It was nice to see that Peter Sagan won the sprint yesterday and today it's another 200+ KM long stage with most probably another mass sprint to decide the winner. :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
It was a dramatic sprint and I just heard that Peter Sagan has been sent out of the Tour because of closing the door on Cavendish with his elbow.
Cavendish could have a shoulder fracture.
Comment has been collapsed.
Heyyyy :)
Yeah yeah! I'm late! :)
Weird day this. Imagine though, if that 1st crash had not happened, how many more riders would have fallen over Cav and his bike.
Now to pick my riders for today... I have the GC guys (just not Contador...), and Cumming and Rolland...maybe Majka...uhhhh
Comment has been collapsed.
It's another nice stage to watch, 45 Km from the finish, 3 riders have a 2 minutes advantage on the peleton but looks like another mass sprint coming up. :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
Posted this on the page for the stage but gonna post it here too:
What a stage!!
Those crashes aren't good for my health. :/
Geraint Thomas and Richie Porte having their typical luck; it's so damn sad. Daniel Martin is so lucky he didn't suffer much when Porte launched him.
I was hoping Barguil would win in the end but Urán pipped him to the post by a few millimetres...
And Gesink was out after just 5 km. :(
I predicted Contador's loss of time correctly, so I guess there's that.
Comment has been collapsed.
And he did it again! ^^
Congrats to Kittel and the Tour is not over yet. ;-)
Comment has been collapsed.
Number 5 for Kittel and to date 40 victories this year for team Quickstep! ^^
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-13
Quite an unexpected end to the stage.
Great win by Bardet. For the longest time it looked like everyone was just helping Froome win his next Tour but he lost 22 seconds in the last 300 metres or so.
All of a sudden the GC battle looks a little more interesting. There need to be more attacks though or Froome will easily regain the jersey on the penultimate day in the ITT.
Great attempt by George Bennet at the last kilometre, I was really hoping he could do it.
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-14
The French have a winner on Bastille Day, very well done by Warren!
These short stages sure bring some action, I predict we'll see more of them the coming years.
The GC didn't change that much though a few people gained and it's a bit more compact now. Hopefully we'll see a lot more fireworks in the mountains next week.
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-15
Matthews was the odds on favorite for today and he delivered; Van Avermaet back to his customary second place. I can't help but wonder how things would have gone had Sagan still been here.
Aru lost more than expected on that final climb and now Froome is back in yellow already; now that Team Sky can control the stage again it will make tomorrow's mountain stage less interesting, unfortunately.
Comment has been collapsed.
I found today's stage to be the one that was most enjoyable to watch, to date and with the greatest combat spirit. :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
For some reason when i saw this video i remembered of Corran event...x)
Next year winner?
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-16
Bauke Mollema wins! Damn, that was totally unexpected!!
I figured lots of other riders in that breakaway had much more chance to get this one than Bauke, where the hell did that come from?? He's a climber so no idea what he was thinking. Good thing the guys behind him didn't co-operate well.
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-18
Quite an interesting stage, more than expected due to the strong winds today.
Matthews won his second stage though Edvald Boasson Hagen and John Degenkolb came close; Van Avermaet's final jump made things tricky for them.
A real shame for Dan Martin, he should not have been caught out, having lost time today will not help his chances for a podium finish.
Amazing jump by Landa to get back to the first group. Also impressive work of Bouhani's team, getting him back like that.
A real mountain stage tomorrow! (Even if we finish downhill.)
Comment has been collapsed.
Time is getting short for those that want to attack for the overall position so we'll have an interesting stage tomorrow, no more hiding now. :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-19
Amazing win by Primož Roglič! I was hoping to see something special from him this Tour but after his fall in the opening ITT I must admit I figured his Tour was sort of over already. Now he's the big favorite for Saturday's ITT. It would be quite special if he manages it; two wins in your first Tour, not many people have done that.
No one was surprised at Contador attacking today and I wasn't surprised he didn't manage to win.
The GC riders all basically did as expected; Quintana proving you can't contest the GC in the Giro and Tour in one year and the others hardly attempting to attack Froome. The best GC rider by far right now is... Mikel Landa. I can't imagine what he must be thinking right now.
Here's hoping that tomorrow (the last mountain stage; finish on the Izoard!) will give us the fireworks we've been waiting for.
Edit: totally forgot to mention Marcel Kittel's exit from the Tour. The green jersey looks to be for Michael Matthews now, making Sunweb's Tour even better. With Kittel and Arnaud Démare already out the last two sprint stages now look a real possibility for Dylan Groenewegen. It all depends on how he'll survive tomorrow's stage but he could make this years Tour quite a succes for LottoNL - Jumbo.
Comment has been collapsed.
We did have fireworks today and plenty of them! ^^
Also a very nice second win for Barguil.
Comment has been collapsed.
2017-07-20
Impossible win by Warren Barguil!
It's incredible how he has been able to win two (and so nearly) three mountain stages only months after breaking his pelvis... Masterstroke by Sunweb to not make him ride for the GC though (well, Visbeen just said they were riding for a top 10 classification); I don't think he would have won a stage otherwise. Two roomies winning four stages and two jerseys (green and polka dot) between them, very impressive!
Really shame for Atapuma though, he certainly deserved something today.
So what happened when Mikel Landa broke away from Froome and the favorites? Was that tactics, was it mutiny? Hard to say right now but I'm sure Sky will say it was all planned.
Froome is gonna win his next Tour, in case anyone was still doubting that. Aru unfortunately couldn't follow but Bardet is quite strong, looks a pretty certain future Tour winner now.
Mass sprint tomorrow?
Comment has been collapsed.
55 Comments - Last post 19 minutes ago by Lugum
31 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by slurredprey
450 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by klingki
7 Comments - Last post 10 hours ago by xXSAFOXx
16,297 Comments - Last post 11 hours ago by SebastianCrenshaw
206 Comments - Last post 15 hours ago by Joey2741
31 Comments - Last post 16 hours ago by Pika8
4 Comments - Last post 3 seconds ago by adam1224
129 Comments - Last post 3 minutes ago by Calibr3
172 Comments - Last post 31 minutes ago by Fitz10024
54 Comments - Last post 31 minutes ago by MarvashMagalli
7,980 Comments - Last post 32 minutes ago by greddo
70 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Tucs
44 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Tucs
tl;dr Yes, there are giveaways further down the page.
Tour de France 2017
No surprise I'm doing a prediction event for this one. :)
Due to me running out of time once again there aren't many Wikipedia links (might add these later) and the Tour Touristique was copied right off the official Tour site in a few cases.
How it works
Predict who is going to win each stage of the Tour. Anyone with at least one correct predicition will be eligible to enter the (50+ games) winners' event that I will organise at the end of the cycling season.
Preview
Even though there are no prizes for predicting the winners of the jerseys I can't resist doing a little preview on these.
Sites
Official Site
Wikipedia
A better list of riders than the official site, with thanks to bartwu
General Classification (abbreviated as GC)
This is the one it's all about, who will bring the maillot jaune (jellow jersey) to Paris this year?
King of the Mountain (often abbreviated as KoM)
The maillot a pois (polka dot jersey) goes to the best climber; who will it be this year? The good news is that the ASO has changed the rules and is now awarding more points for the 'real' climbs so we'll get an actual climber as a winner unlike some other years. Obviously the GC riders will all feature in this classification but there are some others...
Sprinters
This year a huge amount of sprinters will be appearing in the Tour and there is no one clear favorite making the sprints quite interesting (hopefully).
Feel free to leave your predictions for jersey winners and other speculations in the comments below.
Man of the Tour
We can say it before the start already; Peter Sagan will be the man this year yet again. After yet another green jersey and three stage wins last year what will he bring us this year? Here's hoping he will be telling "Froomey" to lighten up and how they are artists here to entertain the masses. He recently announced he's going to be a father, will that change anything? I am really looking forward to his wins and his post race interviews. Technically there are 11 stages this year that he is capable of winning but that would just be silly...
Update: Well, he certainly is the Man of the Tour today (04/07) but not in the way I had hoped. Exit Peter. :(
Tour Trivia
Sylvain Chavanel will start his 17th Tour this year, equalling the record held by Stuart O'Grady and Jens Voigt. He finished the Tour 14 times but the record of most Tour finishes stands at 16 and is held by none other than Joop Zoetemelk. O'Grady has 15 finishes and Voigt 14.
Adam Hansen will be competing his 18th consecutive grand tour; an amazing record.
Stages
This table/chart is RaChart™ compatible and was created with Giveaways Table/Chart Creator
Comment has been collapsed.