I think that pretty much seals the deal. Todej is just too strong and with a strong team he doesn’t need to do much on the remaining stages. Interesting if there will be a battle for second.
I thought it was funny that Todej flat out said in his post-race presser that he didn’t even know why he attacked, he just did:
“I don’t even know why I tried something today, but I gained a few seconds on Jonas, so I’m happy with that.”
“It was a stupid instinct, but I wanted to test the legs for the third week,”
I don’t follow biking enough to have thought one way or the other, but that is swagger with a capital S.
Jonas is his strongest competitor, and probably will be for years to come. Cycling has a huge mental component and anything you can do to get in your opponents head may pay dividends down the road, pun intended.
I am a bit said that Sam Bennet dropped out.
Girmay now leads by 33 points (gained 1 vs Philipsen)
Brian
(stage 19) I was so hoping Jorgenson would win the stage*, but he did move to 9th overall (up 5), 4th in the polka-dot (up 48 places according to the TV graphic – looks like he had 0 points before this stage), and 3rd for youth (up one position)
And we have a new KoM with Carapaz.
* I don’t blame Pogacar, and don’t expect anyone to “let the other guy win” but overall standings would not be much different had he came in second on the stage.
Girmay still leads in sprint points by 33.
Cavendish is still in – 140th place out of 141.
Brian
Carapaz has sealed the polka dots. Nice to see it won legitimately by someone not in the GC hunt, though I’m sure Carapaz would have preferred to have been fighting for GC placings. Still, a stage and polka dots isn’t a bad result from the race for him.
That’s pretty much everything decided, aside from today’s stage win, the ITT tomorrow, and a few guys in the bottom half of the top ten can still move up or down a spot or two based on the last climb today and tomorrow’s ITT. Only thing remaining is who will be awarded super-combatif. If there’s any justice it should be Abrahamsen, but the awarding of super-combatif frequently bypasses justice to award someone the ASO thinks would be popular in France.
Not the most suspenseful last week, but the first two weeks were bangers so I’d have to call it a pretty good edition of the race.
I’m glad for Carapaz, he’s such a great fighter. He wore yellow, won a stage and wins the polka dot jersey, what more could he have wished for?
Top 5? Probably crazy optimistic, but the man has won the Giro and been on the GC podium at the Tour.
Yeah, he has the potential for top five in the Tour, but don’t forget that he had a crash in the Tour de Suisse that impaired his preparations for the TdF, so maybe doing well in the GC wasn’t top priority this year.
I was checking today as to whether the team had gone the whole hog with a polka-dotted bike, but they hadn’t. And then I thought of course if you’re riding a gold bike because you’re the reigning Olympic champ that you might prefer that to race-specific awards anyways.
Sadly, he hasn’t been nominated for Paris this year.
ETA: I don’t know the profile of the Olympic street race yet and if it would have suited him, but I was nonetheless surprised by his non-nomination.
Hmm. Just looked, and it’s not. It’s monstrously long, like Milan-San Remo long, and littered with significant but short climbs. Kinda Liege-Bastogne-Liege-ish with an extra 25km tacked on, maybe? And apparently only 4 riders max per team, so no one will be able to control it. At first blush without taking current form/fatigue into account I’d say the favourites would be MvdP, Pogi, and Remco, and maybe Wout and Pidcock. Dunno if van der Poel or Pidcock are trying to double up with mountain biking this time.
Yeah, on first glance it looks like van der Poel or van Aert territory. Maybe Alaphilippe if he’s nominated.
And Tadej now about to win the final TT and his sixth stage. Cannibal… 
Alaphilippe’s on the provisional start list, and a couple years ago would have been a top favourite, but he hasn’t really shown much form this year.
Pogacar has been ridiculous. 6 stages and the GC at the Giro, and now 6 stages and the GC at the Tour. He now has the opportunity to do something completely unprecedented and go for all three grand tours in one year. If he doesn’t show up at the Vuelta now I’ll be disappointed.
He struggled a lot in the last two years or so, but I think he had a strong comeback at the Giro this year.
It would be great if Pog, Jonas and Primoz would all do the Vuelta. I expect at least Primoz participating after the disappointing Tour, for him and his whole team.
I’d be very surprised if Roglic wasn’t there. Besides the early exit from the Tour, he has a lot of history at the Vuelta. I really hope Pog goes just because of the potential for the unprecedented triple. Not sure if Jonas or Remco will go, and also not sure which other GC hopefuls might have built their seasons around showing up in Spain fresh.
I like Pogacar just fine, but I am glad the jerseys were spread out.
Congrats to Carapaz for the KoM win – probably the 1st South American jersey winner.
(also won most aggressive, but that is subjective)
Congrats to Girmay for the sprint win – first African jersey winner.
Congrats to Evenepoel (luckily Pogacar aged out of the youth category)
And congrats to Jorgenson - 8th overall, 2nd in one stage, 3rd in youth (and 4th on KoM)
Brian
Aside from Nairo Quintana who won the white jersey twice, and Egan Bernal who won the entire race, and so far as I can tell the first South American to win a jersey was Lucho Herrera who won polka dots a couple times in the 80’s. I think Carapaz is the first from Ecuador, though.
If you don’t count Chris Froome, who was born and grew up in Kenya. This is why all through this race whenever Girmay won the news stories were ‘first black African to do x,’ and not just ‘first African.’ Although I guess Froome never won green, so that’s a legit continental first for Bini.
Thanks for the corrections – I guess there are more South Americans than I remembered (and I have heard of Quintana)
Apparently there was only one TdF 2024 competitor from Asia ( Alexey Lutsenko from Kazakhstan)
Brian