Juul-Jensen in 63rd, 10 minutes back. In this startlist and on this terrain.
It feels like the season is just collapsing around me at this point. Warbasse did his best, but everyone else just under-performs constantly, sometimes to absolutely insane degrees as seen here. We are quickly falling out of the promotion fight.
I mean, crashes were off, right? This wasn't some big mistake? I just don't know how JJ loses 10 minutes here and finished behind 60+ guys. It doesn't make any sense. The fact that Sulvaran finished ahead of him with 68/72 mtn/hill basically sums it up.
Now we are in line for absolutely no GC points and a couple of stage points for the entire race. It hurts when you look at a startlist and feel like you actually planned for a favorable matchup, and then get absolutely destroyed by inexplicably bad luck.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Pretty disappointed by the stage outcome. I definitely hoped the stage would be more selective, to get rid of the likes of Houle, Claeys or even Borges. Well... Flat finishes then are clearly not a thing for Moscon, that's where his low sprint definitely hurts him. But he's up to 6th now, which I'd definitely have taken pre-race - and there's still an uphill finish to come. Time for a second scoring stage, besides his great win on day 2.
The rest of the team should however definitely have picked another strategy. We did massive amounts of work throughout the entire race, but the stage results are pretty poor for this. Given some riders who still are up front, I'm sure we could have scored decent depth points with Thièry and Saggiorato, if they didn't always sacrifice themselves for Moscon... Yeah, I agree it's just spotting the fly in the ointment, I definitely can't complain if we can really keep this 6th place
I do however absolutely understand bbls frustration. There should be no way JJ finishes that far behind - on the contrary, he should have competed for the stage win. Sorry for you, mate!
On the other hand, congrats to aidan, great & unexpected win! You're really getting the max out of your riders in this race, amazing result for you!
And thanks for the report, Nemo, you're still doing a great job
This has got to be the best team race I've ever seen by a squad who clearly kind of have no idea what they're doing. As Croatia said very strange tactics today, the GC still looks good for more points that I could have hoped for pre-race but it could have been much better. Hope tomorrow goes well and we can hold 2nd and maybe raise Meurisse and Debesay.
Obviously hugely happy for Project: Africa getting a stage win here even as it denies Houle one, huge moment for them (at least the current iteration of the team ). Well taken by Seibeb
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
Juul-Jensen in 63rd, 10 minutes back. In this startlist and on this terrain.
It feels like the season is just collapsing around me at this point. Warbasse did his best, but everyone else just under-performs constantly, sometimes to absolutely insane degrees as seen here. We are quickly falling out of the promotion fight.
I mean, crashes were off, right? This wasn't some big mistake? I just don't know how JJ loses 10 minutes here and finished behind 60+ guys. It doesn't make any sense. The fact that Sulvaran finished ahead of him with 68/72 mtn/hill basically sums it up.
Now we are in line for absolutely no GC points and a couple of stage points for the entire race. It hurts when you look at a startlist and feel like you actually planned for a favorable matchup, and then get absolutely destroyed by inexplicably bad luck.
Either he was in such a bad position after the GC that the AI made him "care less", positioning badly and then not trying to get back, or another theory is he wasted so much efforts in the TTT that he was totally empty the day after (both being stupid of course). I felt sorry for you when I saw it happening, and I hope he makes up for it in his remaining races..
In general I really liked this Tour, with many fun teams and (for the neutral fan, if there are any ) some really nice stages. One of my favourite reporter races so far
Absolutely stunning week for us. Couldn't have hoped for more. Best race of the season.
Thanks for all your intense reports, Nemo. Definitely made this triumph all the more tastier! Sorry for not commenting the past few days, but it's been busy.
And comiserations to those who didn't get as much luck as myself. It comes and goes in waves, you guys know the deal!
Thanks for the reports Nemolito, congrats Gustavkovskiy!
Fifth for Claeys is a good result, definitely could have been worse. Perhaps hoped on more depth points by Selander and Haga, but can't have everything we wish for
Good that it's over, that final stage has been absolute stupidity by us once more. We're working like crazy, killing our own riders, and then Moscon shows nothing at all in the end. 4/6 stages have been exactly like this, with only one notable stage result and a good TTT.
Of course, 6th place in GC is a great result, but I still feel as if much more would have been possible in terms of depth results, had we not done all that useless work - finally only helping our competitors basically. Well, I hope we'll benefit from the work of others in the races to come, and go attacking instead.
Congrats to sammy for that great stage win by Pellaud - something he unfortuntaley never came close to last year. And congrats to Gustav on a rather unexpected yet well deserved win!
And thanks to Nemo for some great reports, although the final kilometers of most stages were really frustrating to read... Guess I should really train Moscon's sprint, as the rest should be fine...
I was hoping the massive under performances would be limited to AKA, but I seem to have been wrong. I planned and actually got a favorable startlist at the PCT level, saw a chance for a good performance, and JJ just completely bonked beyond belief to finish outside the top 20 with no great stage performances. He showed nothing of his trademark aggression either. Not a hint of life. The TTT is on me, but it takes a proper idiot to simply give up completely after losing the GC instead of trying to make something of the race. I mean, the dude has 79 ACC and 80 Fighter. Do something!
Centovalli and P:A leave here with big points (relatively), while we are basically shut out besides a couple of tiny minor points. I want to be happy for them, but in the promotion fight, they have only widened the margin or gained considerably on us respectively. Maybe those mysteriously tripled Trentino points were a bad omen for us, and now we will tumble from that rankings peak.
Sorry to keep complaining. I know I got in trouble with a lot of you for that last year, and I promised to stop. It's just so frustrating and its hard for me to talk about these races without venting that frustration.
I guess I'm just waiting for our luck to shift. It has to at some point, right? My team isn't just coded to be broken. Warbasse can't be the only good rider on my team.
Congrats to Duolingo on a dominating win, as well as all those who performed well. Thank you so much to Nemolito for your consistent and awesome reports as well!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
A 3rd in both the stage and GC for Konig is just what this team needs as now every point counts in the battle for survival. Shame that Robov lost time in stages 5 and 6
Congrats to the winners and to Nemolito for the reports.
All in all happy with the end result, I had hoped for a bit better racing during the race. But finishing 4th and 17th is not bad.
(Sorry for not commenting during the race, time is running away from me at the moment. Hopefully things will calm down soon and I can go back to normal activity)
). Well taken by Seibeb 
