Yeah, that wasn't even close to proper timing. Have no idea what he was thinking there. He had a better final gear than anyone in the sprint (from an eye test).

In a few days the vuelta starts. Will froome become the first rider to win tour and vuelta in the same year since the vuelta is after the tour? Or who else has the best chances? Nibali, one of the 3 orica riders or one last dance of mister AC. Samy Sánchez definitely not, i guess thats the end of his career, that means only valverde will ride the next season as the last member of the golden spanish generation.

El Pistolero

Didn't follow most of the Vuleta, but nice last two stages. Contador will be missed.

And Froome competing for (and winning) the points jersey was pretty epic also.

For those who didn't watch, the Vuelta (and Giro) do the points jersey differently than Le Tour. Le Tour emphasizes sprints. So sprint finishes get more points than mountain finishers. So a sprinter usually wins the sprint jersey.

In the Vuelta, there is no emphasis (or perhaps just not as much) on sprints points. So even though Trentin had won 3 sprint stages, Froome was still leading the points jersey. Froome told Trentin, before the race, that he was going to defend the points jersey.

To win the points jersey, Trentin needed to win the intermediate sprint, while Froome finished out of the top 3. And Trentin needed to win the stage, while Froome finished 14th or worse.

So at the intermediate sprint, both the Sky and Quick Steps trains were out there trying to get/deny points. Trentin ended up winning the intermediate sprint, with his teammate, Alaphilippe, finishing second to try to deny Froome from getting a point. They succeeded.

So then you had the final sprint where you had the novel aspect of a the red jersey wearer being involved in the final bunch sprint instead of doing the normal victory formation to the finish line.

And it worked. Trentin did win the stage. But Froome finished 11th. He risked getting involved in a sprint crash in an otherwise meaningless stage, just so he could win the points jersey.

In other news, Contador got a nice tribute. Usually, the winning team comes into Madrid showcasing the leader. Occasionally, they will allow another rider get in front as a tribute to them for their last race.

Since this was Contdor's last race, they let him do that. But since he's not just a legendary rider, he's a legendary Spanish rider riding in Spain, they gave him a huge lead and just let him ride alone for quite a while, soaking up the cheers of the home crowd.

Holy **** who won that?!?

Sagan you legend

Sagan utterly amazing.

So close! Sagan such a beast.

Sagan is a god. 3 in a row for a country with no team is so absurd

Sagan is the GOAT.

He is but frankly I do'nt think strong team matters much in a one-day race like this. History certainly doesn't think so either way, before sagan there was rui costa and kwiat who also didn't have appropriate teams

if stages were flat and more predictable it certainly would matter a lot more

The coverage was unfortunate, because we lost all footage from 5 km until the last 1 km.

Here is the helicopter view of the last 4 km. Unforunately, I can't really identify any of the riders, as I'm not used to their national jerseys. Gaviria's jersey is basically white. The Italians were in the dark blue jerseys.

Here's what one redditor said happened:

"Greg Van Avermaet trying to attack with 3k to go, neutralized by Sagan and Gaviria; then another attack by belgium, and Gaviria working one more time with Trentin (?) Helping... then Magnus Cort and Gaviria bridgin to Alaphilippe... we see that the top guys worked real hard in these last kilometers, specially Gaviria and Sagan. Well deserved!"

That's the reason Gaviria (who is probably a faster sprinter than Sagan), didn't get involved in the last sprint.

Gaviria is insanely strong. I still believe he has decent non Grand Tour GOAT equity

He will crush every flat sprints, hilly sprint and cobble sprint and I wouldnt even be surprised if he wins Flanders in 4-5 years

Last years world champs was 100% flat. All be it, it did have the crazy cross wind that turned the peleton into about 20 groups of 6 riders

Yeah, Gaviria is going to be a superstar. Still way too early to be making that kind of prediction, though. I get that he's only 23. But by the time Sagan was 23, he had 2 green jerseys and had won Gent Wevelgem, and had a bunch of 2nd place finishes (Flanders, San Remo, E3, Strade Bianche). By the time Cav was 23, he had 6 grand tour stage wins.

Gaviria was close at San Remo twice and has 4 Giro stage wins, and is in the best position to take over from the aging Cav/Kittel/Griepel trio.

Gaviria also has the burden of being with Quickstep. They have more classics specialists than you can count. And all of them want to win. They have Kittel, who wants TdF wins, preventing Gaviria from competing. Sagan has been lone wolf most of his career. While he never had a team supporting him, he also never had to support other riders, like Gaviria will have to do.

EDIT: Something I did not know: Kittel started off his career as a TT specialist, winning two junior world championships in TT and getting a bronze in the U23 TT. That's why his age 23 sprint accomplishments are so bare compared to Sagan and Cav--he didn't become a sprint specialist until age 23.

Think Gaviria can obviously win MSR, but has he shown any ability to follow GVA Sagan et al over cobbles? Hard to be the non-GT GOAT if you cant win PR or Flanders

Kittel is Katusha next year, Gaviria has been freed

I think he would have won MSR easily in 2015 when he fall in the last km

If he show some results on Cobbles, he might have the strongest Cobble team riding for him on ParisRoubaix. Dude already crush 250km+ races since he's 20, he's really special

He's like Zverev in tennis, still a question mark until he actually does the things he looks like he can.

Who is the current non-GT GOAT? I would think that it would be the same answer as the GT GOAT--Merckx.

If you restrict it to the modern era, it would be Boonen, right? With Sagan still having the possibility of overtaking him.

Cancellara I'd say. In modern times. No idea about old guys although Sean Kelly my countryman was pretty good iirc.

I used to follow cycling hardcore, but am super casual nowadays. Back in the day, I had high hopes for Valverde to become who you guys call "Non GT GOAT". Wasn't meant to be, I guess.

From what I know about cycling today (which is less than you guys for sure) I have to agree it's between Boonen and Cancellara.

Modern era I'd take Cance over Boonen. Think Valverde might win out though with his dominance in Ardennes combined with strength in weeklong stage races.

Sagan is already pretty close too depending on how you value World Championships vs monumente.

Boonen vs Cancellara is extremely close.

Both have 7 monuments. Boonen: 3 Tour of Flanders and 4 Paris Roubaix. Cancellara: 3 Tour of Flanders, 3 Paris Roubaix, and 1 Milan San Remo

Boonen has a road rainbow jersey.
Cancellara has 4 TT rainbow jerseys (and 2 Olympic TT medals).

Boonen has 5 E3 Harelbeke
Cancellara has 3 E3 Harelbeke

But after that, their major wins don't overlap.

Cancellara has 3 Strade Bianche. Boonen has 0.

Boonen has 3 KBK. Cancellara has 0.

Boonen has 3 Gent-Wevelgem. Cancellara has 0.

Overall, Boonen has 115 wins

Cancellara has 78 wins

FTR, Sagan has 101 wins

Boonen also got the full power of QS in the classics while Cancellara had like O'Grady and Breschel? And Cancellara had to tide for Basso, Sastre and the Schlecks every summer instead of just riding for his own goals.