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Tour de France Discussion
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 27-05-2020 09:12
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Small Tour Specialist
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Congrats ember! Impressive solo victory by Lunke. He timed that attack very well.
Good that Grieg and us took total control of the peloton on that climb. We didn't allow Sicard and any others looking to attack any breathing room.
Get a proper rest Madrazo; tomorrow starts a series of three massive stages that can make or break your season.
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| SotD |
Posted on 27-05-2020 09:31
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World Champion
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Pretty much the expected outcome. Sicard fortunately only wasted energy and didn't get any time deficit here.
Really not well played by us having no rider in this break. Vuillermoz and Cataldo would have been pretty well suited for atleast a stage top 5, but I guess we will remain focused for Lecuisinier.
A bit stupid for Ioannidis to lose 3 minutes additional on everyone here, but he's still in contention for a top 100 which must be the goal - just for the fun of it.
Demare not scoring any points of significance during stage 16-17 is a blow for Puma certainly, although winning the jersey can't be written off altogether yet, as he's the major favorite for the final stage and Madrazo doesn't necessarily needs to do anything over the next 3 stages. If the breakaway takes the downhill finish tomorrow, then he might be able to secure the jersey afterall, but it does look increasingly difficult. Still he managed to score BIG amounts of points compared to other pre-race favorite sprinters, so he isn't THAT hurt.
For us there's just one thing left to do. Make Lecuisinier better than he is. Looking at the threat of breakaway succes he could potentially drop back a spot or two if he isn't attentive, but I hope that stage 20 especially is so difficult that the breakaway riders isn't going to attend it, and whatever will be gained on stage 18 and 19 will be lost again on stage 20. I do still fear the big crazy jump attacks from Schleck, Galta, Wellens, Monsalve and Guldhammer though. We must not lose to any of those.
In order for this to be a succesful Tour de France we need ATLEAST 5th by Lecuisinier and a stage podium. That has to be the bare minimum. Otherwise we'll leave this race with minimal points considering the wage-effect put into the race - with also Vlatos being a complete waste of racedays.
Stauff is really the rider holding the hand between us and failure at the moment.
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| tastasol |
Posted on 27-05-2020 09:41
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Classics Specialist
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Big win for Lunke! Congrats ember  Always great to see a Norwegian winning a stage, and in many ways deserved for Aker after being very active in the breaks so far.
Looked like Phinney came through the day without wasting any energy, so hopefully he can fins his climbing mojo again and keep his podium spor.
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 27-05-2020 10:17
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
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Congrats ember! That was a ballsy attack from a group with a guy like Summerhill chasing.
First no break day in ages, hopefully greggy boy has been resting his legs to defend the KOM for the next few days against Lopez and probably Velits. Machado could have been a contender considering the breaks he’s been in, but he’d be too high in GC now to be let go. Nervous times ahead!
Thanks for another terrific report.
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| Yellow Jersey |
Posted on 27-05-2020 10:27
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2809
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Yes my beautiful men! No stage win, wasn't really expected but Summerhill is such a beast dragging the group and almost taking the stage, but most importantly Machado getting big time gains and jumping onto the Top10 
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 24-11-2024 12:11
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 27-05-2020 10:30
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9099
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Well we didn't play our numbers well in that break did we...
On the bright side a very good AI choice to chase with our team and bring the escapes in a position where we could bridge over to get in the break, that's some very very good AI there
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| cio93 |
Posted on 27-05-2020 13:39
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World Champion
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It's so so so so so depressing.
All we can hope for now is that Madrazo et al. also only get to fight over 13th place in the mountain stages. Tomorrow looks like a break day, and stage 19 might too.
I don't feel comfortable having to claw the jersey back on the Champs-Elysées, if we even remain in a position to do so by then.
The only upside to these two stages is that we at least gained enough of an advantage to remain in green until stage 19, which means Demare will add 17 days in green to his 6 days in 2017 to pass Tom Boonen as the rider with the most days in green in ManGame history on Friday!
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| ember |
Posted on 27-05-2020 14:45
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!!! 
Absolutely brilliant That was really tense as well, as it went from "oh boy" when Walsleben tried his luck in the first breakaway attempt, to "this is promising and the right guy for the job" when Lunke got away together with the eight others. Then it was "oh, this is a really strong breakaway, can't see how he can win this" with 50 km left, to "he needs to attack on the hill, at least we can get rid of a couple of riders, but no chance Machado and Kolesnikov won't follow, and then Kolesnikov wins the sprint", to "a sprint it is, then, hopefully he takes the right wheel and can do a top 5", to "this is the right play, great to see him go for it, this is much better than waiting for the sprint" when he attacked.
And from then on, I really didn't know what to believe for the final kilometers, thank you for the excitement you created with your writing and reporting, cunego59! Having Lunke succeed and hold on is huge for us. It means this Tour is a success no matter what happens on the remaining mountain stages.
Maybe even Machado advancing to 10th overall and passing Galta can give Galta some courage and will to try for the breakaways. Looking at the GC, anything from 8th to 16th looks possible depending on how these stages play out. Really hope Galta goes aggressive
And thank you everyone for the congratulations! |
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| Shonak |
Posted on 27-05-2020 20:03
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15615
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Great Tour de France cunego but I notice that Cofidis story has been stalling - Give the people what they want and need: Soler-Gaudu 1-2 TdF win. 
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 27-05-2020 20:27
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Alright, fine
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 28-05-2020 08:19
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Small Tour Specialist
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Very pleased to see Kolesnikov, just like yesterday, on the podium. Now it's time to go for that polka jersey
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| roturn |
Posted on 28-05-2020 09:08
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A bit annoying that Velits is always weaker than other climbers, this time e.g. Carthy and Lopez, but nevertheless a pretty perfect stage.
Being caught okay, but then just on the long descent with the others able to not lose any time and gaining on several opponents really.
Still afraid of losing out tons on one stage due to all this effort but at the same time thinking, he will try again sitting in 3rd of KoM now.
Dekker doing his top25-30 ride on his own which is nice while Frison "finally" out which was expected far earlier and only a matter of time until Dumoulin will follow him I guess.
As long as Groenewegen is making it until the end for a chance in Paris, I am fine with it.
Thanks for the report and congrats to mainly Gazelle, eBuddy and Festina, which were successully getting a gap GC wise today. |
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| SotD |
Posted on 28-05-2020 09:14
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World Champion
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Ohh damnit. So effing close to the stagewin here! Also, having Dombrowski in the towes only to see him not only win the stage but gain more seconds to Lecuisinier hurts obviously!
Yet, a 2nd place and climbing to 5th in the GC is very pleasant. Now also a decent deficit to those riders roaming around 10-15th. It SHOULD mean that none of those guys get that unexpected crazy gap to move past us...
At this state I guess that TTT might end up being all the difference. We are currently 10 seconds behind Morton whom we lost 25 seconds to in the TTT, 55 seconds to Dombrowski whom we lost 23 seconds to and then Phinney with 1'11" whom we lost 1'17" too... So had it not been for the TTT we would have been 3rd, around 30 seconds behind 2nd place.
We can't expect Morton to fuck up this badly again but in theory Phinney should be within reach looking at the difficulty of the upcoming stages and his relative weakness going into the third week.
This is approximately how I expected the top 5 to look like going into the race, but who knows if we can shake things up a bit. We must surely not forget that a number of those riders from behind could pose a serious threat also!
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| jph27 |
Posted on 28-05-2020 09:23
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Team Leader
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Not the worst stage for us, though a shame that Carthy couldn't stay away and steal the the stage win.
Monsalve down in 15th means that hopefully he starts going in the break now, as there's at least 3 or 4 riders ahead of him he should hopefully beat. Though with that said, it may be more valuable to have Carthy in the break challenging for the KoM jersey. |
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| tastasol |
Posted on 28-05-2020 09:35
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2889
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Ugh... Looked like Phinney was in control on Galibier, but then the gap just grew out of control in the end. That's disapointing, and losing so much time to Dombrowski and Lecusinier makes a podium very tough. I had hoped this stage would have seen the top 10 group finish more or less together, and seeing that Phinney didn't crack or anything, such a big time loss is just frustrating on such a stage, but I guess that's PCM.
Loved seeing Stake Laengen in the break today. If we should have any chance of winning the team classification, I guess we have to keep sending out guys the next two days.
Edited by tastasol on 28-05-2020 09:39
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| knockout |
Posted on 28-05-2020 09:35
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Grand Tour Champion
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First up, it's impressive how exactly at 9:00 daily time each stage is posted. Not needed at all but makes the anticipation for each new stage even higher. Thanks cunegobot!
Lopez showed real strength once again on this stage. Now in reach of the KoM jersey and with Brenes looking much weaker than many other typical early attackers, it should be enough for Lopez to join the break on one of the two remaining mountain stages to clinge the jersey.
Third on the stage after all those mountain sprints is also really strong. One can only wonder whether this would have been a stage win without those but that is not saying that he shouldnt have went for those (although maybe saving energy on that first lower category sprint would have been the smarter decision)
White is secured for quite some time already and he also climbed a couple of GC positions and a top 10 might still be possible so looks like it will end up a pretty strong Evonik GT for once
I like that I'm helping out Demare in the fight for green on this stage
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 28-05-2020 10:09
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
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knockout wrote:
Lopez showed real strength once again on this stage. Now in reach of the KoM jersey and with Brenes looking much weaker than many other typical early attackers, it should be enough for Lopez to join the break on one of the two remaining mountain stages to clinge the jersey.
No chance. Gregory has an appointment booked with our mechanic this evening to attach several small rockets onto his frame tubes for tomorrow’s stage. Even though they’re untested, we have the highest faith in a favourable outcome (although it’s possible he’s blown into space instead).
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 28-05-2020 10:37
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2633
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Very well deserved win by Dombrowski. Brambilla set it all up by obliterating every single domestique in the peloton and Dombrowski was strong and persistent. Congrats alex!
I'm super happy with the way Madrazo handled this stage. Kept a cool head and a high but sensible tempo until it was time to join an attack himself. This result concludes the Madrazo vs Phinney duel and starts the final phase of our Tour. Dombrowski, Morton and Lecuisinier are now the biggest challengers, but luckily we have a 3 to 4 minute margin of error.
The green is looming after this stage; would be very cool if Madrazo can pick that up too. And the team is doing a good job of defending the TC so far. If one of them has a bad day another steps up to make sure we always have two riders finishing relatively close to Madrazo. Curious whether Vervaeke can stay in the top 25, that would be a massive result for him. But those goals are all completely secondary to bringing the yellow to Paris of course.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 28-05-2020 11:12
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World Champion
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Thanks. Massive win. And great team work. Gotta keep that podium place now. It will be tough but he is in a very good position to do it.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 28-05-2020 11:36
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World Champion
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I'm loving it... Velits in the top 10 with two days left, COME ON!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT]  Xero Racing
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