or not

I'm very surprised Pogacar didn't attack, but maybe the Majka mishap threw a spanner in the works. Though it looked like Kuss just increased the pace which may have kept Pog from trying.

Edit: happy to see Houle win, he has been really strong this Tour and he said he wanted to win a stage in memory of his brother who was killed by a drunk driver a decade ago. Chapeau Hugo.

Stories like this from Houle is why cycling is awesome. A lot of my friends don't understand why i like watching it. They just think it's boring. But cycling is more than just the competition itself. It's about the stories and heroic actions of the riders. The suffering and the legends. Amazing

Pog needs to go for it today. He's got tomorrow too and that's a longer stage and a tougher final climb but I'm not sure he's gonna pull back 2+ mins in one stage and he might need a lead going into the tt

he's up against it for sure but it'll be a fun stage

Yesterday was by far the best Kuss has looked in this tour. Maybe Jumbo can survive losing Kruijswijk and Roglic after all.

I mean VingeGOAT will handle things himself but still.

Bang on. No other sport comes close to cycling regarding the mythologization of the sport. Races are often like epic dramas that unfold in the most beautiful ways - often in incredible scenery.
In cycling it feels like there's a lot of love and admiration for almost all riders (except the complete *******s), I think there's a lot of respect for the herculean effort that simply riding a race such as the Tour is, so the fans support everyone who is trying to climb the mountain (literally and figuratively).

Both GC candidates can be satisfied today I think.

Maybe he had a relative offday, but it looked like a concession from Pogacar, acknowledging he is not stronger than Vingegaard and then deciding to go for the stage instead of trying to break Vingegaard earlier. Regardless of what happens both of them will have ridden incredibly well this Tour.

Still a big mountain day tomorrow where anything can happen, but it is looking good for Vingegaard.

Jakobsen crossing the finishing line 18 seconds before the time limit.

What was the value of having 2 teammates cheering for him on the finish line rather than giving him company on the road I wonder...

Not like Sinéchal & Lampaert (and others) were busy doing useful stuff today

I was so impressed that McNulty got rid of the entire field other the top two so early. Would have expected at least a couple other climbers to be able to hang.

I imagine they were riding with him most of the way and then at some point the team recognized they might still not make time limit, so they told the teammates to finish ASAP to make sure they don't lose everyone. I think the same happened to Lotto with Ewan one day. It's probably for the best to play it safe, for example if Vingegaard and Pogacar had given everything further from the top of Peyragudes Jakobsen for sure would've not made time limit. Besides the draft advantage of having teammates on steep climbs is marginal, though obviously it might be a mental boost. But it's not uncommon to leave the sprinter if there's any doubt the group will make the time limit.


McNulty was scarily strong, he has looked really good this Tour, could be a potential GC rider in the future, although idk how durable he is if he has to perform every day for 3 weeks. But he's a terrific climber and to my knowledge solid time trialist. Seems like Kuss and McNulty alternate between being the 3rd best climber lol.

Ogmfmmgmgogmglgogmgllgg

VINGEGOAT

The efforts from Kuss and van Aert were unreal.

A literal miracle he avoided crashing on the descent.

I'm not much into cycling but do admire endurance sports and recently watched "The Armstrong Lie" followed up by the Andy Samberg short comedy "Tour De Pharmacy". I recommend both in that order

If they changed the classification rules of the tour so that a guy like Wout would be considered the winner I'd honestly be fine with it

Jonas deserves it - so strong this year

WVA has been truly remarkable too.

Not sure a 1,2,3 of Yellow, White, Green would ever have been seen on a mountain top finish before

Yeah I was just laughing at the notion of the green jersey pacing the yellow up the final stretch of the climb. Unbelievable.

I knew it couldn’t happen but I was still hoping that WvA could hold on those last 3.5km with VingeGOAT, take the stage win and the KOM jersey. What an unbelievable performance.

And oh yeah, VingeGOAT.

On that same note it feels pretty obvious that Wout could have won KOM if he set out to do so earlier in the Tour, the competition for it was fairly weak and he seemingly has the endurance/recovery to get into the break basically whenever he wants. I don't expect it but I hope he goes for it next year, would be incredible to see Green and Polka Dots won by the same guy.

I think the year Stephen Roche won, he won yellow green and polkadot

Quick check says that he finished 2nd in points and 6th in KOM. I think I read yesterday that Merckx in 69 is the only one to win both in the same year (he also won GC of course).

I think he pretty much indicated in an interview that he didn’t even realize how close he was. I doubt JV are gonna really let him go after that (green was enough of an ask even though his edge is so massive even when also playing helper half the time), but it would be sick for sure. Maybe if Roglic and Kruiswijk hadn’t got injured it would have given him more of a leash.

This was one of the weirder stage finishes I have seen but Laporte was strong and played it perfectly in the last km.

What a beautiful ending today, I love watching grown men cry after riding around on their bikes.

I didn't take WvA for an emotional guy so it was nice to see him shed a tear, and Vingegaard saying his teammates are his friends and like brothers warms the heart. The Jumbo team look like one big family, but of course being happy is easier when you basically crush the entire race, but it still feels genuine. WvA hinted that Vingegaard "gave" him the win, I'm not entirely sure Jonas would've won if he gave all, but it would have been close. Considering he rode relatively conservatively and didn't take massive chances, today just a further cements how insanely strong he has been this year.

The fact that Pogacar was 5 mind ahead of everyone else but Vingegaard beat him by 3.5 mins is just unbelievable. 4th place being 14 minutes behind the winner is unheard of, the level of Vingegaard is unlike anything I have ever seen. In the "normal" times before Pogacar emerged, Barguil finished 10th 7 mins behind the winner. These guys are on another level. That level of dominance usually leads to a certain kind of suspicion in the world of cycling, but I am eating the blue pill and I refuse to consider it for a second, Vingegaard is too pure. I am obviously wearing rose-colored glasses but he is just so pure and good.

One negative thing about Vingegaard is that clearly does not respect people with weak nerves, though, seeing as he is apparently addicted to giving his fans heart attacks by nearly crashing on descents!

A beautiful ending to a beautiful Tour, although tomorrow will probably top it.

I really think Pogacar under-estimated Vingegaard's ability to hold onto that lead and thought he could get it back easily. He won't under-estimate him next year and once more I think he'll come back with a stronger team.

I wonder whether Jonas took his foot off the accelerator near the end to allow his teammate to win the stage. He will probably never say but it would be great team leadership if he did

Pogacar made some mistakes on the Granon stage. He spent a lot of energy on Galibier both chasing Roglic but also dropping all of Jumbo except Vingegaard, when he could easily have been more conservative. Hard to really blame him too much though, as Roglic had WvA in front, so he could have gotten back into the GC on the descent and Granon if he had been intact, which it only turned out later that he wasn't. Also, at no point in the past 3 years before this moment had his aggressive riding style failed to crush everyone else, so it made sense - and it did crush everyone at the normal human level but VingeGOAT was just at a level that is unheard of. He paid for those mistakes on Granon, although I definitely think Vingegaard would have been stronger even if all else were equal, but obviously not by 3 minutes.

Those things aside, the last few days have shown that Vingegaard without any doubt was stronger than Pogacar this year. Even so, without his team around him on the cobble stage (namely WvA) and the coordinated effort on Telegraphe and Galibier, it's very likely Vingegaard wouldn't have won even though he was clearly stronger in the mountains and on the TT. If he had lost 2 mins on the cobble stage and only taken 1 min on Granon, Pogacar would still have won.