Ah, and there is one team about which I forgot both before and after the race.
The winner’s team, Trentin’s team, Tudor. 😆 I absolutely didn’t expect Trentin to still be able to do such a performance, and then I was obsessed with the two French clowns in the finish.
Baffling tactics from Lapeira and Gruel in the final km.
One thing I would like to add, because I read many people putting 90% of the blame (or more) on Lapeira because they say he was the better sprinter.
Lapeira indeed scored a number of victories, while Gruel only got 1 on the Route d’Occitanie. But:
So, of course Gruel is not a top sprinter, but, given an equal level of freshness, he has his chances and probably more than his chances against a non-sprinter (or puncher-sprinter with a strong emphasis on puncher) like Lapeira.
Well, that’s also/mainly a question of what the team and his advisors allow. One can always refuse organised interviews, and cut short impromptu reactions too.
Apparently, today and tomorrow, he will be guest on national TV, guest/interviewed on the main sport newspaper/TV, guest on sport TV/Youtube show, guest on a generic live radio broadcasts. So, those are two mainstream broadcasts, and two a bit more specialised ones.
I do not understand how his team and advisors agreed to all this. OK, his season is over, but I still think this is too much.
I mean, in France, there is only a heavy coverage for the Tour de France and for Paris-Roubaix, the rest of cycling is normally ignored by mainstream medias and even on sports medias it rarely reaches the front page. It is not Belgium! Not at all. The natural interest is not the same as in Belgium, so the natural pressure isn’t either. There is no tabloid-like press coverage about cycling like there can be about football.
So, this rush to accept many mainstream interviews at the same moment looks strange, like they all (both medias and team/advisors) wanted to create a forced hype instead of downplaying it.
I am of the mind that the more you talk, the more chances you have to say shit 😀, while remaining silent only has benefits, it makes you look much more cleaver. Works in politics too 🤣
we won’t see anything before the Loire slopes and paths,
That’s exactly what happened: the first picture I saw, was the peloton already in the downhill street of Cangey just before the first climb, and next picture was the breakaway already on top of that climb.
I really liked when we could see the different attitudes and shapes of the riders/peloton, when they were in the first flat part, and then on the slopes and paths, and also when they were approaching the change. I mean, there is no point in showing a lot of the flat part, it’s pretty boring, but, say, the last 20 kilometres of it would be nice.
Withen🇩🇰 and (is he in shape now?) Vatchek🇨🇿 for Lidl,
Not sure what happened to Vatchek in a little narrow climb, but it killed his legs for the rest of the race: he could come back but suffered from it ever after.
Godon🇫🇷 and Lapeira🇫🇷 for Décathlon,
Godon won the sprint of the small ‘peloton’ of 17 riders for 8th place. Lapeira was the Stan Laurel of the comical duo ahead.
a random St-Michel or Roubaix rider who’d manage to stay in a breakaway,
The breakaway was caught early this year, by the peloton and not by a later breakaway, so this didn’t work out for the Roubaix guy who was indeed in the breakaway of 5 riders.
Madouas🇫🇷 and Küng🇨🇭 for FDJ, even though they are not in shape, who knows, on a terrain for them, perhaps, maybe…
Madouas blew up while he was catching up with Lapeira and his own teammate Gruel. He was like 4 metres behind and yet couldn’t finish the job.
I didn’t see Küng at all. Gruel was the FDJ of the day, the Oliver Hardy of the comical duo ahead. Jacobs was in the early breakaway, yet he managed to finish in the small ‘peloton’.
Unibet has Kubich🇸🇰,
I think (I am not sure, confusing him & Vatchek) he followed a few attacks, but couldn’t follow the right ones. He still finishes in the small ‘peloton’ (but couldn’t sprint).
UAE has UAE,
2 men in the small ‘peloton’, which they tried to pull, chasing the groups of 2 and 5 ahead.
Visma has Laporte🇫🇷, Brennan🇬🇧, Campenaerts🇧🇪 and Kooij🇳🇱!
Brennan had no legs; Campenaerts wasn’t much better; Kooij had a puncture, but wasn’t great before that, and it was Campenaerts who was waiting to bring him back: suffice to say it really didn’t work. Only Laporte did very well, but he had to do it by himself, as the other strong guys from his team had turned out to be not so strong.
if the race is not too hard, Alpecin brings Philipsen🇧🇪,
He didn’t start the race.
De Lie🇧🇪 (Lotto) wasn’t often lucky with this race, but he’s won a ton of races since late August,
I think he fucked his legs by keeping on riding with a puncture. The goal was to wait for his car to come and have a quick bike exchange, instead of stopping for a longer wheel change. But he forced for too long with the puncture.
Sheehan🇺🇸 won the last dry edition for IPT,
He finished inside the small ‘peloton’.
Ineos has several guys but I don’t know their shape, Turner🇬🇧 could have been it on this terrain, but he’s changed a bit,
Do I remember correctly if I say their guys were seen at the front when the climbs and paths started? Anyway, after a while, they were nowhere to be seen any more, that is sure.
Uno-X will as usual stick to the first places like leeches to score points (and perhaps get more than just points),
They were very discreet today. Not in the early breakaway and, I reckon, never seen attacking?
and a few others teams and riders I didn’t quote.
EEkhoff (Picnic), H. Page (Intermarché), Dujardin (Total) and Breuillard (St-Michel, a Conti team!) finished inside the small ‘peloton’.
Another terrible race for Cofidis: only 2 finishers, none within UCI points (which are attributed until the 40th rider…).
Q36.5’s first rider came 77th…
Baffling tactics from Lapeira and Gruel in the final km.
A long national tradition of being dipsticks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2C3kn051AI
PS: Those were the same two teams (FDJ & AG2R), now that I think of it!
Whatever the domain is, we are definitely a country of bloody plonkers!!
52 km/h average over the first 100 kilometres! It likely means that, because of the late start (3 PM, French time) of TV broadcast (‘thanks’ to France Television), we won’t see anything before the Loire slopes and paths, and perhaps even miss a bit of the beginning of those.
Seixas (🇫🇷 Décathlon) has become the first under-20 to ever enter the top-10 of the Tour of Lombardia!
And he wasn’t quite satisfied with his result 😆
Unfortunately, Paris–Tours suffers from the occurrence on the same week-end of Il Lombardia and this weird Gravel World Championship without gravel. The first of those is for climbers, so there shouldn’t be real competition for riders, but I see that Alaphilippe (Tudor) and Grégoire (FDJ) are announced in Lombardia on Saturday, whereas Paris–Tours would suit them much better.
At least Alaphilippe, 23rd at 6 mn, worked for Storer’s podium until into the last UAE acceleration. But Grégoire, seriously… 83rd at 22 mn… already dropped with over 80 km left to go, pfff… (NB: that was with FDJ brand new bike, that only him had)
Personally, I hope to see Albert Withen Philipsen do well
He may, he may. Without even accounting for punctures and crashes, the race looks very open: there isn’t someone or a few riders above the others, but many guys who can be strong. It is like there is no clear favourite(s), but only (numerous) outsiders:
BTW, Gaudu’s return to competition was short-lived. He wasn’t put on the list for the Tour of Emilia but on the smaller Italian race next day, where he withdrew or was stopped before the end; his presence on a later small Italian race was cancelled; and he isn’t listed on any race any more. The guy has ridden 2 or 3 good days in February in Oman, then 2 or 3 good days in August in Spain, and the rest was awful; that’s a peculiar season.
PS: I probably won’t watch Lombardia, and won’t open a thread, so if you feel like opening one, be my your guest 😉
Despite the main result being as expected and decided early, we were given much more action today than on the women race.
And we probably only saw half of it, ‘thanks’ to the TV direction. Camera motorcycles did their work rather fine, covering as many first groups as there were camera motorcycles, even if after Evenepoel dropped the 3 guys sucking his wheel, one of the first two camera bikes could have shifted backwards, so that one other camera bike could stay with the group pulled by several French riders, from which Skjelmose and Skujins attacked. The use of the helicopter was so-so, but the main problem is that the TV direction never used the two fixed cameras of the finish line, to display a full situation at this fixed point.
Vingegaard was a victim of the first true acceleration by Belgium in the main climb; not in shape at all. So much for the expected match between him and Pogatchar.
On the French side.
The original idea must have been to stay cool as late as possible, hoping to stay with the two mutants in the bunch or to catch them up with domestiques, in order to bring Grégoire to the foot of the last climbs.
But after Grégoire fell in the first downhill, and his faculties were assessed, I believe the plan was changed. Hence, Sivakov attacking in the main climb, causing the first breaks and revealing the top lads. Belgium/Evenepoel’s overconfidence did the rest: the race would not be decided late.
Seixas became France new leader by catching up with them first. And again by being the third man when Pogatchar attacked for real. And of course finally by getting the bronze medal, by dropping Ayuso and the Italian sticking plaster Scaroni in the final Val d’Enfer and the tiny climb in the descent just after.
The orders he got, not to relay at some point, caused the loss of his group. But it’s not like the result would have been different : they couldn’t any more catch up with Pogatchar, as to stay together they couldn’t climb too fast, and Evenepoel was going to drop them anyway at some point (anywhere) as once the main climb wasn’t to be climbed again, he was stronger than the 3 others on all terrains.
The French teammates pulling (for Grégoire ?) in the group behind could have turned dangerous for Seixas, as they didn’t let the gap grow, only to get dropped by Skjelmose and Skujins later! It is lucky that even with a mediocre agreement within Seixas group, there was always someone pulling a bit.
Congratulations to Mats Wenzel (Luxembourg / Kern Pharma) who is the last finisher, 17th, alone several minutes behind the 16th, while all other riders behind were stopped by commissars.
The trick is to use a lemmy.world user, so when I remember (and I’ve been traveling) I log into lemmy.world in a browser and do it. I can’t change them on this account either, something with federation I am afraid.
Yeah, the developers supposedly fixed it in 2024, but all 3 instances involved run 2025 versions, and it still doesn’t work.
Nope. Most likely the coronavirus epidemic which has been developing in France for a few weeks, and probably affects several riders too (even though they always pretend otherwise).
You have fixed the pinned threads now, haven’t you? (As they do not heed my repeated commands, they’ve looked alternatively pinned or unpinned for a week or so 😀)
Men’s race
It may simply mean that Pedersen wasn’t replaced.
Anyway, that’s a small peloton of only 100 riders.
Women’s race
It wasn’t a brilliant race. A single true attack in the whole race, the one by Vollering in the second part of the main climb. Nothing else at any place in the course or any level of the race. I hope the Men’s race can be better, even if Pogatchar pogatchars the race. There usually are attacks in the same places on the Boucles de l’Ardèche.
Did the Italian rider have (correct) information? She should quickly have waited for the chase group instead of killing herself alone so much that she could even follow that group for 10 seconds when it caught her up.
Another fiasco for France, considering the shape Labous had shown. Present at the front of the peloton in the first part of race when it didn’t matter, they worried me as soon as the first little climb (can’t remember whether it was the tiny climb in the housing development or in the first Val d’Enfer): near the top, only one of them could be seen in the first 2 or 3 rows, the rest had gone backwards, despite the fact that there was no attack at all, and no true acceleration. Then when Vollering attacked, not a single Frenchwoman was present in the group of 4 which left with Vollering, nor were they among the first chasers (I think they were a Spaniard and a German).
The TV direction in the last 2 kilometres was abysmal (despite being more or less OK until then), only showing Vollering, before the line, after the line, in every which way, instead of showing us the following 2 groups (which had camera motorbikes on them!). So we couldn’t understand Van der Breggen’s attitude in the last 300 m, not why she appeared there in first position, before the Polish rider. And in the following group, were there attacks, by Garcia for example; was Labous dropped again at some points or did she stick easily to the group when it was flat? Who knows?
Denmark coming with Vingegaard, Skjelmose and not 1 but 3 Pedersens will be something to see!
Down to 2 Pedersens, the major one is ill. (And so am I).
Good performance by the Luxembourg🇱🇺 male team Kirsch (Lidl-Trek) + Kluckers (Tudor) - Wenzel (Kern). They were only 22 seconds behind France🇫🇷.
Switzerland🇨🇭 being Switzerland. When it is not Reusser being Reusser, it is Küng being Küng…
Italy🇮🇹 had a strong male team. The 3 men almost made it to the finish together, and they beat everyone else.
French🇫🇷 female team won the race for France. Even faster than Reusser’s Switzerland🇨🇭, despite slowing down in the end (the 3rd rider Borras being more of the fat ass track rider type, Labous had to finish the final climb with Kerbaol, who stopped before the final climb in Kigali therefore suffered a lot in the final mile today).
Luckily for France🇫🇷, the Italian🇮🇹 female team slew even more in the final, probably because their 3rd rider Cecchini was dropped rather early, if I am not mistaken.
On the other hand, the season being over and this interview frenzy lasting 2 days, there is then 3 months for sport medias (and 6 for mainstream generic medias) to completely forget about cycling and him. 😀