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Tour de France Discussion
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 21-04-2021 15:42
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World Champion
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Really enjoying this race from a neutral perspective.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:16
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Classics Specialist
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Congrats Aidan! 
Madrazo losing some time to Herklotz here was to be expected. Glad it was 'only' 12 seconds.
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| knockout |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:16
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Grand Tour Champion
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3rd place on the day is good. Wasnt expecting much when i saw the size of the break but I'm super glad that my team seemed to play a big part in making the catch on this stage. Even Chiarello helped chasing which was a beautiful sight.
I think it should now be firmly between Van Stayen and Herklotz for green which could go either way. Hoping for a break victory tomorrow since that final is too difficult for MVS.
Thanks for the great reports and especially for the overhead shots at the foot of the last climb where one could perfectly identify which of my domestiques were present at the front of the peleton alongside Van Stayen 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:19
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World Champion
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YES YES and Motherf..... YES! What a brilliant way to win, barely keeping the big guns astray! That one had my pulse going that's for sure! Almost got mad in the end for not allowing us to get lucky when we finally put the right guy into the right break. This was sensational.
Despite the fact that I agree with the final note saying "Van Niekerk gets the better of him and celebrates an early career highlight. " I must highlight the fact that van Niekerk already won a Grand Tour stage last season, when he soloed his way into Madrid on the final stage of the Vuelta. That said, a Tour de France stagewin is obviously better!
Tour stagewins for clubicons Vlatos and van Niekerk is really sensational! Also nice to finally get some points again after a slow burn in the past 5 stages. The 300 point mark has been crossed now, so our aim for 500 points isn't all that unrealistic - it probably need another stagewin or a couple of stage podiums though as we won't be getting anything (almost) from the GC.
A big stage for Herklotz too btw, clawing back some lost seconds and van Stayen remains in the points jersey for what it's worth
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 07-12-2025 17:09
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:23
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Directeur Sportif
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This was the stage Calmejane should've targetted, shame he didn't go in the break. Festina incredibly lucky here, seems like they are battling it out with probably Puma who have been pretty well served as well in this Tour. Shame we had so few breakaway victories yet, good to see one here one something that looked to be a clear breakaway stage before the day. Congrats to SotD and Aidan!
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| roturn |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:26
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Awful positioning by Olivier once again...not even in the picture there.
That he came up to 11th shows, that he could have fight for the top3-5 again on such finish.
Also Zardini took a day off, which is fine, even though he could have done well here as well with his mo/hi/sp combination.
Boom with his 2nd attempt to get into the break. Twice he failed and he is the weakest of my riders here anyway. So not really the best option.
Congrats SotD. |
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| SotD |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:27
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World Champion
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Croatia14 wrote:
This was the stage Calmejane should've targetted, shame he didn't go in the break. Festina incredibly lucky here, seems like they are battling it out with probably Puma who have been pretty well served as well in this Tour. Shame we had so few breakaway victories yet, good to see one here one something that looked to be a clear breakaway stage before the day. Congrats to SotD and Aidan!
Thanks mate
Battleing what out though? I suspect Puma will come out of this race with 1600-2000 points. We will come out with 500 at most - Probably also less than Evonik, who will perform much better in the final part of the season. Even Gazelle is likely to move past us in the PT rankings
Realistically we will be 4th or 5th after the Tour, and I doubt we will move up from there
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| ember |
Posted on 22-04-2021 09:55
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Aidan is too good for this game Congratulations, SotD! |
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 22-04-2021 12:22
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Team Manager
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SotD wrote:
Despite the fact that I agree with the final note saying "Van Niekerk gets the better of him and celebrates an early career highlight. " I must highlight the fact that van Niekerk already won a Grand Tour stage last season, when he soloed his way into Madrid on the final stage of the Vuelta. That said, a Tour de France stagewin is obviously better!
I figured he might have had strong results that I simply wasn't aware of, so I went with the softer "a highlight" instead of "the highlight" or even "defining highlight" or something  Pretty impressive to have 2 GT stage wins at this point already!
Also, I just noticed going back that I had not completed my outro in the Stage 12 report and there are just some random notes standing there - I'll just leave it like this because I think it's kind funny, but I appreciate you all for just politely ignoring that 
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 22-04-2021 13:23
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Aidan! Love to see it Just as much brilliant to see Dion Smith's awesome stage win two days ago, great stuff, he does so well for his stats which makes him hard to prise away from tsmoha more and more 
Reporting is brilliant as well cunego, always is from you but this is really entertaining, and good racing so far. Love the classy borders on the pictures too
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."
[PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
1x  x1
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 22-04-2021 13:29
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World Champion
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Well, there's literally just ONE rider in this TdF that I don't mind losing a stage win to that much, and it's Aidan, so heartfelt congrats to you and SotD!
Considering I was fully expecting a breakaway victory in the sense of the whole group staying ahead, I'm very happy with second today, particularly considering we didn't have to expend any extra energy to make it happen.
Silvio again with perfect tactics on a hilly stage to pounce late from MVS' wheel, it's such a shame we couldn't replicate that in the mountains so far.
It does further maximize the value of his hill training though, which has been the key to most of his success this season.
12 seconds on both Madrazo and Sicard is a very important development in a race that really could come down to seconds rather than minutes.
Tomorrow could be an even better opportunity for another stage win and making significant inroads in the fight for green, but at some point a group has to make it to the line intact. I wouldn't mind us to start relaying though to give Herklotz a fighting chance.
knockout wrote:
I think it should now be firmly between Van Stayen and Herklotz for green which could go either way. Hoping for a break victory tomorrow since that final is too difficult for MVS.
I'm perfectly happy with first in the GC and second in the points when we arrive in Paris, if that's reassuring in any way.
And to Croatia, I still believe that the ball is firmly in your court, with decent opportunities for Mohoric and Per coming up and Phinney still having three more wins to chase according to my calculations.
We should, at best, barely move past you in the rankings after this, and the rest of our season looks pretty bleak.
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| quadsas |
Posted on 22-04-2021 13:36
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Fantastic by Aidan! Truly makes Koretzky completely unnecessary
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 23-04-2021 01:10
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Another great report and a good ride by Chernetskiy as well.
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| aidanvn13 |
Posted on 23-04-2021 07:41
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Performances like these are making it near impossible to negotiate a transfer Nonetheless, congrats to SotD!
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| SotD |
Posted on 23-04-2021 08:17
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quadsas wrote:
Fantastic by Aidan! Truly makes Koretzky completely unnecessary
It definately doesn't hurt having the future already in the stable
Koretzky is looking at his last or second to last season in Festina. That much is already a certainty.
aidanvn13 wrote:
Performances like these are making it near impossible to negotiate a transfer Nonetheless, congrats to SotD!
Hehe doesn't make things easier no. Especially not when I have great plans for him regarding training - and probably see him as the long term puncheur leader of the team
See what you could have achieved if only you got along with Kastrantas
cio93 wrote:
Well, there's literally just ONE rider in this TdF that I don't mind losing a stage win to that much, and it's Aidan, so heartfelt congrats to you and SotD!
Thanks a lot mate!
ember wrote:
Aidan is too good for this game Congratulations, SotD!
He's just right - Thanks a lot!
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 23-04-2021 09:00
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Team Manager
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The customary overview
The goals are a bit more meaningful this time around, with the first mountain stages behind us:
| Team | Goal | Leader | Rank |  EA Vesuvio | Win |  Schleck | 23rd |  Evonik - ELKO | Win |  Chiarello | 18th |  Gazelle | Top 3 |  Madrazo | 2nd |  Team Puma - SAP | Top 3 |  Herklotz | 1st |  eBuddy | Top 3 |  Dombrowski | 5th |  Bennelong - Mitchelton | Top 3 |  Morton | 7th |  Isostar - Specialized | Top 3 |  Roglic | 9th |  Air France - KLM | Top 5 |  Sicard | 3rd |  cycleYorkshire | Top 5 |  Meintjes | 11th |  Rakuten Pro Cycling | Top 10 |  Quintana | 13th |  Aegon - Peroni | Top 10 |  Oliver | 6th |  ISA - Hexacta | Top 10 |  Berhane | 14th | | | | , |  Volvo acc. By Spotify | Stage Win |  Ahlstrand | done |
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| SotD |
Posted on 23-04-2021 09:07
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World Champion
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I guess I can't complain about not being in the break the day after a stagewin - but in all honesty it was horrible not to send Barta, Budyak, Kastrantas or Boily into this break. All of them saved a lot of energy yesterday and the stage had breakaway win written all over it.
Atleast we could have pretended to care about the KOM from Kastrantas or Boily.
Congrats on the win Griet/Nesset. That guy certainly put a lot of points to his name this season compared to similar riders.
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| knockout |
Posted on 23-04-2021 09:30
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I'm slightly annoyed that Riesebeek decided to attack at a point where he has a disadvantage over most of his companions and suffered the consequences from it by being caught. This means no piece of the price for Evonik and he gifts Herklotz a few additional points.
But overall, i'm glad that the break survived. This means, we have the chance to reclaim points jersey tomorrow. One of the most crucial stages for us since there is a reasonable chance that the break survives and we need to reclaim green here to counter points scored by Herklotz on the uphill stages afterwards
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| roturn |
Posted on 23-04-2021 09:49
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On that stage I had hoped for more and bigger time gaps to be honest as I expected Olivier to be one of the top5 GC riders.
Being the best even it`s unfortunate that the team didn`t take care to catch the break as the support could have been strong enough with mainly Zardini/Valls here for sure.
Some smaller time gaps to some riders, in especially Meintjes or Alarcon were good but imo could have been more even and with the missed podium or even win, 7th feels like a missed opportunity.
Still, so far, except for the break participation and stage results, this Tour is successful, though points are needed at one point as well. |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 23-04-2021 11:02
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Disappointed, but not surprised.
A prime opportunity for bonus seconds thrown away that I would've tried everything to chase if I had any say in it.
And Herklotz being unable or unwilling to give it a shot on the final hill to attempt gapping his rivals, even if it wasn't for stage honors, isn't exactly what I would consider maximizing our chances at the GC win.
At least the green jersey is a consolation prize, and a nice follow-up on Demare's endeavours in this race last season.
We would need Van Stayen to fail significantly in the two remaining flat stages to stand a chance in that classification though.
Congrats up front to Grieg, a deserved win considering the team effort in the break today.
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