[MinardiM189]

Head of CPA has announced –

Head of CPA has announced –

Tour de Pologne Stage 4 neutralized. Riders go from start to the finish and there will do only one lap. No racing. If Lotto – Soudal start tomorrow they will pass the finish line in front of the peleton.

[MinardiM189]

Gkam84 wrote:

If as rumour has it, Stage 4 will be neutralised, that means the game will be aswell, correct?

I just wanted to check before making my changes for tomorrow.

I haven’t seen anything official anywhere but I saw someone say that tomorrows stage has been cancelled. Now seen tweets saying tomorrow is neutralised but still nothing official.

Very very sad news about Lambrecht.

[MinardiM189]

Overall I have to be pleased

Overall I have to be pleased with my TdF

4th in Standard

28th in Purist

1st Forum Scorum

Now less than 400 points behind Mountain Renegade in overall standard

within 150 of Dr Winston in the purist

and opening a decent gap in Forum Scorum overall.

Many congratulations to the top 3 in TdF standard, you all played a brilliant finish. I thought I was in with a good chance after Stage 16 but got blown out of it by better players.

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

I was the same with Trentin when he was good for four stages in a row…i saw it the night before then had to rush my transfers in the morning and messed up.

Great ride from Greipel…nice to go out with a decent finish if this turns out to be his last GT.

Trentin and Stuyven have been excellent throughout as well…

Stuyven is always consistent in the sprints, that is why I picked him for the final stage over Colbrelli and EBH.

Trentin had a great race and made a wise decision to not challenge for intermediate sprints quite early, that gave him freedom to get in breaks which Colbrelli and Matthews never got. Sagan & Bora will not allow anyone near him in the points competition to get away, and unfortunately Sagan didn’t look interested in winning from the break himself after winning stage5.

ASO should change the green jersey format. Maybe 75, 60, 40, 25 for flat stages, making Sagan work harder to collect points in intermediate stages.

I have a sad feeling that MWS coming last on the final stage may cost me a top3 position.

 

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

It was a strange week for you with so many transfers left over. It was all about guessing right with the one off picks….Nibali, Bardet and co….always risky and, as we know, in the long run doomed to fail….even Yates conspired to let us down.

I missed a trick not bringing Trentin in, Porte proved to be a bad pick and then Yates did nothing when I brought him in twice.

Maybe I should have brought Politt in for today, I suspect he will go in a late break with someone like Kung and maybe pull off a surprise.

[MinardiM189]

All my transfers didn’t

All my transfers didn’t really help in the last week.

Lets see what my last 5 can do.

EWAN
BERNAL
GROENEWEGEN
KRUIJSWIJK
VIVIANI
STUYVEN
IRVITI
BONIFAZIO

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

I quite liked the idea of that final stage….a simple race up a single mountain. Not sure i’d Want it every year but it did have a certain appeal at stage 20.

There are often stages like that in La Vuelta but they have about 150km before the final mountain, eg. Stage 19 last year.

The Giro quite often too.

The shortness of today’s stage made it quite TV friendly but it lacked a  bit of action from the main teams. Movistar could probably have won it if they put Soler on the front for a while rather than him attacking and the same with Quintana & then Landa at the end.

The chance of a stage win for Valverde with zero risk to GC positions was thrown away.

[MinardiM189]

Movistar with 4 riders in the

Movistar with 4 riders in the final group and they completely fail to work together and lose the stage by 10seconds.

[MinardiM189]

triccky100 wrote:

yep damn shame, was the only one in top 5 with Yates! Don’t think I could catch first but podium was on the cards…

40 points on final climb only points on offer. Bardet would need to be up,. a few who can catch him:

1 BARDET Romain AG2R La Mondiale 86
2 WELLENS Tim Lotto Soudal 74
3 CARUSO Damiano Bahrain Merida 67
4 YATES Simon Mitchelton-Scott 59
5 BERNAL Egan Team INEOS 58
6 QUINTANA Nairo Movistar Team 58

Would my Buchmann/Uran combination have scored more than your Yates/Bardet ?

I think my chance of winning disappeared with the ‘neutralisation’ of the stage. I probably had 3 top 10 finishers as opposed to 1 for the competition leader.

 

[MinardiM189]

GiantOuchMyShin wrote:

It sounds like the stage is going to be shortened tomorrow owing to the landslide

Stage 20 route change, landslide blocks the Cormet de Roselend. Route could still start in Albertville but take main valley road to Moûtiers, skipping Cormet and the Col du Tra https://t.co/qv72ccFKJ0

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) July 26, 2019

A partir d’Albertville , la course empruntera la N90 pour se rendre directement à Moutiers et reprendre le parcours final de l’étape au rond-point N90 – D915 soit à 36 km de l’arrivée.
Le départ sera donné à Albertville à 14h30 pour une distance totale de 59 km.

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 26, 2019

 

 

Yes, only one climb to cope with tomorrow.

What a sad way to finish the race. Although Stage 21 is pretty sad in its own way.

Pretty much no chance to make a big difference now.

 

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

Wow….never seen this before. Race finished as at the top of the last climb completed. Dear god….gonna be some really angry folk tonight.

If they keep the results the same as the provisional ones, I will be angry.

Uran and Landa passed the summit in the same group as Thomas but they have Uran 2:30 back and Landa nowhere.

[MinardiM189]

Sniffer wrote:

To have picked Bardet yesterday (a few did) was an excellent gamble.  I had budgeted an extra transfer, but ended up not using it as I could not see where to use it.  I was looking at Bardet, Quintana, Wellens and Porte, but it just seemed a gamble.  It seems clearer today.

Obviously Quintana would have been alright too!

Looks like your extra transfer will be useful picking a replacement for Pinot.

So, so unlucky for Pinot.

[MinardiM189]

Gone all in GC for today

Gone all in GC for today

Buchmann, Uran, Irviti in for Wellens, Meurisse and Simon Yates.

BUCHMANN
BERNAL
PINOT
KRUIJSWIJK
LANDA
URAN
IRVITI
PORTE

I was tempted to go for Bardet over Uran but decided to play safe.

 

[MinardiM189]

Condor Andy wrote:

My bad, I meant Quintana…or Bardet…..or Lutsenko….

That’s the last time I convince myself someone with a great chance of the KOM, would let their out of form brother go for a doomed attempt at a stage win.

I was already planning to go with Simon Yates, he looked by far the strongest in the break the other day and was the bookies favourite for today.

Not sure what some teams were up to today. Movistar put pressue on on d’Izoard effectively reducing Quintana’s lead, then when Bernal has broken free Thomas attacks bringing all the GC candidates closer to Bernal.

 

[MinardiM189]

Did as Andy advised, Simon

Did as Andy advised, Simon Yates in, plus Landa – team for today.

YATES S.
BERNAL
PINOT
KRUIJSWIJK
LANDA
MEURISSE
WELLENS
PORTE

[Author]

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