Relentless pace from Kennaugh and Porte on lower slopes of Ax-3-Domaines just blew apart the field; I think only Mollema, Ten Dam and Valverde were there when Froome attacked (Quintana was up the road). Porte still went away from the others himself even after the work he'd done at the front. Ten Dam and Mollema were shock 4th and 5th with Valverde third. Quintana looked great on the Pailheres but ended up 8th in group with Contador, Kreuziger and Anton I think. Total carnage!Ed Moss wrote:Be interested to see what happened to everyone else, dropping all the main contenders like that was remarkable.
Froome seemed to start to try to move across with Cavendish, looked over his shoulder and saw that none of his teammates could follow. If he had it in his legs to make it across alone, that now looks like a pretty big tactical error.Les Ladbury wrote:Can't see Froome winning. My money is on Contador. why didn't Froome get up to the break yesterday. Cav saw what was happening and did something about it. Having said that it's easy to say from where I am, in a bar.
He certainly looks less than altogether secure, but he's got 2.5 minutes and will probably take a further 1 or 2 minutes in the second TT. I don't think he's going to blow big time and lose 5 minutes on a mountain stage, so the others have got to keep chipping away and pinching a minute here and 30 seconds there, as on Friday. Four minutes is quite a lot to nick back on on that basis, so, although I'm far from sure he'll win, he still looks a more likely winner than any of the others.Les Ladbury wrote:Can't see Froome winning. My money is on Contador. why didn't Froome get up to the break yesterday. Cav saw what was happening and did something about it. Having said that it's easy to say from where I am, in a bar.
My thoughts exactly.laurence_cooley wrote:Froome seemed to start to try to move across with Cavendish, looked over his shoulder and saw that none of his teammates could follow. If he had it in his legs to make it across alone, that now looks like a pretty big tactical errer.
2 great moments, which I can barely remember - right at the start of my (then passing) interest in Le Tour. It's sad that when I look back over the last 20 years or so, I can't help thinking that most of the memories I have of those Tours were probably heavily influenced by doping.
Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?Les Ladbury wrote:Can't see Froome winning. My money is on Contador.
So long as he survives one more day, that is...I genuinely thought that Alberto Contador would win based on his past performances in Grands Tours. I would have liked to see him win because I don’t even now understand why he was disqualified from the Tour and Giro. I can only think that the whole thing was another monumental cock-up by the UCI And the WADA. Having seen the unbelievable decisions taken at the daft Olympics, an event which I have absolutely no time at all for, I consider Contador to be a great rider.rdleaper wrote:2 great moments, which I can barely remember - right at the start of my (then passing) interest in Le Tour. It's sad that when I look back over the last 20 years or so, I can't help thinking that most of the memories I have of those Tours were probably heavily influenced by doping.
Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?Les Ladbury wrote:Can't see Froome winning. My money is on Contador.
He doesn't look quite so great as he used to, now he possibly considers red cell replenishment to be a little too risky.Les Ladbury wrote:I genuinely thought that Alberto Contador would win based on his past performances in Grands Tours. I would have liked to see him win because I don’t even now understand why he was disqualified from the Tour and Giro......... I consider Contador to be a great rider.....
True. And credit to Froome for attacking when he could, pretty much throughout the race. No chance he was going to stick to making his gains in the TTsGeorge wrote:Contador and Valverde have murky pasts and one might argue that neither should still be racing. However, I have the impression that both are reformed characters. And you can't fault either of them for their approach to racing. Without them the Tour would have been a lot less of a spectacle.
Agree with Steve in that he's not as good as he was cetainly 3-6 years ago. (A bad decision to have him in my fantasy team, but thought I should as so many others had Froome and I could get 1 over on them!) Guess it's natural these days that this raises suspicions of past doping (not just clenbuterol a la 2010) but any such loss of form over time can happen to clean athletes too. Definitely a grey area here which I don't want to go to far into!Les Ladbury wrote:I genuinely thought that Alberto Contador would win based on his past performances in Grands Tours. I would have liked to see him win because I don’t even now understand why he was disqualified from the Tour and Giro......... I consider Contador to be a great rider.....
