19 Jul | 17th stage | 166 km | Saint Gervais Mont-Blanc - Courchevel | Mountain | Live Tracker | Results
Looks like a stage where big differences can be recouped.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Hopefully we will see a all or nothing approach from uae after yesterday's stage. Don't know how Pogacar would make up the time he lost, but I would love to see him try.
PS - if someone else could post tomorrow's and Friday's thread that would be greatly appreciated as I won't have the time.
I felt so sad for pog when he radio'ed "i'm dead"....
Chapeau to him for animating the race. Would have been so boring watching TJV destroy the entire field for 3 weeks
Hoping for GC utter madness.
Well, that's it.
It was good though.
I put it below last year because that at least had some drama to the end and JV tactics actually made a difference. "our guys is just so much better than anyone else" is a pretty dull narative.
This has been such a hard tour. Pidcock lost over half an hour today and is still in 16th on GC (2 minutes behind 14th!)
I'm not that into it. I like seeing guys at their superhuman best, not weaving across the road half dead like the finish today. Felix couldn't celebrate and even Jonas had no swagger.
Henri Desgranges would disagree. "In the ideal bicycle race there would be only one finisher." I'm not sure what he thought of swagger.
Seriously though, it is fair not to like it, but to me a stage like that is what the Tour is all about. Absolute limit of endurance stuff, everyone struggling.
I mean the OG tours were literally just attrition right? Barely had any aspects of what we would recognise as a race. Ultra endurance still exists, if you're into that, but obviously doesn't get as much press and also no TV coverage because it's dull.
Each to their own. If I wanted to just see people riding ragged I would put a mirror on my handlebars.
Bring it home, Jonas! :)
Anybody got timings for the start and expected finish (I'm on GMT)?
Work laptop is acting so I need to head into the office after the start and hopefully get back before the finish.
And again Jonas proves he’s best in week three. My goodness!
I’m just hoping Powless will get King of the Mountain.
UAE seriously need to pull off something crazy to gain back the time.
Powless stands no chance. He won't even keep up with the break over the climbs. It is between Ciccone and whoever is first over Col de la Loze.
I'm going to claim that I fully anticipated that "first over Col de la Loze" would be Felix Gall and was thus bang on.
Was not expecting to wake up to that this morning. Pog has really cracked. I wonder if this is what his GTs will look like now or if his prep affected him significantly. His numbers have been huge this year, is Jonas just that one level above?
Jonas is an absolute weapon. Other social media sites are understandably asking questions regarding legitimacy, but I think he's fair dinkum. Disappointing end to the GC comp, hopefully we get a fight to the end next year.
I’m not disappointed. It wasn’t over even after yesterday, and a tour decided on the Queen stage is fine by me
Yeah fair enough. Disappointment is subjective, so we're all going to have different takeaways.
The disappointment for me was because the race was lost today. Pog cracked so hard his other rivals gained significant time on him while Vinge extended to an insurmountable lead. If Vinge attacked and Pog couldn't follow, it would have been one thing, but it's always disappointing seeing someone crack so hard they go backwards.
I don't particularly fanboy over anyone, so for me it takes a bit of the excitement away when someone dominates, as it detracts from the racing.