Tour de Romandie 2021 *spoliers*

blazing_saddles

phreak said:

kingstongraham said:

He rode away from at least three other gt podium finishers yesterday. Not a stellar field, and not really a tour de France day, but he's coming into form.

Who are we talking about here? Porte who is on his own team, Kelderman who podiumed in what was an entertaining but generally quite weak Giro field, and?

I'm not suggesting for one minute that he won't be in the final selection and barring accidents will surely be top 10, and quite possibly top 5, but has he shown anything this year to suggest he's on the level of Pogacar and Roglic?

It was a similar field in Catalunya when Ineos got 1-2-3, and yet in Tirreno Thomas was 17 minutes behind Pogacar.

blazing_saddles said:

For a rider aiming to peak for the Tour, winning Romandie has generally been accepted as a sign of good level of form, two months ahead of the Grande Depart.

As for quality of field, I didn't hear anybody highlighting this "fact", when Chris Froome's main rival was usually Simon Spilak.

The only year Froome won Romandie and went on to do well in the Tour was in 2013, where he also won Oman and the Criterium International and was 2nd in Tirreno before Romandie started. In Tirreno that year he lost out to Nibali but beat Contador, which was a more reliable indicator of his form than beating Spilak in Romandie.

Thomas has been low down in some chippers, way off the pace in Tirreno, got the podium in an Ineos precession in Catalunya and is now up there against 2nd rank opposition in Romandie that has one rider from last year's Tour that isn't on Thomas' team, and the fact that Soler is the designated leader rather than Lopez shows where he currently is in terms of form.

It's the story of Thomas's career I am afraid. It seems whenever he wins or nearly wins, it always because of weak opposition.

In 2019 he was DNF at Tirreno, 40th in Pais Vasco, then he was beaten into 3rd here in Romandie by Rui Costa.
Finally, he crashed out of Switzerland, but still almost managed to retain his Tour title, finally defeated by an act of God.

m.r.m.

Never has someone been so incredibly successful professionally and yet it feels like he is such a fuckup due to his incessant crashing.

blazing_saddles

Thomas new leader at the intermediate, but I suspect he will lose time in the second half, as the course is now wet.
Of course the time trialing opposition here is very weak.

blazing_saddles

Woods way down.

blazing_saddles

Thomas wins his first race since the 2018 Tour.

blazing_saddles

blazing_saddles said:

Only Soler can TT out of the 3 between an Ineos 1-2 in the GC.

Kruijswijk an impressive almost 6 minutes down on the day

And so it proved. Ineos 1-2.

kingstongraham

Kruijswijk was the other gt podium finisher he rode away from. Ignoring Froome, obviously.

kingstongraham

Kruijswijk was the other gt podium finisher he rode away from. Ignoring Froome, obviously.

mididoctors

Back in from a ride is it worth a watch ?

ddraver

It's a TT so automatically, no...

Even so as far as I could tell from Twitter, Gee started and immediately started gaining time, Woods followed and immediately started losing time. Result was obvious almost immediately...

Best off waiting for Line ofDuty I think.

mididoctors

ddraver said:

It's a TT so automatically, no...

Even so as far as I could tell from Twitter, Gee started and immediately started gaining time, Woods followed and immediately started losing time. Result was obvious almost immediately...

Best off waiting for Line ofDuty I think.

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

pblakeney

Nicked from Insta...

ddraver

(....I don't get that 👆)

ddraver

mididoctors said:

ddraver said:

Best off waiting for Line ofDuty I think.

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

He must be H

(I've no idea, didn't watch much of this race. He can't literally win everything tho...can he?)

phreak

blazing_saddles said:

phreak said:

kingstongraham said:

He rode away from at least three other gt podium finishers yesterday. Not a stellar field, and not really a tour de France day, but he's coming into form.

Who are we talking about here? Porte who is on his own team, Kelderman who podiumed in what was an entertaining but generally quite weak Giro field, and?

I'm not suggesting for one minute that he won't be in the final selection and barring accidents will surely be top 10, and quite possibly top 5, but has he shown anything this year to suggest he's on the level of Pogacar and Roglic?

It was a similar field in Catalunya when Ineos got 1-2-3, and yet in Tirreno Thomas was 17 minutes behind Pogacar.

blazing_saddles said:

For a rider aiming to peak for the Tour, winning Romandie has generally been accepted as a sign of good level of form, two months ahead of the Grande Depart.

As for quality of field, I didn't hear anybody highlighting this "fact", when Chris Froome's main rival was usually Simon Spilak.

The only year Froome won Romandie and went on to do well in the Tour was in 2013, where he also won Oman and the Criterium International and was 2nd in Tirreno before Romandie started. In Tirreno that year he lost out to Nibali but beat Contador, which was a more reliable indicator of his form than beating Spilak in Romandie.

Thomas has been low down in some chippers, way off the pace in Tirreno, got the podium in an Ineos precession in Catalunya and is now up there against 2nd rank opposition in Romandie that has one rider from last year's Tour that isn't on Thomas' team, and the fact that Soler is the designated leader rather than Lopez shows where he currently is in terms of form.

It's the story of Thomas's career I am afraid. It seems whenever he wins or nearly wins, it always because of weak opposition.

In 2019 he was DNF at Tirreno, 40th in Pais Vasco, then he was beaten into 3rd here in Romandie by Rui Costa.
Finally, he crashed out of Switzerland, but still almost managed to retain his Tour title, finally defeated by an act of God.

Like I said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got a top 5 in the Tour, which is a success in anyone's book. I'm just not sure I've seen anything that says he can threaten the top spot.

Still, well done for the win today.

Pross

Surprised to see Cavagna, as a specialist time triallist, racing in short sleeves.

pblakeney

ddraver said:

(....I don't get that 👆)

Take your pick. Silly photo of G falling yesterday overlaid onto the rugby for giggles.
G getting it over the line.

mididoctors

Tough little race... Not that great to watch thou

m.r.m.

mididoctors said:

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

Maybe too climby for him. Too low relative speed.

mrb123

m.r.m. said:

mididoctors said:

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

Maybe too climby for him. Too low relative speed.

Last year he looked virtually unbeatable on more or less any TT course. Spank out 550 wattz for long enough and not many can stick with it.

andyp

mididoctors said:

ddraver said:

It's a TT so automatically, no...

Even so as far as I could tell from Twitter, Gee started and immediately started gaining time, Woods followed and immediately started losing time. Result was obvious almost immediately...

Best off waiting for Line ofDuty I think.

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

After the prologue, Rohan Dennis said that Ganna had been doing a lot of track work, so it's probably related to that. I think he's part of the Italian team pursuit squad, so presumably they've been doing some Olympic preparation.

m.r.m.

So why does that make him worse at a 4 km prologue?

RichN95.

m.r.m. said:

So why does that make him worse at a 4 km prologue?

There was a climb at the end of it

m.r.m.

m.r.m. said:

mididoctors said:

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

Maybe too climby for him. Too low relative speed.

RichN95. said:

There was a climb at the end of it

???

RichN95.

m.r.m. said:

m.r.m. said:

mididoctors said:

What's the thinking on ganna being low key ?

Maybe too climby for him. Too low relative speed.

RichN95. said:

There was a climb at the end of it

???

The profile of the 4km prologue




You don't get that on a velodrome

m.r.m.

I get that. I stated as much above (regarding both TT's). The others felt it must be something else (track training etc.).
I wanted to know how track training negatively affects his road TT's if it isn't down to just climbing (his weight).

ddraver

Most likely he was there for the Kms only and spent most of his time strictly in Zone 2

Lanterne_Rogue

Going back to Thomas, at a bare minimum he needed to win this thing if he's on course for a tilt at the tour, so job done. Might even have got his freak crash out of the way for the season too, with any luck...

andyp

m.r.m. said:

I get that. I stated as much above (regarding both TT's). The others felt it must be something else (track training etc.).
I wanted to know how track training negatively affects his road TT's if it isn't down to just climbing (his weight).

I don't think anyone on here knows for certain, and it's unlikely Ineos will share anything. I'm out of touch with track cycling so I am not best placed to speculate, but the way the team pursuit is ridden these days is very different from the last Olympics and the rider profile know is more weighted to kilo style riders than it was previously. This requires more strength and muscle mass so Ganna, who is a big lad, may have gained some for this season which has impacted his climbing and TT ability as part of his focus on the Olympics.

As I say, it's speculation though.

DeVlaeminck

I think with Thomas and form - we have to take into account he's not really a top favourite for the Tour.

Yes he's a former winner but he's always been a back up to the Sky /Ineos lead rider and he'll be 35 this time round. He's someone that's in there with a chance at the Tour especially if others falter but not someone that I'd expect to crush the opposition and his Romandie showing probably fits with that.