What I am more worried about is if a rider like Yates ends up with long term effects (I am not talking about 2 months, but 5-10 years) that impact his career. Based on some interviews of Mitchelin team members they were saying that it was no where close to a rider bubble at hotels in Sicily with fans staying in the same place and eating at the same buffet. I would guess that the place that Yates got it is not from the side of the road or another untested rider. For all we know he had got it on his way to the Giro and was already incubating at the ITT (he still did OK) and it erupted by stage 3 (Etna).

In any case lets see how this chakes out. Other sports have had athlete positives and continued on with business. Cycling has done remarkably better than many other pro sports. My guess is that Yates did stuff in between Tirenno and Giro that got him in trouble. Once at the stage race, the riders really don't have much opportunity to interact with outside the bubble because they are either racing or recovering or eating or sleeping.

On a plus note daily deaths from Covid19 worldwide has roughly been fixed at 5000 per day since April. If you look at the world as a whole there has been no second wave, just a constant burn....it just instantiates itself unevenly regionally but that's the problem running a cycling race moving through a region where it is picing up again.

In terms of Spain and the Vuelta, overall its coming back down (at least in the right direction for cases, deaths which lag have not come down yet): https://www.worldometers.info/...virus/country/spain/

Adam Blythe is also doing commentary

Also, that's a great demonstration of a rotating echelon

Who knows how this finishes out, but one thing is for certain there is some insane firepower in this group. I would not want to be going against an angry MvdP or WvA (in any condition).

Proper leading group. All the heads of state present.

Its been awhile since we've seen a group of this class.

I'd watch for Pedersen; hasn't attacked yet

Great call. He has shown he can't kick after long and hard days.

thanks. Pedersen won't be allowed to get away with this sort of poker for too long now. Too bad he didn't get to show off his jersey.


Poor Trentin; lad can't catch a break


Also, MvdP and WvA marking out each others; they must be ruing how they screwed each other off the podium. No matter, they'll have more selective features to help them next weekend

That was great stuff!

Mads nailed that one, played it perfectly. Deja vous all over again for Trentin.

Meanwhile, over in Italy...

boom


i saw the last 50K. that might have been the best tactical race i've seen in quite some time. DQS was on the back foot; they closed the gap and put a handful of riders up front. WVA and MvdP were where they needed to be at every moment. and in the end, the "lesser" riders effectively negated the strength of the stars.

nice win for Mads. i don't know what to think of him. his WC was that horrible weather event so i didn't rank him with other winners.

Carl Spackler wrote:

Meanwhile, over in Italy...

Would have loved to hear this conversation "I told him he better watch out the next time he stopped to pee" LOL

hahaha that would have been so funny to catch that conversation on the tele.

thanks for the kinds words.

This was indeed the most tactical race I've seen in quite a while. Perhaps since Roubaix 2016? Interestingly enough, Gent Wevelgem 2015 was also a vintage edition.

As for Pedersen, he attacked way early and got into the front of the race long before WvA and MvdP attacked. He seems to be a late bloomer of sorts (though someone upthread pointed out he got silver in the junior's race at Firenze back in 2013).

This is just such a thoroughly watchable race, non-stopping action in the final two hours or so. I'll be d/l it and sharing it in a bit.

Trentin just went a little too deep early on. Had to create on his own. There were a surprising amount of teammates to go around with 25km left.

Guess Wout figures not losing to MvdP still a win.

As trump learned from the Danish PM, I think it's a Danish thing. There is no filter when they speak.

I love it. Clear and to the point. Hearing a brief statement here is often a slow dissertation of oddities and confusion. Alas that is the way of my people. :)

Joyce and Ulysses comes to mind :)



this is hard to call. I've heard that one should never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line, but these Astana folks have some serious shade-throwing creds ;)








PS. they gave a plug to Argon 18 in the video

Fuglsang won the battle today and took time on Nibali.

Didn’t even realize Paris-Tours was also going on—a good day to be named Pedersen. Cosnefroy up there again, he has a win coming.

And DH MTB. I tried a quad-screen for a bit. It was too much.

I thought for sure it would be Alien vs. Predator in G_W, but they were left looking at each other. MvDP should get a couple of PRs but seems like these others sap him. Big dude.

That last 10 k was beautiful.

btw, i thought EB was quite knowledgeable to have brought this up a few months back. Second place strikes again!




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I definitely didn't see it ending up this way (them marking each other out). Though MvdP seemed a lot more negative than WvA was. When WvA was away with ~5 km left, MvdP moved to shut it down, as opposed to working with WvA. Is there really that much animosity between the two?

I thought the same, MvdP seemed to spend more time chasing on sitting on WvA’s wheel. If Mads intentionally waited until a move went without either of them and then bridged, he’s an especially cagey rider.

He's a baby-faced assassin. Doubt he'll get as much leeway in the future though. One discount him based on his lack of a chiseled jaw-line at one's peril.



So from what we know, he packs a sprint, does well in hardman weather, and can diesel as well. That's a valuable skillset for any classics specialist. Only knock against him is that he doesn't have the w/kg to punch over the slightly long/slightly steeper stuff, but one would think that De Ronde is within his grasp (not to mention he's already finished second there, from a long break, no less)

Also, that's a great mini-redemption for him after cracking in the finale of BinckBank last Sunday (due to a certain rampaging MvdP).