Phil Liggett needs to learn the difference between the Alps and the Pyrenees. Here’s a hint Phil: Andorra is not in the Alps!!!
(Yes, I’m behind.)
You might need to start using the Fast Forward button (especially on the flat bits).
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True, but other than this thread, it’s easy to avoid finding out what’s happened. And like the NBC slogan a bunch of summers ago plugging their summer re-runs: if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!
Still catching up. I usually pick on Phil Liggett, but this time I’ll pick on Bob Roll.
Bobke: They’re 2 miles from the 5K mark.
Probably technically accurate, but it made me chuckle.
(I’m so old I remember the movie Titanic being advertised as having a run time of 2:74.)
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Soon they’ll be 3K from the 3 mile mark.
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Finally watched Stage 21. Kinda figured that Cav hadn’t broken the record based on the lack of activity in this thread discussing it, so somewhat anti-climactic.
Impressive tour by Wout Van Aert. A mountain stage, an Individual Time Trial, and a sprint stage. Wow!
Can’t help but wonder if Cav erred in going for the intermediate sprint.
Seems like Cav’s / Merckx’s record will only stand until Pogacar stomps on it. He’s already 20% of the way there, so… 2029 Pogacar breaks the record? Could be sooner!
Dumb question: do they count Team Time Trials towards the stage win count?
I assume they’d only count a TTT win if you actually got the winning time, but at least 4 riders will have that time each TTT, so they all get to count stage wins?
I was checking where Lance Armstrong would’ve been on the list and it was in the 20’s, but I wasn’t sure how to count his TTT [strike]wins[/strike].
Cav had the legs, he just didn’t have the position (boxed in, as the media put it). He should have come out and followed his lead out man, Morkov, earlier in the straight. My guess is that when he wasn’t in the top few racers coming in to the last bend, he panicked and abandoned Morkov’s wheel. However, this year the last straight was a few hundred meters longer than all the other years he’d won it, so it wasn’t so important to be right up the front.
Yeah, I think the team erred in not chasing down the breakaway in Stage 19. It was too much pressure to do it on the Champs.
He might not get this chance again. He’ll be a year older next year. There will be more sprinters, including more elite sprinters of the caliber of Caleb Ewan.
Oh well. Even just tying the record is impressive.
And Wout Van Aert is all kinds of impressive too!
Not strictly on topic, but quite a few of the riders are now competing in the Spanish 3-week tour, La Vuelta. Roglic, Carapaz, Kuss, Yates, Mas and Bernal (who won the Giro) are competing. You can watch full replays of each stage if you get Peacock.
The commentators are British. They’re quite good although sometimes Hannah will be telling a really long story and be totally oblivious to the action on screen - there’s no Phil Liggett to interrupt with “I think that’s (insert rider, nowadays often the wrong rider) making a big attack!”
I haven’t paid attention to this in a hot minute. What happened to Chris Froome, is he just way past it?
Crazy that Cav tied the record. I remember watching him a few years ago and thinking no way he’d make it.
Froome was in a really bad training accident in 2019 that made him miss the rest of the season, and has struggled in the limited number of races he’s done post-accident.
Froome will also be the 37 at next year’s TDF (Thomas will be 36). The oldest winner in the last 90 years was aged 34, so there’s history to contend with.
Yeah, I think Froome may have already won his last Tour de France. It seems like it’s now Pogacar’s race to win or lose.
Froome could probably contest stage wins though, a la Alejandro Valverde, and serve as something of an elder statesman as Andre Greipel did during this year’s protest.
Unfortunately Colbrelli had to retire. I only paid attention to him for a year, but it was a spectacular one.
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Too bad. He had no Tour stage wins, so I never saw him win anything, but I remember the commentators discussing his Paris-Roubaix win and predicting he would be competitive on the subsequent Tour stage with cobbles.
He certainly had the talent to win tour stages but Paris Roubaix is a great accomplishment