devashish_paul wrote:
ToBeasy wrote:
A very interesting question. I see Dumoulin as the number one threat for Froome at the Tour in the future. Maybe a TT powerhouse turned into a climber is a better point to start with than a mountain goat that needs to survive ITTs. Maybe not in a race like this years Vuelta with tons of climbing but certainly in the Tour (with not that many really hard mountain stages).
Dumoulin has shown that he can battle it out in the mountains with the besteht. Especially nowadays, where the Sky train usually sets a steady tempo pace and does not tend to react to moved immidiately. So you don't need to be able to kick like Contador does.
What is more, Dumoulin now knows how to win a Grande Tour and how to handle pressure. And next July the pressure is on Froome.
Would be exciting it he went to France in 2018.
Dumoulin and Kelderman can just sit around and shadow Froome and Sky for the entire TdF and let the 130 lbs guys self detonate and then Dumoulin can just race Froome head to head in the ITT. They could just cancel the entire TdF and just have these two show up for the ITT and the delta is likely identical!!! Quintana should just race the Giro and the Vuelta. He has no chance against these two If they stay upright.
yes, this TTT confirms that sunweb have the team strength to support dumoulin. i think he can beat froome at his own game. the question is whether froome can adapt again - he can potentially out climb dumoulin if he focuses on it but that means giving up more time in the TT.
will be interesting to see what the course profile is like, for once the anti-froome course could be maximising the TT kms!
of course any deliberate bias aso put on the course is in the favour of the french riders who are all much more climbing focussed