible until the four riders behind caught up gave him enough of a respite to actually make use of his sprint stat.
And in the meantime, Meiler hung onto the rest of the group until they merged with the front duo, and took initiative opening up the sprint.
The two possible outcomes of that strategy were getting enough of a gap to win the stage, or force the hand of the other riders in the group early to help Oka from their slipstream.
In the end, both of those things kinda happened, with only Ballerini (congrats roturn!) finding the reserves to get past Meiler, and Oka taking best of the rest right behind.
There's no shame in "only" taking 2nd and 3rd with such a smart strategy, we maximized our yield from today's stage considering who we had in the mix.
So I apologize for the grumpy attitude towards the last week of racing and the fact that I should probably have kept that to myself even when the feelings were this strong, and again applaud our two least likely to succeed riders in this Vuelta on a brilliant showing!
What began as a simple exp race for them has culminated in their biggest career success so far.
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DubbelDekker |
Posted on 26-02-2021 08:24
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Nice try by Kruijswijk
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Nemolito |
Posted on 26-02-2021 09:15
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SotD |
Posted on 26-02-2021 09:34
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We do!
Nice work mate! With only Lecuisinier as a real stagehunter here we can't be unhappy with the harvest so far, although I would have liked to sit on either the pts competition or the KOM at this point aswell as obviously having the GC lead.
I fear it will be very difficult to snatch the jersey from Tenorio now in his home race, and while we could on paper claim the jersey on stage 14-16 I doubt it will be by a margin sufficient to keep the lead after the ITT. And then the remaining 3 stages will likely be too easy for Tenorio to be in trouble. So we really need to make the difference now.
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Bikex |
Posted on 26-02-2021 09:46
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Fabianski wrote:
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...
I really feared this stage due to what happened at the Giro. I'm happy he made it back and even was strong enough to gap similar strong riders like Shikai and Haig. However this has showed this is not over yet. Reis can drop at any time and ruin this Vuelta for me still. I don't know what it is but something in his stats makes him regularly position himself towards the back end of the field (seems like he was there from the screenshots before). After he came back he at least seems to have noticed his mistake and positioned himself around the other favorites. Hope this becomes the norm now, as his current GC position should help him to be noticed by the game a little bit more.
It's cool to see Boonratanathanakorn get himself some decent results in sprints, but he only did that when a break was ahead so didn't get us anything. With the last result roturn and cio have finally a reason to be happy!
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SotD |
Posted on 26-02-2021 15:03
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Too bad. That’s officielly the GT win thrown away. 40 seconds and a 40km TT with a loss of 2-2’30” can’t be done unfortunately... So much for the dream of finally having Lecuisinier win his first GT.
Bongiorno also with a shitshow again.
Congrats on the win to Gesink and to Tenorio for the GT.
Now I Can just hope for as many of the mountain top finishens stages to end up with good stageresults to pick up the lost points on KOM, pts and stageresults.
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knockout |
Posted on 26-02-2021 15:10
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I wasnt expecting the final rise to be this tough. Those gradients must have been insane.
The Evonik manager must be a tactical genius. We have seen a couple of times already that simply leading from the front doesnt work out so what do we do? We just raise the distance where Skujins leads the peloton by a kilometer each time. So we end up with another failure on this stage. How we only have a single podium result after being in the top 3 favourite list on 10 stages is truely fascinating - especially with breaks not being a big factor so far.
Tvetcov had a very strong day himself but rather wanted to protect his GC position than supporting Skujins as he should do. However that way, he defended his top 10 GC position and gained quite a bit of time on possible opponents like Shikai, Anacona and others. Still very much doubt that he can defend that and it should limit his freedom to join breaks. But if he can somehow stay in such a position, he might end up being a bit of a saving grace for us here. Will be interesting to see how he will act in the remainder of the race.
Now we need to be aggressive into the breaks on the next stages. KoM, stage wins, just go for it!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters!
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tsmoha |
Posted on 26-02-2021 15:15
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Oh wow. Didn't expect such gaps at all. I was already unhappy with no breakaway appearance this time, but eventually it came to the big guns battling for the stage win.. Haig with a rather anonymous race and that was quite concerning while reading the report. Eventually the result looks quite okay though, since he rode much better than Reis or Shikai and we unexpectedly move up to 5th in the GC. The top four is out of reach. But Haig seems to be good enough to fight for this 5th place.
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Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-11-2024 05:47
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cio93 |
Posted on 26-02-2021 15:55
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Disaster for Egger, but luckily it didn't matter for the final result.
Arndt losing a lot of time on a stage he could've been Top 10 material, but I actually don't mind if this helps him get into breakaways later and gives him more leeway over the peloton in those stages.
A massive thank you to the PCT teams taking the big points away!
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Mresuperstar |
Posted on 26-02-2021 16:10
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Happy to hand Gesink his first win of the tour if it means increasing the GC lead. Not as much convinced as SotD that this thing is over yet. Massive time can be lost in the mountains on a bad day. Hopefully wearing the red jersey and the home country support will prevent that from happening, but you never know. Come on Tenorio! Bring it home!
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alexkr00 |
Posted on 26-02-2021 16:13
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Great to see GC riders spreading points between themselves in these type of stages. And the fact that it was Gesink who won it just makes it sweeter.
Also, what a ride by Brambilla. He sure loves the Spanish weather. Too bad he discovered it so late in his career!
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Croatia14 |
Posted on 26-02-2021 17:21
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First really good stage by Novak. Shame that Daniel was the man in the breakaway.
Also this should've been a breakaway stage, shame on the GC teams reeling it in
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valverde321 |
Posted on 26-02-2021 17:28
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We better go into breaks now, or this is seriously becoming a joke. Not just one stage, every single stage now. The GC is lost now.
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roturn |
Posted on 26-02-2021 18:36
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No rider in the break and all riders including the GC guys being dropped early... Not the best stage.
Hopefully they now go rant in the mountains. Very anonymous so far from all climbers, so clearly should have energy.
Also van Der Poel very quiet this GT.
Incredible that the two weakest on paper have the only real points scored so far.
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Bikex |
Posted on 26-02-2021 18:49
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Not good at all! But it's better for Reis to loose time in a stage like this than in the mountains, as it is justifiable with his low hill stat.
I feel very sorry for Shikai - hope he can strike back.
Great win for Gesink, congrats Gustav!
I don't want to complain about reports, as they are very good so far, but I must say that if the 5th in GC looses 3 minutes, it should at least be noted somewhere in the report. No problem but I was just very confused during the report as I didn't see Reis in the screenshots but it also wasn't mentioned that he was dropped. Else, good job with covering this race, Nemolito!
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Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 26-02-2021 20:42
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Wohooo victory!
Superb result from Gesink. Was really hoping to see him shine on one of these and it seems to have paid off.
Brilliant, thanks guys!
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ember |
Posted on 27-02-2021 12:28
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Sensational gaps on such an innocent looking stage! Positioning combined with lack of skills on such steep hills proved costly for Galta. Seems like I have to hope for breakaway appearances from him if we're going to get some points from this race.
Congratulations on the win, Gustav! The wildcard teams are doing very, very well here indeed. Especially Tenorio must feel he's in with a shot at the GC now, eventhough I still hold Lecuisinier as the biggest favourite.
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SotD |
Posted on 27-02-2021 15:37
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Just as expected. Points pissing out the back.
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Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 27-02-2021 15:57
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Man, Reis is just a scare. Nice tranquil stage for us.
Congrats Croatia!
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