Just catched up a bit. The Giro wasn't what I hoped for, but 2 stage aren't that bad either. Dauphine and Suisse were again very good.
Will be great to see Laporte in his NC jersey at Le Tour
@Croatia14: Honestly, of all the pleasant surprises this season so far, Haas at the TdS was possibly my favorite so unexpected, too.
@VoetsT: Agree, Giro was a bit of a downer. But Laporte looks really good in that jersey:
Tour de France, Part One | 27.06. - 29.06.2020
Stage 1
Geraint Thomas was one of the first favorites to take the road today. His time would land him fourth place.
Christophe Laporte was our best-placed rider. He did fine, but obviously nothing great.
Julian Alaphilippe surprisingly takes the lead as one of the last riders on the course.
Tom Dumoulin was the last rider who could possibly stop him, but he comes one second short - Julian Alaphilippe is the first stage winner of this year's Tour de France!
Today, Berhane represents us in the breakaway. Can't take the polkadots either, though.
Christophe Laporte wins the intermediate sprint from the peloton, adding 8 points to his total.
Despite the steep finish, Laporte feels he has a chance. Martin leads him ...
... but it's a day for the puncheurs, nothing to be done about that. Adam Yates wins it. But Laporte manages to finish in the Top 10 and collects a few more points!
Lafay is our man in the breakaway which lasts until the final 5kms, but is ultimately not successful.
After wheel hopping wasn’t successful in previous stages, we’re trying to set up our own train again.
... but we started too early. Super unfortunate as Gaviria was not in the mix today and we could have made a bigger jump in the points classification, which Sagan now leads.
Guillaume Martin did not have his best day. I thought this could be a stage for him, but he wasn’t able to hang on to the best climbers on the long ascent towards the end.
With the stage win out of reach, he decided to sit up and enjoy the landscape, saving energy for the big stage tomorrow and deliberately losing a good amount of time, hopefully facilitating an appearance in the breakaway.
Alaphilippe takes a second stage win and takes back yellow, while Dumoulin makes a huge step towards a possible overall win, gaining almost two minutes on Geraint Thomas and most other favorites, and more than five minutes on Chris Froome.
As planned, Guillaume tries to get into the breakaway in a bid for the polkadots and a stage win. Unfortunately, despite being 10 minutes down in the GC, he is not allowed to go. He does take the first two mountain sprints, though.
Luckily, only five riders were in the group of the day, so Guillaume took sixth over the first and, after one of them fell back, fifth over the second HC climb. In a heroic effort, Edet and Berhane cut the gap to the breakaway enough for Guillaume to bring them back in the final metres of the last HC climb and take the full points – and the jersey, for the time being.
Nairo Quintana unfortunately took the group by surprise with a late attack. Guillaume finished fourth in the ensuing hectic pursuit and sprint.
Once more we set up our own train, but UAE is already a bit ahead of us.
Vanbilsen delivers Laporte almost next to Gaviria, this is our best shot yet!
But the Colombian is just too strong. Laporte has achieves his best result and the train seems to be doing better now - evidenced by three riders in the Top 5-, but this is still a bit frustrating.
Both Guillaume and Christophe Laporte enter the breakaway today that would eventually cosist of 28 riders.
Laporte easily takes 20 points at the intermediate sprint, getting into striking distance of Gaviria in the green jersey competition despite only two stage podiums so far.
Guillaume took a lot of points along the way.
In the end, Mühlberger was just a tiny bit stronger than Guillaume, who missed out on the stage win but finished ahead of the chasing favorites. The oh so desired stage win still eludes us after the halfway point of the race …
@LLDS: It's the only shot we have at the jersey, Gaviria is too strong in the sprints and Laporte too inconsistend. We still need that win, but yes, we are getting closer
@sutty68: We're showing flashes, but we need to improve a bit still. Let's see if we can do it in this part:
Tour de France, Part Five | 10.07. - 12.07.2020
Stage 13
Guillaume Martin makes huge steps towards the mountain jersey, taking second or first place over all three summits.
He misses an attack on the descent though that splits the favorites’ group and he’s on the wrong side. Dan Martin takes the stage win.
Laporte once again joins the breakaway to take 20 points at the intermediate sprint - which is actually enough to take the green jersey!
Funnily enough, the breakaway actually succeeds. A very unexpected shot at a stage win, but there are a lot of strong puncheurs in this group and Laporte comes up just short once more. Still collects more valuable points at least.
With only three escapees ahead – one of them our own Nicolas Edet –, Laporte takes a lot of points as he comes fourth in the intermediate sprint. Gaviria is only three places behind, though.
Edet performed really well today and he was the last man standing (riding?) of the breakaway. For a moment, it even appeared like he had a chance to take the stage win.
But he was still eventually caught. Shortly after, Guillaume Martin used the final short but steep hill before the finish to attack!
And there it is! After two weeks of trying, we finally have our stage win! And who else but Guillaume in his beautiful polkadots jersey.
@Croatia14, VoetsT: I was very relieved when I got that win! As Laporte isn't super competitive in the sprints, I was worrying a bit, because breakaways and hilly finishes are always a bit of a gamble, so checking that box for the sponsor was big. And the jerseys are great as well (if I can keep them). At times it doesn't feel as satisfactory, for instance because the AI never sends sprinters in breakaways so I'm using a somewhat unfair advantage, but it's a thing that happens IRL, so I think it's okay
@Timmsoski: Thanks for the kind words, always appreciated! Glad you like it!
Guillaume Martin is in the breakaway to fortify his lead in the mountain classification, and it’s necessary because his main rival Conti is also present. But Martin manages to outdo him at every KoM sprint.
Descending from the final climb, Guillaume is alone with Nairo Quintana and Domenico Pozzovivo, with everyone else far enough behind.
And that’s an easy competition for him to outsprint! Polkadots - Check! Second stage win - Check!
Laporte uses another breakaway to extend his lead in the points classification.
Romain Bardet takes a great stage win and claims the yellow jersey - but with only two flat stages and a time trial, it looks like this is still Dumoulin’s race to lose.
Martin finishes on a strong sixth place ahead of Alaphilippe, whose quest to bring yellow to Paris ends today, unless he pulls an upset in the time trial.
Yes! He identified the decisive move initiated by Tim Wellens and sprinted early enough to prove that he was the strongest of the four sprinters! What a second half of the Tour we are having!
Laporte had a mediocre day, which is good because today was the best day to have one.
Geraint Thomas will end up the best of an ultimately disappointing Ineos squad. He wins the stage but only finishes fourth overall.
Dumoulin misses the stage win by fractions of a second but takes the yellow jersey ...
… from Romain Bardet in what is, if nothing extraordinary happens tomorrow, the smalles win margin in the history of the Tour de France! The Frenchman trails Dumoulin by only five seconds, with Julian Alaphilippe only another nine seconds behind Bardet!
Two Cofidis riders in the front row on the final day - what a picture.
We showed our colors as a sprint train as well, certain that the green jersey could not be taken from Laporte.
The happiness was just a little soured by an absolutely heartbreaking photo finish that saw Coquard take what would have been the ultimate stage win for Laporte on the Champs Elysees.
Phew. Thus end three exciting, taxing, exhilarating, tough weeks. After a mediocre first two weeks, the final seven days held three stage wins and two classification jerseys for us - everything we could have asked for at the beginning of the race. A stage win for Laporte on the Champs Elysees would have been the cherry on top, and our sprinter missing out on a stage win remains the only downer - but he'll just have to return next year, then with better support. And who knows, maybe we can tackle the GC then as well?
Amazing TDF for Cofidis and amazing coverage from your part, congrats!
In the final standings you have Bardet two times in the TOP 10. It is allowed to compete with your clone alongside?
Tour de France, Part One | 27.06. - 29.06.2020
Tom Dumoulin
Kasper Asgreen
Geraint Thomas
Nelson Oliveira
Phil Bauhaus
Caleb Ewan
Matteo Trentin
Enrico Gasparotto
Zdenek Stybar
Fernando Gaviria
Peter Sagan
Kristoffer Halvorsen
Gregor Mühlberger
Michael Woods
Daniel Martin
Ilnur Zakarin
Alejandro Valverde
Krists Neilands
Bob Jungels
