All roads lead to Aigle: Pro Cycling 2020

[longeared]

IIRC that was a combined race (similar to what the Czechs and Slovaks do these days) with the British national professional championship. It pissed it down all day and Brian Smith won in his Motorola season.

Looking through the results today I see Adam Yates finished in 44th place in the front group. That would have been very easy for him to sit at the back / get dropped and ship five minutes or more. So despite what he and his team keep saying he hasn't completely abandoned GC yet to go stage hunting.

[Diable Rouge]

Two interesting factoids that surprised me

Bennett becomes only the second Irish rider to win a stage in all three Grands Tours, with the first being neither Kelly nor Roche

He's also the first to win a Tour stage as Irish champion

Shay Elliott?

TG4 get slightly excited at the Munster man's success (both Tipp and Waterford claim him):

https://twitter.com/SportTG4/status/1303355159846690818

[Ray de Galles]

This is great too, I so hope he can hold on to the green jersey ;

https://twitter.com/deceuninck_qst/status/1303381380865425408?s=21

[Diable Rouge]

https://twitter.com/The42_ie/status/1303654469511589888

[Mumpo]

Sagan angling for some free time over the next few days there

[longeared]

Think Sagan will get relegated to last place on the stage for that.

[longeared]

And relegated he is, along with getting a points deduction. He's 68 points behind Bennett now for the green jersey, so that's going to be very hard to make up unless Bennett doesn't make it through the mountains or gets Covided out.

[ursus arctos]

I wonder if Sagan will abandon and prepare for the Giro

[john the revelator]

Having a woman and a man framing the podium looks pretty daft.
The bloke invariably stands there looking like a macho plonker while the women are invariably relaxed and graceful.

(maybe that's my ingrained prejudices due to wokeness deficit or something)

Great sprint finish all the same

[ursus arctos]

Well, the large majority of the women have been doing this gig for several years, whereas the guys have were recruited a week or two before the start.

My guess is that it will prove a transition to no "eye candy" at all. I like the alternative tradition of having local junior hand out the prizes

[longeared]

[Tony C]

I felt for Van Aert today. He could have won that stage but for Sagan's jostling and pushing him sideways which I'm convinced took away the half wheel he needed for victory. No wonder he looked pissed off.

[ursus arctos]

He seemed genuinely shocked in his post-race comments, in a way that a pure sprinter like Ewan or Bennett would not have been.

[Tony C]

Really pleased for Hirschi after his bravery on Sunday came to nothing.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Great outcome today. It still seems that almost every stage this year has produced a great race or story.

[longeared]

The way Sunweb run their team absolutely baffles me at times, but then they're capable of creating and succesfully executing a plan which uses everyone to take a win like that.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Ms Felicity sings “how Wout van Aert” to the tune of How Great thou art when he crops up in these sprints. Which is quite apt, really.

[longeared]

Oh, Romain.

[Mumpo]

GO SLOVENIA

[Mumpo]

Najlepša hvala

[Mumpo]

Nice.

[longeared]

Fine ride from Dani Martinez to outwit the Bora duo and win the stage. INEOS did a Movistar and did a load of work on the earlier climbs, then Pogacar attacked towards the finish and immediately dropped Bernal. He's almost a minute behind Roglic on GC now so will need all that back and more before the final time trial. Ho ho ho.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Nice.

Cannes

[longeared]

Bardet's not going to start tomorrow *sniff* as he's concussed following his crash today. Which kind of begs the question as to why he was allowed to continue riding at all - cycling's meant to have concussion tests now.

First little signs of Covid troubles for the race this evening - the Col de la Biche and Grand Colombier climbs on Sunday are both going to be closed to spectators. The stage at Lyon tomorrow also has a large area either side of the finish line to be cordoned off. Still think the race will make the Planche des Belles Filles next Saturday but wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Paris stage binned during the week.

[ursus arctos]

They haven't been able to convince spectators to wear masks and maintain a decent distance from the riders on the climbs, and the level of anger in the peloton has been rising each day.

This was the only thing they could do.