So, that's it Glad you've enjoyed the coverage. I suppose the AI wasn't at its very best, but there was still some interesting racing going on overall, I think. One last weekly overview:
Stage Winner
1
Oliveira
Oliveira
Oliveira
Larsen
2
Harrison
Harrison
Harrison
Postlberger
Larsen
3
Manninen
Harrison
Manninen
Postlberger
Larsen
4
Latour
Herklotz
Manninen
Arensman
Girdlestone
5
Tinkoff
Uran
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
6
Miltiadis
Sivakov
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
7
Hsu
Sivakov
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
8
Manninen
Sivakov
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
9
Ackermann
Sivakov
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
10
Yates
Sivakov
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
11
Herklotz
Herklotz
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
12
Herklotz
Herklotz
Manninen
Arensman
Sivakov
13
Chamorro
Herklotz
Herklotz
Arensman
Sivakov
14
Dainese
Herklotz
Dainese
Arensman
Sivakov
15
Yates
Herklotz
Herklotz
Arensman
Sivakov
16
Hsu
Herklotz
Herklotz
Arensman
Sivakov
17
Tenorio
Herklotz
Herklotz
Arensman
Sivakov
18
Roglic
Herklotz
Herklotz
Arensman
Sivakov
19
Latour
Herklotz
Herklotz
Arensman
Sivakov
20
Herklotz
Herklotz
Herklotz
Beltran
Sivakov
21
Dainese
Herklotz
Dainese
Beltran
Sivakov
A couple of notable things regarding the historical MGUCI stats: Herklotz is now second all-time for days in yellow, one behind Pluchkin. He also enters the Top 20 for all-time stage wins with 6, and he and Manninen both enter the Top 15 for days in green.
Arensman is now second all-time in days in the polka dot jersey and also tops Gregory Brenes for most days without winning the classification. Beltran meanwhile joins Hugh Carthy as riders who've only worn the polka dot on one occasion but won it in the end, while Dainese is the first rider to do the same for the green jersey, at least when you count the classification lead - he obviously wore the physical jersey for much longer.
Finally, a review of the expert prediction:
Highest
Lowest
1.
Herklotz
1.
1.
2.
Morton
2.
3.
3.
Tenorio
2.
7.
4.
Wellens
4.
6.
5.
Eastman
4.
5.
6.
Latour
4.
7.
7.
Hirt
3.
9.
8.
Yates
6.
8.
9.
Godoy
8.
n.r.
10.
Sivakov
9.
n.r.
n.r. = not ranked; also named: Beltran, Pogacar.
Herklotz (2)
Manninen (2)
Kemboi
-
Herklotz (3)
Beltran (2)
Smith (2)
Vosekalns (2)
Burke (2)
Karnulin
Chamorro
Latour
Chiarello
-
Sivakov (3)
Pogacar (2)
They got the podium right, even if Tenorio and Morton were switched (though the majority did have Tenorio correctly in second). Wellens and Eastman were placed in the correct order, but got jumped by Latour (who one person indeed had in fourth place) and Sivakov, arguably the biggest surprise in terms of the GC. No one had either Chiarello or Schelling in the Top 10, while Hirt has to be the biggest disappointment. Still, he and Godoy finished 11th and 12th, so they were pretty close misses. Pogacar in 13th means 11 of the Top 13 were mentioned at least once, which is a solid record, I think.
Herklotz and Manninen were the top contenders for green and ended up second and third in that classification, still a good job I'd say, as no one could have predicted Dainese to do what he did. And two people correctly guessed Beltran for the mountain classification, while Sivakov made good on his role as top favorite for white.
As for TMM's preview, Yates won the battle of the islands for the GC, as expected, but Harrison also added nicely with a stage win. Hasani beat Arissol in the battle for paradise, while Pidcock and Kritskiy secured the U23 and O35 titles, respectively. No luck in the correctly labeled crap shoot for the lanterne rouge, as top choice Ulysbayev was almost exactly three hours faster overall than eventual winner Yatsevich.
So, many things as expected but also some surprises, which I think sums this race up nicely. Thanks for the activity in this thread, it was fun to follow
Wow, Dainese
He had one chance of getting the jersey - and he did it. Surely he must be the first ever unmaxed rider to win the Maillot Vert?!? (btw, green and KoM jersey pics are interchanged in the report)
Congrats to all the winners, although there (unfortunately) never was the least doubt about who would win the GC. I hope we'll get some more interesting GTs in the future (from a neutral perspective, of course); the podium fight was fun to follow, but I admit I find it boring to have such a gap on top. Nonetheless, congrats to Herklotz, as well as to the other podium finishers who definitely deserve to be there!
Congrats also to Beltran on the KoM jersey - just unfortunate that he gets his most notable result of the year when it doesn't count... Hopefully that will give him some momentum for the final couple of races - not the least important ones for him I guess... And thanks to Arensman for putting up a great fight for that jersey - he definitely wore it for much longer than I expected.
Dainese was THE big surprise, definitely. Nice to see Manninen do pretty well, but it still feels wrong to not see him in green in the end. But he still did way better than Kemboi, a shame that the latter failed so hard. But alas, that's PCM sprint AI.
However, the breakaway AI sucked way more from a neutral perspective. I don't quite get why certain teams worked - at least in the second half of the race they should've known they did all the effort just for others, mainly for Herklotz. I hope team strategies will improve in future versions, but I doubt it.
Last but not least, huge thanks to cunego for the amazing coverage! The fantastic preview was just a foreshadowing on what to expect from the reports - and they were just beautiful! Thanks for all that work
This might be Beltran's last notable result for my team. I can't say his performance was impressive or that he recovered any of his lost mojo here. It seemed no one really wanted the KOM that badly so he at least took advantage of that. The picture of him in the polka dot jersey will be a nice memento
Congrats to Puma and Herklotz even though we all knew it was a foregone conclusion that he would be the runaway winner
Thank you for all the wonderful reports Cunego, even if reading about my team was pretty frustrating more often than not
The points and KoM pictures at the end need to be swapped though
It wasn't a stage win from Van Poppel, but it's another podium. He was quite consistent this year, reflected by finishing fourth in the green rankings. He will bring us in some nice points. Too bad they will be the only ones with the climbers in the team being quite a disappointment here.
Most of our rivals in terms of relegation did have a better Tour than us so that's not good news for us, but at least their Tours weren't as good as they could have been with Morton, Wellens and Eastman all having the potential to finish even higher than they did. So the fight it's still wide open going into the last months of the season.
Thanks for an absolutely brilliant effort during this Tour de France. It has been an absolut joy to follow, even with a team not being quite as aggressive in the middle section of the race that could have been.
Big congrats to cio first and foremost, for the inevideble Tour victory from Herklotz, but also to many others who obviously had key moments during this Tour!
For us we had some peak points aswell with the first weak being the most notable with Bouglas early 2nd place, and very close to a stagewin, and then Lafay being aggressive taking a couple of days as shared KOM leader - albeit without wearing the jersey, and then the brilliant and very unexpected stagewin from newly maxed Andreas Miltiadis! I must admit that due to his low physical capabilities he was one of those riders I didn't really fancy for anything other than domestique duties, but when he can win a stage in the Tour de France we might have to reconsider and se if it is worthwhile to set him on a similar path as Spanopoulos to have a duothreat on numerous stagetypes there. He certainly made the training plans more difficult with his performances, so well done lad!
Then we had a very slow and uneventful 2nd week, where we actually though we could attack the KOM jersey with either Lafay or Miltiadis or even begin to see Giannoutsos making serious moves. The race just never formed in an interesting path for our team, and we came away with A LOT of 11th places, just outside the points table. This kept going until the final 3 mountainstages, where Chiarello picked up the depeche and kept running and running and running. 2nd and 3rd on stages respectively and moving up to 8th in the GC which ultimately accumulates into a replica of the Vuelta a España performance, where he was 8th and got a stagewin. There he landed 294 points, and here he lands on 289 points. All this combined see him land on 700 points for the season, breaking the very optimistic expected value of 600. He's almost as strong as last season, when adjusting for lower racedays and altered calender. He truly is a gem!
Giannoutsos with 24th had a pretty anonymous race despite trying on a couple of occasions, but never really getting close to anything. His strong physical stats makes him the diesel rider that is needed to get a decent GC result though, and while I struggle to see him ever becoming a top level rider, I guess we'll have to force his stats up a bit to see if he's a viable long term project. For now with U25 points added he barely reaches the expectations we had to him, but he's only at the level of Spanopoulos, which scares me a bit when planning ahead.
Thank you so much cunego59 - amazing work!
Congrats to all the winners, espacially Cio for the dominant win.
For us, it's bitter sweet to loose the KOM jersey after 17 days in it on the last day with points. And the tally only being 6 points at the end of the day.
Sad to see TK fall all the way to 25th, with Lunke right behind him.
A positive to see Rojus in the mix though. The Future is bright.
Wellens really had a good last couple days.
In the end almost hurts that he was so close to the top5 yesterday but missed 2s.
Fair result for him though.
Full race point wise not as ideal as hoped though as my team wasn`t very active breakaway/KoM wise and in especially Goos was rather anonymous and far beyond his former performances here.
Still the best GT performance from my team, which shows the small scoring from GTs this season despite having expected quite a bit from the Wellens/Olivier combination with Carboni having less of a burden.
It will be a long season against the relegation line I guess, so can only hope that the autumn races will go better for riders such as Olivier/De Bie in especially.
Congrats cio for the expected Herklotz win. In the end also with a nice stage win to show his strength again.
And thanks for all the nice and steady reports, cunego.
It was a joy to read them.
Wow, wow, and wow!!! What a finish that was. Thank you for covering it very, very well, cunego. I got super excited when Dainese launched, and seeing the pictures that followed, it was kind of difficult to take it in. Look at him go!
To have Dainese win green, or even contest green, was never in my thoughts pre-race. Have him sprint this great and also being consistent, was far beyond expectations. It’s obviously massive for us this Tour, with the mountain stages playing out as GC/favourites stages. To have Dainese as our big points scorer, is difficult to understand, I must admit, but just the more of a pleasant surprise.
Congratulations on the expected overall win, cio. Herklotz did what everyone expected him to do, and with three wins on the way, with such a weak domestique team for the mountains (sorry for the hard words, but putting Herklotz into stage winning opportunities was mostly due to other teams, even our, work). Fun to follow the fight for the other podium spots, and well done MOL and cycleYorkshire for having Tenorio and Morton pull through and do what their managers expected.
Latour being the positive surprise regarding the GC, and also his racing from the very start of this Tour. Him and Yates were the big “newcomers” regarding GC riders in the Tour, both having two stage wins, and Latour also managed to be very consistent to get 4th in the GC. Congratulations, beagle!
Also cool to see Cedevita be very active in the breakaways and claim the KoM, eventhough the way to get it could frustrate redordead Must admit I enjoyed Beltran up front chasing KoM points, thinking of his past with Aker. He was the perfect rider for breakaways this Tour, a pity for him that none of his attempts were rewarded with a stage win/a closer fight for the stage win, but the polkadot should be a solid consolation.
Also, insane work through the whole Tour, cunego! I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and also the consistent posting you’ve put up. Thank you again for your top notch reporting.
First and foremost, thank you cunego. That was top-class reporting from the preview to the Champs-Elysées. You did this race more than justice.
Secondly, thank you to every manager that left a few kind words on our performances throughout the race and now at its conclusion. It means a lot.
I know we don't always make racing fun to watch, but while the breakaway teams surely suffered unreasonably much, we've at least seen opportunistic strategies by De Stijl, ELCO and Polar work well.
Thank you Stefan Bissegger.
We threw you into the biggest race in the world coming straight from the PCT, after publicly announcing your signing was mostly about a single day in it, and you delivered. Gaining over 30 seconds on Morton and over a minute on Tenorio was a major factor in getting us into an advantageous situation as early as possible, even though the gaps at the end don't reflect that.
Thank you Alexys Brunel.
Similarly to your teammate, you justified going to great lengths to have you in this team for the season. You even followed it up with a Top10-worthy performance in the individual time trial.
Thank you Rémi Cavagna.
A true staple of this team since 2018 already, you keep on proving your worth no matter how much your wage fluctuates. You've been part of three GT-winning lineups now, and your versatility has always had an impact on them.
Thank you Valentin Madouas.
Coming from an incredible 2021 Vuelta, you had no issues returning to a domestique role, and possibly the most important domestique role in your life. A gigantic task ahead of you, having just developed into a fully-rounded rider, and you didn't falter when it mattered. At least our third stage win wouldn't have been possible without your efforts, and luckily we'll never find out how different the racing would've been in general.
Thank you Nils Politt.
Similar to our loanees, you know why we keep putting you into GT lineups, and you're yet to disappoint when it matters. It's integral to the mission to have reliable riders like you.
Thank you Florian Stork.
You skyrocketed into "the next best German" on our stage racing roster after the losses of Nerz, Arndt and Vasyliv, and the very first time we called upon you, you were there to show us why we believed in developing you to this point. Some great chasing efforts on tough mountain stages were instrumental in setting up stage wins or at least in widening the GC gaps. You'll definitely be back next time!
Thank you Domenic Weinstein.
In many teams, your climbing abilities would be an afterthought. In this TTT-focused lineup however, you were needed in all sorts of domestique roles, and you didn't shy away from the task at hand and helped to the best of your abilities.
A special note to commemorate this being the first Grand Tour victory that Bissegger, Brunel, Madouas, Stork and Weinstein have been a part of!
Silvio, you madman. What a record-shattering ride.
Nearly always in control, and never truly beatable even when not.
Expected by many, but yet still impressive.
And finally, recognized by your countrymen in the most prestigious jersey in cycling, on home soil, near where everything started.
Congratulations to Cedevita, Moser and particularly Aker and Tinkoff for their well-deserved classification wins.
Dainese is a rightful maillot vert winner, and Sivakov was a tough opponent early on. They're both rewarded for their stellar performances with this addition to their palmares.
Congratulations to De Stijl and Polar for extremely smart riding to capitalize on basically every stage win opportunity that was open to be contested.
Congratulations to Gjensidige, even though it ultimately wasn't rewarded with the jersey. Now you know why I bothered you this much over Arensman!
Congratulations to Los Pollos, who had a great race with Manninen and would've deserved to have him within true reach of green in Paris.
Congratulations to King Power for matching our stage win tally and thus keeping us very busy in the rankings.
And finally, congratulations to MOL and cycleYorkshire for at least taking home one stage victory each alongside your overall podium spots.
It might not look close in the final GC, but big props to both of you for really bringing your best to the table and indeed causing a few headaches along the way with strong attacks.
Thanks for reporting this. Admittdly I've been very busy lately and only skimmed most reports, but I can tell they were extremely well written, and it was an truly insane win for Herklotz. Where does he go from here?
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Sad this is over! Incredible race from start to finish, really well done cunego
Congratulations to cio on the win, Herklotz is definitely a legend. Also congrats to jaxika and ryant on securing the podium and putting up a fight
Bummed to see Arensman lose out on the climber's jersey at the last minute, but Beltran definitely deserves his credit. I was happy to see Barbio participating in this fight throughout the race, even though he was quite a bit out-gunned.
With Schelling finishing 10th overall, I am very pleased. I expected him to drop down to around 15th later in the race, but he held on and exceeded my expectations. With this likely being his last real shot at the GC in a grand tour, I am satisfied with the result.
An absolutely tremendous reporting effort. Couldnt have been better, thanks immensely for your contribution cunego!
It was so good you even produced the comment I was meant to post:
Eastman rode a very unspectacular race overall, he’ll end up 7th, a slight disappointment but a bad start and some good performances from his rivals prevented a better result.
This + the fact that we never really fought for anything else in a race where we invested some of our best men makes this a tragic outcome for us. I'm really not confident to the final third of the season. Relegation seems very likely.
A word of congratulations to cio.
Also for Gjensidige and hillis. What a gritty performance from Arensman. Easily the combativity champion of this race. Give that man a medal.
One more shout out to Cunego for the great reports.
Congrats to Heklotz and all the winners. Interesting question whether a maxed Dainese will show up to defend his jersey.
On a personal note good to see McCormick alum Rojus get some great sprint results for Hillis. Clearly all that mentoring from Keough made the difference.
Would also like to thank cunego for the reports, they were really good to follow across these last 3 weeks!
Congrats to Cio for a dominating victory and also to ember for a surprising green Jersey win at the last!
From our perspective things probably went as well as we could have hoped even if Morton really did not have it in the last 2 days which was a little sad for me when I hoped we would finish above Tenorio in the end. Overall, a podium in the GC met our goal before the race and that made before pre season so we can't complain too much and a stage win on the first day from Oliveira was an unexpected bonus for us!
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
Happy to finally see a good sprint again from Manninen, but nothing could be done against an unleashed Dainese. He definitely deserves the green jersey, congratulations ember! Once again happy with Ruiz who did some great work of bringing Manninen back in the race.
In general, apart from some decent Manninen stages, quite some disappointing performances from our team. Nareklishvili the only one to really attack but obviously not the best guy to do so. Sütterlin with a disgrace of an ITT and Munoz being Munoz, finishing 52nd in the GC and only attacking once which was painful to watch as well. Herklotz a couple of leagues above everybody else, so congratulations again cio!
The true OG is of course cunego. The GT reporting done by him, Ulrich and Imladrik this season was top notch, amazing, stellar, out of this world. The fact that my team sometimes didn't perform as I hoped doesn't matter when reading those 63 wonderful reports, that have cost hours of blood and sweat to produce. Thank you very very much to cunego and his two brothers from other mothers.
Glad you've enjoyed the coverage. I suppose the AI wasn't at its very best, but there was still some interesting racing going on overall, I think. One last weekly overview:
