Perhaps we should look at Vingegaard's performance on this stage and in this Tour from a different perspective. He clearly is not in top form as a result of injuries suffered in his crash in April. Despite mechanical difficulties on the gravel stage, he managed to not lose time in the GC. I'd say that's impressive, despite's Evenepol's childish remarks after the stage. Let's remember that when he was in top form, he bested Pogacar in the TdF.
Wow, what a stage! That was pulsating, nerve wrecking action (and that’s only watching as a Roglic fan)! Visma Lease a Bike certainly won MVT (Most Valuable Team), doing a great job ferrying Jonas to the finish with minimal difficulties. I wonder if you’re a little too harsh on Team UAE, which I think had a different strategy to Visma’s defensive approach. UAE were at the front at the beginning of most (all?) of the gravel sectors, and almost always had a good number of teammates in the GC group with Pocagar. With Pocagar’s strength, I’m guessing the bottom line for the team was to have him at the front coming into the gravel sectors, and to have someone there or thereabouts to do a bike swap (not sure who that would be), if required.
As a team, Red Bull started well, leading the GC group onto the first gravel sector, but once again they were incredibly poorly positioned (for another example, see also second ascent of San Luca, Stage 2) going into the second(?) gravel sector, which started with a steep climb, boxed out by Visma and UAE, and to a lesser extent, INEOS. They got caught in the bottleneck, with several of their riders among those off their bikes running up the climb, and the team (and Roglic) had to burn a lot of matched to rejoin the other GC favourites. As a team, Red Bull certainly aren’t the best at positioning themselves well for important pinch points in the racing.
I’m glad none of the GC favourites lost time due to mechanicals; if any of the GC guys had had an issue requiring a bike change on the gravel sectors and didn’t have a teammate available to swap bikes (or if Jonas had needed to change a second time), it would have been game over. For Jan Tratnik (who gave his bike to Jonas), and Tiejs Benoot (who punctured at a similar time to Jonas), they were out of contention for the remainder of the stage (having swapped bikes with Jonas, Tratnik said he waited 3 minutes for the team car to arrive with a spare bike).
The problem with UAE is that I’m not totally convinced that his key teammates would hand over their bikes as seamlessly as Tratnik did for Vingegaard. Ayuso and Almeida clearly still see themselves as contenders (UAE management wasn’t happy with Ayuso sitting in the ground and never hitting the front for Pogacar).
On RedBull, I’ve wondered if they were out of position as a team or just riding where Roglic was most comfortable. It was clearly a big risk to stay that far back, but, as the end, he didn’t lose any time and didn’t burn matches attacking like Pogacar and Evenepoel. And, with the rest day today, they will have plenty of time to rest up before Wednesdays mountains.
Perhaps we should look at Vingegaard's performance on this stage and in this Tour from a different perspective. He clearly is not in top form as a result of injuries suffered in his crash in April. Despite mechanical difficulties on the gravel stage, he managed to not lose time in the GC. I'd say that's impressive, despite's Evenepol's childish remarks after the stage. Let's remember that when he was in top form, he bested Pogacar in the TdF.
Wow, what a stage! That was pulsating, nerve wrecking action (and that’s only watching as a Roglic fan)! Visma Lease a Bike certainly won MVT (Most Valuable Team), doing a great job ferrying Jonas to the finish with minimal difficulties. I wonder if you’re a little too harsh on Team UAE, which I think had a different strategy to Visma’s defensive approach. UAE were at the front at the beginning of most (all?) of the gravel sectors, and almost always had a good number of teammates in the GC group with Pocagar. With Pocagar’s strength, I’m guessing the bottom line for the team was to have him at the front coming into the gravel sectors, and to have someone there or thereabouts to do a bike swap (not sure who that would be), if required.
As a team, Red Bull started well, leading the GC group onto the first gravel sector, but once again they were incredibly poorly positioned (for another example, see also second ascent of San Luca, Stage 2) going into the second(?) gravel sector, which started with a steep climb, boxed out by Visma and UAE, and to a lesser extent, INEOS. They got caught in the bottleneck, with several of their riders among those off their bikes running up the climb, and the team (and Roglic) had to burn a lot of matched to rejoin the other GC favourites. As a team, Red Bull certainly aren’t the best at positioning themselves well for important pinch points in the racing.
I’m glad none of the GC favourites lost time due to mechanicals; if any of the GC guys had had an issue requiring a bike change on the gravel sectors and didn’t have a teammate available to swap bikes (or if Jonas had needed to change a second time), it would have been game over. For Jan Tratnik (who gave his bike to Jonas), and Tiejs Benoot (who punctured at a similar time to Jonas), they were out of contention for the remainder of the stage (having swapped bikes with Jonas, Tratnik said he waited 3 minutes for the team car to arrive with a spare bike).
The problem with UAE is that I’m not totally convinced that his key teammates would hand over their bikes as seamlessly as Tratnik did for Vingegaard. Ayuso and Almeida clearly still see themselves as contenders (UAE management wasn’t happy with Ayuso sitting in the ground and never hitting the front for Pogacar).
On RedBull, I’ve wondered if they were out of position as a team or just riding where Roglic was most comfortable. It was clearly a big risk to stay that far back, but, as the end, he didn’t lose any time and didn’t burn matches attacking like Pogacar and Evenepoel. And, with the rest day today, they will have plenty of time to rest up before Wednesdays mountains.