Tour de France 2020

Yeah I know but I still enjoy cheering him on. You support Barnsley, you must get it.

 

Alexander Kristoff sprinted to a win on stage 1 how old, is he?

 

Just turned 33.

 

33, with 4 kids. Been busy on his days off

 

He was surprisingly co-operative yesterday for someone only interested in stage wins, although he said afterwards he didn't think he had a chance against Alaphilippe whatever his tactics. Will be interesting to see how he tackles the final climb today - I'm sure he'll have an eye on finishing the day in yellow.

 

Carapaz dropped already. Weakest ineos team since they started?

 

I think we have seen this year's winner today in Roglic he looked a class above all the other big contenders.

 

Glad to see Didi the Devil is still doing his thing. Even the Devil has to wear a mask, it seems.

 

I've been a bit preoccupied so it passed me by until now that Yates inherited yellow last night after Alaphilippe was given a 20-second time penalty for taking a bottle during the final 20k.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/54003280

"I didn't realise at all that it was unauthorised," said Alaphilippe.

I like the guy and feel bad that he lost yellow because of it but I find that hard to believe.

 

Not looking good for Pinot today - going backwards on the Port de Balès with the Col de Peyresourde still to come.

 

Gutted for him. Apparently a back injury. He’s cursed

 

Ah, thanks for that. I heard that someone had back pain but didn't connect the two. I can only follow the French commentary if I concentrate so keeping up with the footie scores and reading posts on here at the same time doesn't really work.

As you say, terrible luck for Pinot again.

 

Cracking performance by Adam Yates to retain the yellow. Also slightly off topic but fantastic news to hear that Tom Pidcock has won another stage at teh baby Giro D'Italia and has taken the overall victory, the first Brit to do so. Still only 21, has a very bright future ahead of him. Suspect that he will sign for one of the World Tour teams for next season.

 

Wow!

 

That's as suspicious as it gets. Sad to immediately jump to that thought but hmm. Nice to see Porte on the podium though.

 

If that was froomy doing that,the french would be bottling the urine now ready to throw at him,super effort from pogocar ,let’s hope it clean

 

I guess Roglic can take solace in the fact that he'll probably be awarded the win in a few years' time.

 

Is it that suspicious? Isn’t it a good sign that young riders are winning races? Historically they could never win races as they wouldn’t get put on expensive doping programs until they’d races a couple of seasons & proven themselves.

Pogacar, Hirschi, Evanepool, Van Aert, Bernal etc. To me it’s great that young riders are winning huge races.

To me it’s a lot less suspicious than riders at 26, 27 etc suddenly becoming grand tour contenders when they’d never shown any promise in them before like Armstrong & Froome did.

Maybe I’m a bit biased as I’d tipped Pogacar higher up in this thread but he’d shown in last years Vuelta that he could hold his form in week 3 of a grand tour whilst Roglic had faded in the last week of the Giro & was getting dropped by Pogacar in the last stages of the Vuelta.

Also just before this years tour Pogacar had beaten him in a time trial in the Slovenian time trial championships.

I’d never put money on any Tour de France winner been clean but his progression & domination of youth races tell me he’s a huge talent. If he is doping then logic says he’s been at it since he was 17/18 which would be crazy.

And if he is doping you’d think they’d give a bit to his teammates, I’ve never seen a grand tour winner as isolated. As brilliantly as he’s rode he’s been very lucky he’s not had a crash, been held up in a crash, or had a puncture at a bad time. Almost seems ridiculous he’ll be splitting his winnings with his teammates, especially Aru.

 

it was an unbelievable performance. It was like watching 1989 again

It is suspicious though. Young riders never historically perform so strongly. Also, Tom Doumoulin, who was the world TT champion only a couple of years ago averaged 440 watts on the flat and 430 watts on the climb and was beaten by a minute. This is strange now as riders are for the majority riding "clean" and performances are much closer.

It isn't a surprise for Roglic to have a bad day in the third week but his performance wasn't bad, just bad for someone who had won the the 3 grand tour TTs he has ridden

I do agree that the young riders coming through look great for the future of racing, and add in Tom Pidcock in a year or 2 too and things look exciting

 

I think it’s definitely suspicious, it’d be naive to believe in anything 100% in cycling but realistically there were only 11 GC contenders with anything to ride for & only a handful of others who pushed it - Van Aert, Cavagna & a few of the GC riders team mates (probably to advise their team leaders) so there wasn’t many contenders.

If you said to Roglic he’d finish 25 seconds behind Van Aert & 35 seconds behind Porte on a mountain top time trial I think he’d know he had a good chance of losing the jersey.

Pogacar beating Dumoulin by 1.21 two years ago would’ve been highly suspicious, in fact I’d have labelled him a doper myself but this Dumoulin isn’t back at that level yet.