Joined: Jan 16 2003 Posts: 6734 Location: At the cider bus, Worthy Farm, Somerset
tt tomorrow, whilst all eyes will be on wiggo and evans, i wonder whether a decent tt from froome will mean he becomes a contender for this year's tour? pity he punctured in that stage earlier on. accepting his role is mainly to protect wiggo in the mountains, but if anything happens to wiggo then sky have another rider to aim for the top with
Joined: Mar 07 2004 Posts: 13327 Location: A Red Muffin on the outskirts of Pie Land
The only way froome will become a contender is if wiggo crashes out of the race. Sky would sacrifice a second podium spot to ensure yellow for Wiggins. Just like sagan had to for nibs at the giro. Froomes job is to be his mountain lieutenant alongside Rogers and Porte. It's just much safer and easier to concentrate on wiggo into yellow. Plus we've not even got into the hillier stages yet where Sky will get the poop attacked out of them by those looking to fain a lot of time back. Sat was a master class in tempo riding. Sky may struggle to do that for consecutive days. Look at yesterday's race where earlier on they were attacked so much they used nearly all their riders trying to nullify breaks. Leaving leakygaz to take over for nibs.
spooneryork wrote::shock: There's more chance of Labour getting re-elected than Salfords new stadium ever getting built.
Team Sky - Le Planche - Awesome. Spitting out the back seasoned GC contenders as they put in a brilliant effort up the final climb. What makes it even better for me was the fact that if you want evidence of a clean peloton these days then there you are. We're talking about a short climb where guys can not sustain long efforts at that pace for that long. I'd be surprised and partly horrified if I see that kind of tempo set on a longer climb in the serious mountains.
Pinot - Great to see a breakaway make it. I know they had passed through his home village the day before and it's always nice to see a performance to make the French happy. They do after all put on the best cycling show in the whole world so I like to see them have a performance to be proud of.
Pretenders to Wiggo - This has been whittled down to a 3 horse race (and could be down to a 2 horse race after today). Cuddles looks strong, better than he did in the Dauphine I'd say. It looks like he is testing out the Sky duo of Froome and Wiggo and that is a great strategy in my opinion. Nibali is in there but can't eally TT.
Froome/Wiggo - The time that Froome lost the other day makes it easy for Dave Brailford to keep all his eggs in the Wiggo basket. However if Froome puts in a TT like he did in the Vuelta then things could be interesting. Can't see this happening as I think Wiggo is in great form. Only way I can see this strategy changing would be for an Evans attack in the high mountains which Wiggo can't follow. Froome would have to.
I like Wiggo and I think his response to that specific question was to be expected.
The issue I have with that response is that it does nothing to put doping behind us. Is that his job? No, probably not but it would do a great job in helping to put doping behind this new peloton.
Cuddles wasted this opportunity last year at the end of the Tour when he was asked about what his victory meant for clean cycling (or words to that effect).
His response was 'I'm not the best guy to ask about that'.
He missed a great opportunity to say 'Today I proved that it is possible to pursue your dreams in cycling without doping. '
Instead it sounded like somebody else observing the secret code of the 'omerta' and left me (and plenty others) wondering just what exactly did he have to hide.
Wiggo has the opportunity to be a little bit more eloquent than he was yesterday. I for one would like to see a response which has some real teeth. One which puts a marker down for him and for young impressionable cyclists to see that it is only hard work that has got Wiggins to where he is.
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