Kristoff had that if he hadn’t mistimed the throw to the line. Sagan has been just ridiculous since he won the World Championship. That long TdF drought peppered with near misses and slight miscues stretched on so long even Peter was making jokes about finishing second, but since last fall he just never puts a foot wrong.
I remember a Twitter thread last fall with Jonathan @Vaughters and he said Sky didn’t have the biggest budget, but there’s was close to the biggest. Sky is surely putting their budget to best use of any of the teams.
Cav has called it a day - pulled out to concentrate on the Olympics. Think he wanted to see it though if he could, but he’s in track shape and the mountains were crushing him - commented on by the secret pro here (good read if you’ve not seen it):
Some addition to his legacy - 30 total stage wins.
Also, tangentially related to the Tour - Steve Cummings made the British Olympic road race team today, as Peter Kennaugh dropped out. V brave and selfless decision, as he was out of form following a crash, but still could have gone to Rio and prob ridden round OK.
Spoiler box for our friends across the Atlantic.
[SPOILER]I think this is all over bar the shouting now. A mechanical, a crash or a spectacular blow up by Froome is all that stands in the way of a third TdF title, I think.
Everyone is suffering but Quintana has been a particular disappointment. Surely he has to be injured or ill? He’s bleeding seconds stage by stage and never looks a threat to crack Froome. He tried going off the front today briefly, got reeled in, then bled another half a minute in the final 400m.
TT tomorrow - an opportunity for Froome to try and put a bit more time in. Porte had a good day today - will be interesting to see whether he can follow that up in the TT and the final stages. Yates and Mollema for second looks to be the contest.[/SPOILER]
Wow Tejay really dropped – last time I checked he was in the top 10 and ~5 min behind. Now he is 17th and more worrying ~23 minutes behind.
I was hoping for a top 10 finish – guess I’ll settle for a top 20 (assuming he doesn’t drop even more)
Brian
David Millar was particularly scathing towards Tejay yesterday on the British feed of the race, when the cameras showed Tejay off the back. Basically saying that when Tejay cracks he wallows in it and doesn’t fight back, so loses a lot of time whenever he goes. He was travelling very slowly the last we saw of him on the TV at least. Millar is an advocate of BMC getting rid of him and building around Porte though, so you can take that with whatever pinch of salt you might like.
Porte has always been the better climber, I don’t rate Tejay. He’s a top-ten-at-best GT cyclist who is supported by BMC because he’s American and BMC is an American team.
Porte however always seems to have a bad day. This year he was dead unlucky both in flatting and in the moto incident, but he bombed the time trial.
After Tejay cracked yesterday his shot at top 10 was out the window, and GC placings below that are worthless. He should at that point be sitting up and saving some energy to try to help Porte on stages 19 & 20. He’s not co-leader of the team; he was like Valverde, Nibali, and Kreuziger on the team as a super-domestique who would ride for GC as long as it made sense to but to give up on GC rankings if the situation called for it. And it did. Criticizing him for sitting up after dropping back yesterday is just dumb.
Anyways, while Froomey has yellow all sewn up the two remaining steps on the podium are wide open, with Mollema not looking good the last two days, Yates always appearing to be holding on by a thread, and Bardet, Porte, and Aru all looking stronger. With just 1’08" from 2nd to 6th the last two mountain stages have a chance of some real drama if one just ignores whatever Team Sky are doing.
Was anybody paying attention to the commentators on MSNBC today? Quintana was slow through the first time check, and Yates was fairly quick. Then they just stuck with that story all the way; sad day for Quintana, great day for Yates. None of them seemed to notice that Quintana was faster than Yates at the finish. And they praised Froome for pacing himself at the beginning of the stage and then gaining time to the finish.
That last observation sounds reasonable? Froome did indeed go out steady and then murdered the middle section of the course.
Whose commentating on MSNBC? If it’s Phil Liggett then you have to expect inaccuracies and a shaky grasp of the state of the race - amidst general bolloxology on chateaus and vineyards.
I think you might have mentioned this earlier in the thread but the end of Liggett and Sherwen for us in the UK has been a highlight of this year’s race. Actual informed analysis by Millar and Boulting deferring to Millar when he’s not sure, instead of bolloxing on about who knows what, has been most refreshing.
He did, and did it brilliantly. But Quintana took the same approach and no one even noticed.
At first it was just Liggett, but when they went to the studio guys (or whatever you want to call them), Roll and Vande Velde, they kept the story going. I think they listened to Liggett more than they looked at the actual times.
Checking the official website, the five riders in 2nd through 6th (Mollema, Yates, Quintana, Bardet, and Porte) finished the time trial in the reverse of that order. Porte gained time on the other 4, Bardet gained time on the 3 ahead of him, etc. There was no change in the order, but all the gaps tightened.
Yates, Alaphilippe and Pantano made things interesting this year. I didn’t expect Cavendish to do as well as he did - good for him. Sagan is always entertaining. I’m pleased Valverde and Porte are in the top 10 and bummed Cancellara didn’t finish the last TdF of his professional career.
All in all, an enjoyable tour to watch.
Loved Bardet’s downhill attack on Friday, and very happy to see him pull himself up to second. Not sure he’ll ever be truly competitive to win the GC, but he’s consistently entertaining.
Feel bad for Mollema having utterly disastrous final two days in the Alps, but it had been a surprise to see him last as long as he did so high in the standings. Perhaps he’ll be able to close things out in the future.
And honestly, a bit annoying to see Quintana gain the podium after doing exactly zero all tour. Not a single attack in the Alps, and only a couple half-hearted digs in the Pyrenees. He’s blaming his lack of performance on allergies, but I’m not sure I buy it. Most disappointing rider of the tour, I think.
He’s allergic to attacking Froome and getting dropped.
It’s all fallen apart for Etixx-QuickStep.
Only 11 months until the next TdF. 
Most entertaining Tour in years.
As a Peter Sagan fan - I had a lot of fun this year! I also enjoyed watching Tom Dumoulin, Dan Martin, Thomas de Gendt, Jarlinson Pantano, Adam Yates, Geraint Thomas, and yes, Chris Froome. What a long, strange, race he had.
Looking forward to Rio and the mountain biking. I hope the bike paths stay up, finally.
Hmm. There was lots of interesting action and incident in this year’s Tour (in addition to some of the riders mentioned above, I also thought Van Avermaet rode well, especially in the first week with the yellow on his back). I’ve said before that Sagan is a hero - and we also had three of the closest sprint finishes you’ll ever see.
The GC though was very boring. Quintana did nothing and still got on the podium, which says something about his talent level I guess, but didn’t really do anything for the race. Sky controlled everything very effectively. I kept assuming he would do something in the last week, that he’d have something in reserve and he just didn’t have it.
It will be interesting to see whether some of the newer riders can develop to give Froome and Sky more to think about. Bardet, Yates and Aru are all 26 or younger and could push each other to greater heights.