Cycling

[theadore]

Looking like not... Thomas has been pretty impressive thus far... seems odd to think he'd have been pulling Froome up the mountains if it wasn't for the loss of 50 seconds in the early stages.

Dumoulain could still just about do this, but has been looking like Thomas since the Alpe stage.

[Jim]

Thomas has always been a strong rider and a future leader, Just honestly didn’t see him beating Froome hands down and he is.

Could be the Giro exertions starting to show, like it has for Quintana in years past. Either way I’m delighted for him and I do think he has the beating of Demoulin, probably not in the time trial but certainly in the mountains.

[mrblackbat]

Thomas has always been a strong rider and a future leader, Just honestly didn’t see him beating Froome hands down and he is.

Could be the Giro exertions starting to show, like it has for Quintana in years past. Either way I’m delighted for him and I do think he has the beating of Demoulin, probably not in the time trial but certainly in the mountains.

No, he hasn't always been a leader. For years Thomas was an out an out classics man, or one to take stage wins. There was an awful lot of surprise and scepticism a few years ago when Thomas was pacing Froome and dropping big name climbers out the back. I think Pete Kennaugh was probably pencilled in for the next team lead from Britain.

[mrblackbat]

Froome dropped again, Thomas on his own with Dumoulin, Roglic and Krisjwyck (or however you spell it)

[mrblackbat]

Thomas finishes third in the time trial to maintain his lead. Personally, I don't like ITTs as the penultimate stage, too many riders have nothing to ride for at that point so just coast.

Never imagined Thomas would win the tour a few years back.

[theadore]

No... But fair play to him... Must have taken a lot to change his riding style and body shape. This hasn't been like Wiggins in 2012 with a TT heavy course to suit, he has been the best climber in the field and possibly had a little left in the TT as well.

Agree about final stage TT... In the right circumstances I guess it can make great drama... But like an inevitable sprint stage there is still no point tuning in to anything but the last hour.

[Rover the Top]

Is Geraint Thomas a legitimate contender or will Froome become Sky's lead man later in the race?

Different answer to that question this year... Without being a cycling fan, Thomas' name has kept coming up for the last ten years, winning golds at the Olympics and the road race at the Commonwealth Games. Yet even last year when he had an early lead, he wasn't talked about as someone who could win the Tour de France. Unlike Wiggins and Froome, he seems a personality you can get behind. It makes a great story that he's the unlikely winner beating his big name team mate and it's made the Tour worth following for the first time for me.

I wonder how long it will be before anyone starts digging through his medical records?

[mrblackbat]

Yates makes up for his implosion in the giro and wins the vuelta (well, will do tomorrow).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/45535153

[mrblackbat]

Teehee, Geraint Thomas wins SPOTY..... something Froome never managed....

[theadore]

Funny couple of weeks for Ineios (sky)... Lost the two favourites for the tour in a week, and then Froome might have managed to bag himself a grand tour with a broken femur...

[Jim]

Take a bow Egan Bernal. This kid has been rising fast, who knows how high his ceiling could be! To be so young and so talented.

He wasn’t even supposed to ride the Tour, he was supposed to be the leader for the Giro but injury/illness prevented that.

Just see how much it means to him. Chapeau young man!

[mrblackbat]

Very weird way for him to effectively win it though assuming nothing goes wrong on the shortened course today. And the tactics from Ineos definitely showed it wasn't a joint leadership as they stated.

But yesterday the big climbers would be reserving their push for the final climb, which obviously never happened. I think it would have been fairer to simply scrub the whole stage; Alaphillipe was catching on the descent, and whilst I think he would have lost time overall I don't think it would have been as much as at the top of the Iseran.

[Jim]

Yeah agreed, I do feel for Alaphillipe losing it that way but he likely would have lost more time on the final climb given how wide open the race was.

He was catching on the descent but 2 minutes is a lot of time to make up and then head up another 1st category 7% climb after it. I think he would have lost it anyway. But I also think the race organisers were in a “rock and a hard place”.

If they cancelled the stage entirely there was gonna be accusations of favouritism or worse. If they don’t do what they did, then there’s a major health and safety hazard and riders could be injured or worse or exerted themselves for no reason which again could show signs of favouritism. They’ve already been accused of this over the Luke Rowe/Tony Martin spat which should never have seen them disqualified from the race.

I hope Bernal does it tomorrow, genuinely I do. Thomas is also riding for the lad now but it’s worried me how little support Ineos had in the peloton yesterday. I have a feeling Movistar will be strong again today with Quintana.

[mrblackbat]

Intentionally running someone off the road into spectators should result in being kicked off, in my opinion.

And I'm not sold at all that Alaphillipe couldn't make the time up, the leaders actually regularly bring back someone who goes early on a prior climb in stage races. Bernal could well have paid for the effort on the Iseran later, for instance; we simply don't know. However, nobody in the race ran it in a way to finish on top of the Iseran, and so to arbitrarily pick that as a point to take times from is a bit ridiculous.

[Rover the Top]

What precedent is there for when a race is stopped early?

F1 I think takes the positions from a lap back if the race is stopped early, cricket will calculate a new score if matches have to be abandoned. They can produce controversial outcomes but they do give reward for the efforts of the day. If in the Tour de France they'd normally cancel the whole day, then there's reason to complain, but it would be no fairer - Bernal wouldn't have chosen that moment to make his attack if it would count for nothing. The thing that surprised me was that the riders didn't seem to know what the conditions were ahead. I thought they were all wired up so that the teams could pass on messages, or is that no longer the case?