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Tour of America Discussion
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 09-07-2020 22:19
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Tour de France Champion
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5 breakaways wins in a row. Insane. Anybody know the record? And the same guys in the break again and again too, to the point where they're taking the points classification.
After a super exciting first two weeks, it's as if the race just stopped. A real pity as far as action for what should have been the most critical portion of the race. It's not just that the break is winning, but the peloton is doing absolutely nothing the whole day. No selection, no attacks. They don't even make a mild attempt to catch the break and make it exciting. Not sure what's going on. Then again, I've had similar complaints in real life GT's in recent years - though usually in real life there's at least a GC battle too when they let the breakaway go in the high mountains.
Status quo for us. Looks like it will be that way until the TT. Tomorrow should be huge on paper, but I'm not counting on it. We've seen no real attacks from the peloton in a week. Seems like everyone's on the defensive, and I doubt that changes. I hope I'm wrong. Of course, I'll probably eat my words and Warbasse will crack. In that case, boring is fine. 
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 10-07-2020 00:03
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Team Leader
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Best stage of the event for us, with Hiratsuka on the break. Note to self:bring more Japanese next time 
This race has been a joke from our perspective, but putting that aside I have to agree with the popular opinion that the last few stages have been underwhelming to say the least, with GC men losing points to breakaway-specialists in droves.
Anyway congrats on the wins Olfardh and sammyt.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 10-07-2020 05:28
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 11676
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Who neutralized this race?
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 10-07-2020 10:50
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2907
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Okay, this could have gone so much worse. De La Cruz actually advancing to 6th GC is amazing, I thought he at best could challenge for a top 10.
Don't mess this up tomorrow Davide! |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 10-07-2020 10:57
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Good enough for me, let's call the rest of the race off?
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 23-11-2024 02:47
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 10-07-2020 13:24
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2433
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Ablenado took his managers moan on board and stuck with the break to get a useful 2nd on the stage and ride himself back into the top 20 GC. Second in team looks like the best Kraftwerk can manage.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 10-07-2020 14:54
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16429
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Well, that should solidify our 2nd place on GC pretty well. Back up to 2nd in the points jersey too.
It sucks the third week was so neutralized. 6 breakaway wins in a row. Basically one attack from the pack that entire time (Marquez today) that amounted to almost nothing. It's like the game just didn't know what direction to go with it and decided not to go anywhere at all.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 10-07-2020 15:21
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Wonderful ride from Duarte today. A good consolation prize for what has been a catastrophic Tour for us.
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 10-07-2020 15:56
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World Champion
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So a rather boring day again. Shikai was high enough placed to take the Points jersey back. We need to beat Warbasse tomorrow or else we may not win that competition. The race isnt over yet though, a horrible day for Shikai could still see him lose the lead, so Im hoping he has a strong day, and maybe even takes the stage win, to cap off a great race.
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 10-07-2020 16:56
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A very bad day for us today, Hoem and Liphongyu lost 36 and 44 minutes each to drop them both out of the top 20GC, Ranaweera lost his top 10GC spot.
With how low scoring our season has been it feels like we lost more points than we probably did.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 10-07-2020 17:36
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Decent effort all around, but not enough in the end. Hoping Marquez can keep going in the MTT. 4th place is probably the best he can get now.
Very nice to see Inkelaar slowly make his way into the U25 point-scoring positions, albeit an hour off the pace
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| valverde321 |
Posted on 10-07-2020 19:14
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Well then, that should hopefully be the GC and points jersey wrapped up then. It was a great race for us, with multiple stage wins, and two jerseys (barring a disaster), so Im very happy with that. The ToA is always a gamble, as it uses many race days, but if a team can do well, it really helps their promotion bid, which is hopefully what has happened here (haven't done any of the math).
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 10-07-2020 19:19
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16429
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Well then, that's the race. Shikai threw down the hammer on this final stage and claimed what was rightfully his, congrats to Valv and Rakuten.
Warbasse didn't do great, but did well enough to hang on to 2nd in both GC and points - AKA, he did plenty good enough.
Speaking of AKA, I expected a lot more abandonments, and thus did not expect him to make it to the final stage of the race. But he's here, he's got great recovery, and he better do something tomorrow to cap off this race in style!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 10-07-2020 19:40
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10th, 12th, 3 stage wins and the mountain jersey, I'm happy 
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 10-07-2020 23:06
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Nerz up to 4th by one second, could bonus seconds on the last day make a difference?
Adding two in the top 20 and 2nd in teams, plus a stage win and a second place, not a bad result. Haller was a big disappointment.
Congrats to Valv and thanks to jph for the super fast reporting.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 11-07-2020 06:11
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 11676
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Sums up our season 
Good ride by Inkelaar
Thanks for the great reports jph!
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 11-07-2020 10:36
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2907
Joined: 15-07-2007
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7th and 13th GC, and a couple of podiums. I'll take that
Congrats Valverde! Nice to see the gamble pay off!
And thank you for the wonderful reports at an amazing pace jph! |
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 11-07-2020 10:46
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Well that explains why Haller didn't do well, Gough was supposed to be his leadout man!
Thanks for the speedy reports jph and congrats to valv.
Pretty happy with Kraftwerk's performances here but will need to give Haller better support in future.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 11-07-2020 10:46
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Well that wraps it up. A fantastic job from jph reporting this huge race. Thanks man!
Congrats on this dominating win! I wish we could have been a challenge for Shikai, but it wasn't meant to be.
I was hoping for a reasonable tally here, instead we leave as one of the lowest scoring teams. Fortunately though this season is close to its end.
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| jph27 |
Posted on 11-07-2020 10:53
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Thanks for the kind words everyone! I enjoyed reporting the race even if the lack of action from the GC contenders in the final week was pretty disappointing. Apologies for the lack of podiums at the end, accidentally clicked the wrong button after the stage there.
Shikai was pretty dominant throughout bar one bad day, so it was no surprise to see him take the win. On the other hand, Reis (who I expected to be his main challenger) was consistently useless, and Berhane didn't really offer much in the way of a challenge. Those three were probably the big underachievers of the favourites, while Ranaweera seemed to struggle in the final week.
Machado, Nerz, Marquez, De La Cruz and Senni all performed about as would have been expected, being solid but unspectacular - thought Marquez did animate the race at times, and Senni did well to take a stage win. But they limited their bad days, and ended up roughly where I would have expected them to at the end of the three weeks.
Which leaves the two big overachievers in the top 10, the two Americans. Warbasse looked the equal of Shikai early on, but didn't seem to have it in him to take back time in the final week - 2nd is still a brilliant result for him though, and may justify his transfer fee. Brandt on the other hand was the Zubeldia of the race. You never noticed he was there until you worked through the group of GC contenders, and you always expected him to crack eventually, but he never did.
Itami and Aberasturi starred in the sprints, while Gaviria and Haller disappointed - the former didn't have a good enough leadout, and the latter just never seemed to position himself for the sprints. And worth mentioning the riders who animated the race. Dall'Oste was a deserving KoM winner, and Scarponi was unlucky to miss out, while the likes of Parra Bustamente, Hategeka and Kratochvila made up for the lack of GC action as well.
With all that said, what I guess most managers care about is how many points their team scored. In the table below is my calculation, which may not be 100% accurate, but should give a ballpark figure
| Rakuten | 614 | | Carlsberg | 400 | | Sauber | 328 | | Lierse | 254 | | ISA | 236 | | Kraftwerk | 231 | | Europcar | 223 | | Andorra | 215 | | Glanbia | 210 | | Philips | 201 | | GCN | 200 | | Duolingo | 177 | | Eddie Stobart | 129 | | Equinor | 91 | | Iberia | 73 |
Even if the numbers may be slightly wrong, it shows just how huge a race Rakuten had, which should propel them to promotion. Carlsberg and Sauber should also be pretty happy with their performances here, especially as the former will probably escape the relegation zone at the next update with that level of scoring. Glanbia and GCN scored ridiculously well for CT teams, while Duolingo, Equinor and Iberia probably have the most reason to be disappointed. |
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