Congrats SotD, Lecuisner could genuinely keep red all the way til the end at this point.

Kenny losing time already means hopefully he can start joining breaks soon, and hopefully Bartosz isn’t too far behind. Thanks for the report

Yeah that was to be expected, congrats SotD!

14th place for Eislers. He continues to improve every stage. If this continues, he might get a stage point by the end of the race.






Congrats alex, always good when the favourites deliver!

Great to get another 5th place with Jakobsen but a shame he faded in the end. Looked like he could get on the podium with 100m to go.
Would've loved to see Rakuten's tactic work out, but Grosu is definitely the deserved winner. Like knockout said, it's good to see the favorite deliver. Congrats alex!

Bouglas just outside the points here. Too bad...

Lecuisinier still very attentive, although it didn’t bring him points today.

Congrats on another win for Grosu. That sure is a good way to keep the points jersey!

Yates could pose a serious threat tomorrow - just like the attackers obviously. For now, though, we are very happy to keep the lead!

Great win for Grosu, really showing who's the boss in those sprints now!

Can't really believe there were no gaps given, though. If there really are no riders between Stallaert and those we can spot under the red kite on the finish line pic, that's definitely more than 30". But I guess Mraouni and Liu were somewhere in between, each one ~20" behind the next rider... I think we definitely should do something about this - the prime solution would be one that makes us avoid those stupid situation with 5-10 riders up front and all others out of contention, but if we have those big gaps, those should really result in time gaps. Would have been a big one for Yates, for sure...

Tough to have a great result so close, but in the end getting 6th. I think we can tell this tactic isn't going to work (unless theres a tailwind) so might be time to switch it up. Also not a fan of Shikai doing the work, so I fear he's not going to be a GC threat now.

We have been pre-favourites with Stallaert and KHJ almost every stage? But still have not delivered much good...

Can we request a formal dispute with the MGUCI about that time gap not given? I guess Yates will just have to get red tomorrow. Or Tenorio, I'm not picky.

Useless, we need breaks

Good to see Grosu taking another victory here, but looking at the next stage the next clear opportunity is probably on in the last stage. And by the why he is riding so far, it will be Lecuisinier who will be in green in Madrid, but until then any extra day in the jersey for Grosu is a nice bonus.

Congrats again alex! Nice, to see things working properly for once!

Also I'm impressed with the no of times Kopfauf is appearing in these reports. That is something quite unexpected really! Thanks for all the reports so far Nemo!

Hell yes, that's my guy Peeter Tarvis!

That was a very bad team effort really! How can we have just Lecuisinier and Bouglas in the front group? Bongiorno, Budyak and Barta all losing 2'22" here is really poor.

Gesink adding bonus seconds isn't great in terms of the potential lost jersey on stage 9, but I can always hope Lecuisinier can get away from him on tomorrows stage.

There clearly was a lot of KOM points on the final here, which sees Lecuisinier drop to joint 3rd. Maybe we should (not because of this though), write up the amount of KOM points on offer somewhere, as in certain races there could be an incitament to put leaders in different races due to the amount of points gained from such things.

Lecuisinier could (on paper atleast) take the KOM lead tomorrow aswell as bouncing to 2nd in the points competition and extending his GC lead - But that probably requires Bongiorno to step it up, and help making things hard. He sure is dissapointing so far!

21 riders inside '31"... Anyone could take the lead tomorrow on a good day. Fingers are crossed Lecuisinier has a great day, as a stagewin tomorrow could become the key to getting the most possible from this race.

I guess we can let the breakaway have a little fun... Gesink gaining some bonus seconds isn't ideal, but happy to see Tenorio beating Lecuisinier to the line — let's do the same tomorrow, please.

Yates sticking around in the hunt for the points jersey, probably needs another stage win on Stage 8 to have any chance of pulling that off.

So far so good, fingers crossed we don't implode on the first mountain stage.

Finally! I'd have taken the 2nd place on this day before the start of the race and all throughout this stage for sure because i feared that riders such as Lecuisinier or Gesink would beat Skujins here and it did not look like the catch to the break was doable so Im very much alright that one guy made it ahead. Its still a bitter feeling though because i still feel like im at least 150 points behind expectations in this race already.

Congrats to Croatia, incredible what Isostar could get out of GTs already with yet another surprise victory.

Until now, we had a pretty good reason to not join the breaks because we needed the firepower to chase in the pack. That excuse is gone now so i hope we will start being very aggressive to make up for the lackluster of a start. I'd like to see us start tomorrow with that and then send Skujins with support into the S8 break but i could understand if we go with a more passive approach as long as we will put the hammer down on stage 8 and not let the break get a 10 minutes gap without Skujins in there or sth stupid like that.

Tvetcov still looks good in GC being one of the top 21 riders who are basically s.t. with some of them expected to drop far already on the very next stage with Skujins, Yates, Bellis, etc amongst them so he already has a solid GC position with a bit of advantage over direct GC rivals like the EA Vesuvio guys, Valls, Nesset and so on. But he needs to get aggressiv in the second and third week because he cant chiarello himself to a top 10 GC position so stage points is what the focus should be whereever possible)


Prediction for tomorrow: No team of a top favourite wants to put the hammer down probably so that we will have much fewer gaps than some would like to see. Barely any gaps between the favourites...

Valls losing 2 min is not ideal here. At least in a position for more probable breakaway appearance now.

As several similar riders also lost time here, not even too bad though.

Toupalik for whatever reason fought for the sprinters which was idiotic when needing energy for the KoM. Normally others should attack now to have stage win chances but as long as the KoM daily points are given, I'm fine with it but needs to swap at one point surely.

Very disappointed that we didn't join a break in which over half of the teams were represented, especially considering we don't have leader duties.
Very disappointed that Isostar again score GT points they shouldn't have.

At least Helme managed to stay in the peloton to move up the U25 rankings.

Not a great stage, but atleast Shikai didnt lose time. I had a feeling this stage in particular would be a bit more suited to climbers than punchuers. I guess it was a pretty even split, but still.

Skuijins just can't catch a break.

Lecuisinier at the bottom of the top 10 is very good for Grosu's green jersey challenge.

I'm a bit worried that we haven't put anyone in the breakaways yet, but I'm hoping we are just saving energy to chase for Grosu in the flat stages, while Brambilla is waiting for the mountains.