He didn't go in as the #1 rider so I suppose once Chaves fell apart it kind of fell into his lap. I don't think handing up the lead would have made much difference.
They got their tactics spot on for stage 20 and their 5th stage win.
I'm not having a go personally at TD.
My beef is with making the TT such a significant part of the race. If TTs have to be in the race make them short so that they don't have massive impacts on the results.
Winning a mountain top stage carries far more prestige in the sport, yet they allow...
That's my fear.
Then the shitty TT times win an absolute bore of a rider another Grand Tour. As all he'll have done is follow other riders wheels for 6 days of the mountains and contribted next to nothing in them.
He's following wheels 98% of the time.
They showed him yesterday towards the end of the stage throwing his hands up at the other riders when they chose to sit back and make him work at the front to try and pull Yates back.
It was like he expected them to pull him back up to Yates.
That's the issue. You have to bust an absolute gut over 6 days in the hardest discipline (mountains) to try and put time into certain riders just to counter 1 days worth of TT times.
That's a ridiculous system.
Yates was attacking, Doumalin was simply hanging on. Like he always does. That's boring.
All they were talking about was the time the most attacking and positive rider needs to hold out one of the dullest on the TT day.
Rather than saying Doumalin will need to attack in the mountains etc it's...
It was. But that was because their 2nd and 3rd guys were capable at the time of finishing on the podium with Froome but would just roll along and hold back. It's why Richie Porte moved on to another team.
The other teams and riders did try though. Just didn't have the fire power of Sky...
Riders who also bury themselves every day are domestiques.
I don't turn on the TV to watch the domestiques. I also don't turn on to watch boring riders. I would never turn on the TV to watch Doumalin ride up a mountain. He reminds me of that other bore Cadel Evans who only won big races when he...
Froome still blasted his opponents off the mountain with massive mountain attacks. That's what made his victories exciting.
Not the fact he could also time trial.
Mountain attacks would still occur without a TT on the program.
That's because the better time trialers would then be forced to do something positive in mountain stages because they'll never win if they don't.
The mountain stages are the most epic and the most popular. That's because that's...
Mountain attacks really light the race up and provide the theatre and drama that make a great race, not solo rides against the clock.
If they want to have TT in races make them short ones so the likes of Doumalin don't win Grand Tours by riding in a positive fashion for one day in 3 weeks of racing
Yates has set the race alight with hard riding and making the bold moves.
Nothing worse than someone who can time trial getting sucked along on others wheels never attacking other riders on the hard stages and just riding an overall negative neutralising style of race.
Yates has been a pure...