NBCSN is the American coverage (thus the miles).
Liggett and Sherwen.
You don't send us your best people.
Liggett and Sherwen.
You don't send us your best people.
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Should have guessed that, as the US races do the same thing on their own coverage. Yes, the commentators were wack, as were the pictures.
Did Groenewegen just completely surprise the competition when he opened up? I'm not surprised Kristoff didn't show - he's had lead in his boots all year - but Greipel must be rather peeved.Comment
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I think Greipel just started his sprint a few metres too late.
As longeared noted, it wouldn't have been the first time.Comment
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Amusing that ITV keep bigging up Groenewegen's stage wins in the Tour de Yorkshire while entirely forgetting he also won a Tour of Britain stage last year.Comment
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Good to see a winner who didn't get a single stage, I do like it when that happens. A 'pure' win.Comment
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Decent Tour, seen better, seen worse. First week was slow, second excellent, third a bit of an anti-climax. We did get the Chambery stage in particular, a consensus seems to have formed that this was the best stage of the last 20 years.
Last year was generally accepted as Froome’s best victory, well this was his worst. Largely defended all the way round, took time in the time trials, all a bit Indurain-ish. He won mainly through experience and having by far the strongest team in the race rather than any particular brilliance on his part. Pretty much anyone who wins several Grand Tours ends up with one like this on their slate.
Uran was a surprise for second, got a bit of criticism for never attacking, though suspect that his team were implicitly in his ear "don’t attack and risk losing everything, ranking points, sponsors, podium is a fine result". Bardet was excellent in the mountains and won a stage for the first time ever thanks to attacking uphill. His third this year was better than second last, he was a major player right the way through as opposed to simply profiting from defensive riding. Still more to come from him, though he needs to sort the time trialling out. There was a line that he doesn’t do much time trial training as he doesn’t like it, there’s an obvious space for improvement.
Would argue that Valverde was a bigger loss to the race than Porte was. Valverde would definitely have had an impact on that course though the high Alps might have been too big for him. He may not have changed the result but he would have altered the character of the race. Porte showed nothing that suggested he would have won the thing, suspect he would have on or around the podium.
This might be a race that takes a while to draw lessons from. Did Bardet’s biggest chance for a win pass him by? Was Froome’s lesser advantage a one off from illness / injury or has his career downturn slowly begun? Froome is doing the Vuelta next which looks like it’s going to be a repeat of the Tour plus Nibali and Adam Yates, rather disappointingly Dumoulin is bypassing it. What he races next year is the big question - there have been murmurings again that he’d like to do the Giro, he might have the possibility of trying to hold all three Grand Tours at the same time - only Merckx and Hinault have managed that. Dumoulin will be in France next summer, Bardet will improve, Quintana won’t be knackered and will hopefully have a sensible build up. Who’s going to blink first and go to Italy?Comment
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Prize money table illustrates just how bad Movistar's Tour was (among other things)
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