Pais Vasco

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Comments

  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,788
    Mad_Malx wrote:
    highlights looked good today - brutal climb but still 5 or so in contention at the end. No idea what happened to Sanchez.

    Is Valverde always this good in the early Spanish races? Looks like he's going very well this year.
    He's pretty good all year, every year!
  • Mad_Malx
    Mad_Malx Posts: 5,160
    I really disliked him for a long time. Mixture of stealing his dog's blood (or something), the wheelsucker thing, and being an untrustworthy team-mate (JRod WC & Quintana). Mostly confirmation bias, but there was a particular stage a couple of tours back that really stuck, when he refused to work with Pinot (?) then sprinted for 4th.

    Last year and now I'm seeing the attraction. Not sure if I'm ready to pick him for ptp yet though.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 22,704
    dish_dash wrote:
    Sounds like another nutso stage. Sanchez attacks near the top of the climb, crashes on the 1km descent to the line. Valverde takes the win and GC lead.

    Cannondale duo Uran and Woods in third and fourth on stage and GC...

    Not sure if it was a descent or just levelling off a bit - couldn't make out why he came off it was on a straight bit of road - maybe a snapped chain or foot out?

    Hit a stone, apparently.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • spam02
    spam02 Posts: 178
    Roglic has so far blitzed the TT. 'Bling' has also produced a good TT.
    Contenders now on the run in. Contador leading at the timecheck, despite being the only rider to do the climb on a road bike and changing to TT bike at summit.
    Valverde looked massively overgeared on the climb, but only 9sec down on Contador at the timecheck.
  • spam02
    spam02 Posts: 178
    Roglic wins the stage and Valverde takes the overall. Overhauled Bertie's advantage and then put 14 seconds into him in the last 2k!
  • epc06
    epc06 Posts: 216
    Valverde put a fair chunk of time into contador in the second half of the TT.
    Not content with dropping Bertie and Froome in catalunya on a long climb he is now testing better than I have ever seen him. Incredible.
    Bizarrely he could win the tour in this form
  • A great week for Valverde, but I was very underwhelmed by the race as a whole.

    It just seemed to be 4 days of reduced bunch sprints, then the traditional climb up to Arrate that's won by positioning on the descent