KingMidas wrote:
In a couple of those non sprint stages, Sagan will be up there in the breakaway. He will get max int bonuses. Each one of those is 10-20 points over Gaviria. Plus, I would favor Sagan over Gaviria on the cobbles on Sunday given that he is the Paris-Roubaix winner.
Again...I agree with you based on past experiences. But look at the remaining stages and tell me which stages he's going to get max bonuses where Gaviria will get 0. I count stage 12...and maybe stage 15, but my guess is that everyone and their mom will want to be in the break for stage 15. I highly doubt stage 17 as that's likely to be full gas up the first cat 1 given the stage is only 65 km total. All the other stages have been set up where the intermediate sprint is well before the major categorized climbs. It was like this last year, but we didn't notice as much since Sagan was kicked out early...and we just assumed we would have smashed everyone for Green. He likely still would have since Kittel scooped up all the early points and then got time cut, but Sagan wouldn't have scooped up as many intermediate points as he has in the past if he finished the whole tour. As already mentioned above, the ASO is subtly changing the system (where they put the intermediate sprints and how many non mountain stages have a Sagan like finish) to make it harder for Sagan to win.
Before the tour started, I thought exactly as you did...then I looked at the stage profiles and I don't see this as a slam dunk unless Gaviria cracks. Which is very possible just like Kittel did.
ETA: The one thing I will give Sagan is that on the flat stages, like you said...he is consistently top 5...meaning if there are 5 flat stages left, he may not win any, but he's cashing significant points in each one. Other top sprinters may win more often on flat field sprints, but every once in a while they are a complete no show and get 0 points. I'm not sure if Gaviria can match that consistency in the 5 remaining flat stages, but so far he has when going heads up with Sagan. QSF also has the best team to support Gaviria...to prevent the no show possibility that some sprinters face when their team can't put them in the right position in the final 3 km.