Great defending by Vingegaard but another moral boost for Pogacar. What a race we're having this year, so hard to call it. Wouldn't be surprised to see Vingegaard take a few seconds next, they're so close.
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- Thread starter Suedesi
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They're so evenly matched, it's insane.
Also, that route looks eerily similar to the Radio Tower climb on Zwift
I can't remember ever seeing something like those last 700 metres before, basically the exact same distance between them the entire time with both going all-out and neither winning an inch.
Good call
Yeah, Jonas looked to be suffering a bit more yesterday, and it was more of a Pogacar climb anyway.
Vingegaard was pretty upbeat with Danish media afterwards. Felt like he was just happy to minimize the loss on an off day. He’s still in a good position before the alps.
For one reason or another Belgian television thought it was a good idea to only start broadcasting at 2:20pm, an hour after the stage started with a mountain right after the start. Mind boggling, especially since it's been a madhouse so far.
Bardet, Gaudu, VDP, WVA, all left behind.
EDIT: Eurosport is broadcasting already, nice.
Bardet, Gaudu, VDP, WVA, all left behind.
EDIT: Eurosport is broadcasting already, nice.
French GC riders in the ropes already.
It's the same everywhere in Europe. Eurosport have exclusive rights to show the first 75 minutes or something.
I hate this years green jersey. Doesn’t stand out at all.
Seconded, it's terrible. It looks similar to certain regular team jerseys, which is baffling. In previous years you only had to glance at an overhead shot of the peloton to instantly spot the points leader, now he's just anonymous. They should switch it back next year.
Neilands worse than me on the descents. Just shocking.
He's gonna get caught. Poor guy.
Poor Lithuania, not often they can win tour stages.
Yeah, but what a success for the small cycling nation of Spain. First TDF stage win since 2018 apparently.
Delighted for Bilbao, he seemed very emotional at the end paying tribute to Gino Mader. The Tour this year is incredible.
feck sake, Uno-X need to stop sprinting for Kristoff. Guy is washed up and they are wasting decent leadouts.
Feels like we have had way too many bunch sprint stages so far. The other stages have been great, but that's at least 5 incredibly boring ones out of 11. Not a good balance.
Well, at least it was clean from Philipsen this time. A shame the sprinters are not more evenly matched, but at least there's only a couple of sprint finishes left.
Just checked the calendar, the weekend looks pretty tasty
Friday has a gnarly climb ~ 17km at 7%, but the rest of the day seems relatively easy, so I expect the GC teams to control. Huge battle for the beaks maybe.
Saturday looks quite hard - 3 proper climbs at 7% before you even get to Col de Joux Plane 11k @ 8.5%
Sunday also looks hard as fatigue sets in ~ 180km with three Cat 1 climbs (26km >7%)
After Sunday we will have a good idea where Jonas and Tadej stand.
Friday has a gnarly climb ~ 17km at 7%, but the rest of the day seems relatively easy, so I expect the GC teams to control. Huge battle for the beaks maybe.
Saturday looks quite hard - 3 proper climbs at 7% before you even get to Col de Joux Plane 11k @ 8.5%
Sunday also looks hard as fatigue sets in ~ 180km with three Cat 1 climbs (26km >7%)
After Sunday we will have a good idea where Jonas and Tadej stand.
My prediction for the yellow jersey from here, is that Tadej Pogacar is going to win it by 20-40 seconds over Vingegaard. Neither will completely break the other on any stage, but Pogacar will continue to chip away with his more explosive finishes, which will allow him to grab 10-15 seconds on the mountain stages, and to grab the bonus seconds. I also think he will beat Vingegaard on the TT.
Friday's stage should be Vingegaard's chance to increase the gap enough on Pogacar, but I don't think TJV will succeed in making it hard enough for Pogacar leading up to Colombier to eventually crack him on the climb.
Friday's stage should be Vingegaard's chance to increase the gap enough on Pogacar, but I don't think TJV will succeed in making it hard enough for Pogacar leading up to Colombier to eventually crack him on the climb.
Pogacar takes yellow today. You heard it here first.
Not today!
Yeah, I done messed up. Was close though.
And what a ride from Kwiatkovski! Impressive stuff.
This looks the likely scenario. Vingegaard's chance to win may be if he can beat Pogacar on the time trial.
fantastic - I gripped in the final few kms - waiting for poggers to go - he left it late
I don't have the most knowledge about cycling and only watch TDF casually because my family loves it, can somebody explain to me why Pogacar didn't go earlier or was his tank empty too? Or is this the strategy to make small gains?
Really surprised he didn't go bigger today, should be confident having distanced Vingegaard twice in a row. Guess he thinks the next two stages are better chances.
He's edging towards victory with low risk at the moment (late attacks = lower risk) but I think many would have expected him to go earlier today. Must be saving himself for a bigger attack tomorrow or Sunday.
is JV holding back?
Just realized if Pogi came second, he'd only get 2 seconds bonus on Jonas. Coming third earned him 4 bonus seconds. Wonder if that factored in as to when Pogi launched his attack.
To expand on this, coming second would earn him 6 bonus seconds, but Jonas would (likely) get 4. Delta is +2.
Coming third, earned him 4 bonus secconds and zero for Jonas. Delta is +4.
To expand on this, coming second would earn him 6 bonus seconds, but Jonas would (likely) get 4. Delta is +2.
Coming third, earned him 4 bonus secconds and zero for Jonas. Delta is +4.
He has definitely made it clear, that Pogacar has an advantage on this kind of stage, and he also just told Danish TV that Jumbo-Visma gave a few riders the day off today to save them for later stages. So he was never going to attack today, just minimize the losses - he knows he can't possibly beat Pogacar on this climb without it being on a much tougher stage.
Looking at the remaining race, he probably has to make his mark on stages 15 and 17 (Sunday and Tuesday) if he wants to win the GC. Especially stage 17 is quite tough and ends with a 28 km climb.
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Cheers, looking forward to a good battle. Are stages tomorrow and sunday tougher than today?
They rode quite aggressively in the earlier stages but have understandably gotten more defensive with Vingegaard slightly ahead and Pogacar eating into the lead. And today they felt the stage was more suited to Pogacar so the best-case scenario for JV would have been status quo.
shaping up great - Im tipping Poggers
Yeah, a lot tougher.
Yeah, way more mountains, should make it a much tougher and more exciting race throughout the day.
Small gains on a stage like this is good. Vingegaard had Kuss with him until the end. Ideally you want to drop your main rival when there are no teammates around to help him out.
The minute Vingegaard gained on stage 5 came at a big cost. He was basically riding an ITT for the final half an hour with no help from anyone (he had three guys on his wheel for several miles who all breezed past him at the finish line and took the remaining bonus seconds). Pogacar had Yates there to do the dirty work for him. The following day Pogacar clawed back a lot of the deficit, likely because he wasted far less energy than JV the previous day.
UAE have tactically played it far better than TJV so far imo.
I don't know about that - still think Jonas wins decisevly on the high mountains. As I wrote earlier, by Sunday we will know more and also think that by Stage 17 we will know the winner
Lots of crashes today, and a few big names abandoning the race. Meintjes and now also Bardet by the looks of it. Shame.