Warren Barguil wins today's tough stage ! Great day for Chris Froom and Team Sky as they execute a brilliant finish ! Early they allowed a breakaway to get over a 8 minute lead saving energy for the closing mountain top finish. Like I mentioned earlier, an all out bid to win the stage actually posed some risks as the finishing time bonuses for top 3 finishes was not to their liking. Their goal was to send Landa out to try to get some time and perhaps have a chance for a podium spot. He moved past Aru for 4 th but couldn't break Uran in 3 rd place. Even though Bardet edged Froome to get the 4 second time bonus for taking 3 rd, that was fine with Froome as the only competition in Time Trial was Uran who actually lost 2 to Froome. Go Chris !
You could be right but I respectfully disagree as it seemed like a brilliant move to put a lot of pressure on Bardet and Uran ! It worked to Some extent as Landa broke Aru and moved into 4 th place. It happened so close to the finish that it was obviously was no threat to Froome and he didn't seem surprised at all. Like I said before, Landa in no way is better than Chris Froome this year. We clearly saw that today as Team Sky would have been delighted IF Landa would have been able to win the stage and move onto a podium position. He has no chance of challenging Chris in closing Time Trial. All in all I loved what happened today !
well I have been known to be a bit of conspiracy theorist from time to time..
Bardet has my respect. Cmon, he was teamateless for the last 15 km or so whilsit Froome had kwiatkowski and Landa. Seriously , Team Sky is crazy deep-- this is without Thomas!!!!
TT only Uran has a chance. But can he make 29 sec? That's a tall order.
barguil/yates-- i think 1 or these or both may be future winners. Barguil woudl be my pick
Bardet has my respect. Cmon, he was teamateless for the last 15 km or so whilsit Froome had kwiatkowski and Landa. Seriously , Team Sky is crazy deep-- this is without Thomas!!!!
TT only Uran has a chance. But can he make 29 sec? That's a tall order.
barguil/yates-- i think 1 or these or both may be future winners. Barguil woudl be my pick
barguil
it’s really fantastic. I can’t believe it. It’s a dream for me. It has been a dream three weeks. Last night I was discussing it with Michael [Matthews] and we never would have expected that we could have the polka-dot and the green jersey and to win two stages for him and one for me, now two. It’s just unbelievable.
I was waiting to see how it went. I wanted to take some time on [Alberto] Contador to maybe win one spot. I attacked and we came to [Bauke] Mollema and I heard him say 'slower' to Mollema when he was pulling, and I passed him and I made my pace to the top. In the last kilometres, I saw Atapuma ahead. I was behind him in the Tour de Suisse and I closed the gap in the last climb, and today I made it. It’s just crazy.
It will take a few days to sink in, but at the moment I am still in the sky.
froome;
It was very, very hard stage with the climb to the finish, I have to congratulate Warren Barguil on his win. I’m happy with today. My teammates did a very good job in the finale to control the break. I tried to drop Uran and Bardet but it was virtually impossible today.
I’m happy to have got through the Alps this year without a problem. They’ve always been more difficult for me. Now we’ll see what happens in the time trial in Marseille. We’ll see what happens. I’ll do my best to try to win the stage and ride for the jersey. I’ve already seen the time trial course. It’s a very fast 22km course. I’ll do my maximum for sure.
Of course it would have been nice to take a bit of time, but all in all I’m pretty happy with that. Two seconds over Rigoberto Uran, who I think will be my main rival in the time trial, I’m pretty happy with that. It’s great having the numbers there to control things and having that card to play with Mikel Landa. I tried to give it a dig behind and I thought that I had a gap, but it looks like Rigoberto Uran brought it back.
They’ve both ridden a very impressive race up until now. Romain Bardet taking the bonus seconds today, he can be pretty happy with that. It’s all still to race for in the time trial in Marseille. It’s still close. There’s still everything to race for. If everything goes well, I fancy my chances against the other guys in the time trial but it’s still very close.
it’s really fantastic. I can’t believe it. It’s a dream for me. It has been a dream three weeks. Last night I was discussing it with Michael [Matthews] and we never would have expected that we could have the polka-dot and the green jersey and to win two stages for him and one for me, now two. It’s just unbelievable.
I was waiting to see how it went. I wanted to take some time on [Alberto] Contador to maybe win one spot. I attacked and we came to [Bauke] Mollema and I heard him say 'slower' to Mollema when he was pulling, and I passed him and I made my pace to the top. In the last kilometres, I saw Atapuma ahead. I was behind him in the Tour de Suisse and I closed the gap in the last climb, and today I made it. It’s just crazy.
It will take a few days to sink in, but at the moment I am still in the sky.
froome;
It was very, very hard stage with the climb to the finish, I have to congratulate Warren Barguil on his win. I’m happy with today. My teammates did a very good job in the finale to control the break. I tried to drop Uran and Bardet but it was virtually impossible today.
I’m happy to have got through the Alps this year without a problem. They’ve always been more difficult for me. Now we’ll see what happens in the time trial in Marseille. We’ll see what happens. I’ll do my best to try to win the stage and ride for the jersey. I’ve already seen the time trial course. It’s a very fast 22km course. I’ll do my maximum for sure.
Of course it would have been nice to take a bit of time, but all in all I’m pretty happy with that. Two seconds over Rigoberto Uran, who I think will be my main rival in the time trial, I’m pretty happy with that. It’s great having the numbers there to control things and having that card to play with Mikel Landa. I tried to give it a dig behind and I thought that I had a gap, but it looks like Rigoberto Uran brought it back.
They’ve both ridden a very impressive race up until now. Romain Bardet taking the bonus seconds today, he can be pretty happy with that. It’s all still to race for in the time trial in Marseille. It’s still close. There’s still everything to race for. If everything goes well, I fancy my chances against the other guys in the time trial but it’s still very close.
