Tour de France Stage 20: Pinot wins on Alpe d'Huez, Froome poised to win second yellow jersey

Kadinkski wrote:

Given the number of falls in the women's race; just out of interest, what would happen if there was still a significant distance to go and Froome came off and broke his collar bone, but he didn't abandon - he was utterly determined to finish and got back on and was physically supported by his team mates (like Tony Martin a couple of weeks ago).

Would the peloton just sit behind him at a snail's pace? Would the organiser step in and do something? Or would it all be on for the yellow jersey again?

I think they are going to neutralise the race at the Champs from a time perspective so we don't get to that point - maybe Froome will do eight laps doing a wheelie. He'd get huge kudos for that.

They rather let the women test the road and are now of the opinion it cannot be raced....chapeau the ladies and their intact collarbones.

Kevcaster wrote:

Chris Froome won the greatest sporting event on the planet, fair and square. He did it by riding faster than the other competitors over 3 weeks of varying conditions and terrain, skilfully outwitting his rivals.
Sky have raised the bar for teamwork, professionalism and strategy and instilled the most fantastic spirit in their riders who stepped up so willingly for the team result.
Most of the audience applaud the whole spectacle and restore ones faith in sportsmanship by their condemnation of the minority who aim to spoil the party - a few nutcase spectators and journalists.
And Quintana is a great competitor.
What other sport is equal to this?

This is the most naive statement I've read in a while. Brailsford gives out the watts/kg figure and then cannot reveal the weight of the rider....Froome is a competitive cyclist, but cannot remember what his watts output is. I'm not saying he is the only one, but if you have no cause for concern you are a child.

Colin Peyresourde wrote:

Kevcaster wrote:

Chris Froome won the greatest sporting event on the planet, fair and square. He did it by riding faster than the other competitors over 3 weeks of varying conditions and terrain, skilfully outwitting his rivals.
Sky have raised the bar for teamwork, professionalism and strategy and instilled the most fantastic spirit in their riders who stepped up so willingly for the team result.
Most of the audience applaud the whole spectacle and restore ones faith in sportsmanship by their condemnation of the minority who aim to spoil the party - a few nutcase spectators and journalists.
And Quintana is a great competitor.
What other sport is equal to this?

This is the most naive statement I've read in a while. Brailsford gives out the watts/kg figure and then cannot reveal the weight of the rider....Froome is a competitive cyclist, but cannot remember what his watts output is. I'm not saying he is the only one, but if you have no cause for concern you are a child.

Well you've just trumped it for naivety and I'd respectfully suggest that calling someone a child is somewhat childish.

Brailsford could have given the weight, he chose not to. Froome knows what his watts output is but it is nobody else's business. Team Sky shared more data than they were required to do and more than any other team on the tour. By your kangaroo court principles, if Sky are cheats then the others must be bigger cheats. Case closed.

Feel free to remain bitter whilst another British great celebrates the biggest prize in cycling...

vonhelmet wrote:

He got lucky with the wind on day 2 and that's what really made the difference in the end.

Kind of. We don't know how Froome/Sky would have ridden the Tour had they not had that early advantage.

Quintana said as much - that the race was lost after the second stage. But I agree we don't know the other teams would have responded to a Movistar yellow jersey in the early going.

vonhelmet wrote:

So Froome has beaten Quintana by 1:12. Quintana lost 1:28 by virtue of being caught in the back group when the wind split the peloton on stage 2. So all other things being equal if Quintana had been in the front group back then, he'd have won. So Froome has had one good day in the Pyrenees and Quintana has had one good days in the Alps, and the rest is just bad luck with the wind, really. And yet it's Froome catching all the flak for "doping"... What rot. He got lucky with the wind on day 2 and that's what really made the difference in the end.

Spot on. Just what Chris Boardman said.

HalfWheeler wrote:

I see some other vile creature spat at Froome on the way up Alpe d'Huez. When did cycling start to resemble a football match?

Yep, saw this at 3.4km to go (for pinot) and Froome noticed this time. The next step is for someone to "accidentally" get in the yellow jerseys way, or just throw tacks down after Quintana passed. At least the last day is more of a formality.

People like TheDoctor like to think they are professional journalists pursuing Lance Armstrong, when in fact they are just social media trolls who are complicit with the actions of goons on the roadside. If we are to put the bad old days behind us then we have to ask; why are French media employing know drugs cheats as journalists? Not; what did Chris Froome have for breakfast?

bikeboy76 wrote:

People like TheDoctor like to think they are professional journalists pursuing Lance Armstrong, when in fact they are just social media trolls who are complicit with the actions of goons on the roadside. If we are to put the bad old days behind us then we have to ask; why are French media employing know drugs cheats as journalists? Not; what did Chris Froome have for breakfast?

Spot on IMHO. They would have very little to say if they stuck to the facts.

I found today's stage tense and gripping. There was the race for the stage and another one for the GC. Neither was a done deal until the very end.

I heard a lot of booing of Froome today, that is deeply disrespectful and disappointing. Quintana has gone uphill quicker than Froome, and not just today. He looked in control this week, able to put in digs and attacks yet he's not been spat at or accused of doping. Is it because he's Colombian? Or because he hasn't won the Tour yet? Perhaps we'll see what is claimed to be 'his' SRM data with a crappy video on Youtube soon.

Movistar have a massive budget and have as strong a team as Sky, and have rather more doping skeletons in their closet. Not many 35 year old domestique/2nd in command riders can climb alongside Quintana, Froome, Porte and co on stage 20 of a 3 week Grand Tour.

This is one of what are surely many articles on the subject but this one seems well reasoned and level-headed:
http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/07/the-curious-case-of-chris-froome-why-h...

Did anyone else wonder whether the timing of Nibali's puncture was some kind of karma? I'm not convinced that he attacked because Froome was in trouble yesterday, it looked to me like he was planning to go anyway.

The site http://www.climbing-records.com suggests that Quintana set new records for La Toussuire and today's ascent of the Croix de Fer and "very fast" up the Alpe (though still slower than Riis, Ullrich and Armstrong and some others).

But does that mean he is doping? Does it mean anything other than that he climbs fast?

Kadinkski wrote:

ianrobo wrote:

I had to listen to this stage and the only question is why in the 4 Alpine stages did NQ leave it so late. No chance of catching up and today was for show, not serious.

Froome deserves to win for what he did in the Pyrenees but Movistar with their team blew it.

Yeah, they were poor as a team.

I think Froome and Quintana are pretty evenly matched and are have been best two climbers in the pro peloton the last three years. Froome has usually been better early and hot, Quintana later and in damper, cooler conditions. Sky has had the far stronger team, Valverde and Anacona's heroics aside. If Movistar made a mistake it was by being too aggressive, had they played it safe in LPSM it might've been a different race. They were immense in the stage up to the Alpe. Haven't seen the four top GC guys looking at each other on a deserted valley road in decades. Had Anacona managed to bridge to the break earlier it might've been right up there with LeMond on the Champs Elysees. But chapeau to Froome, he's a great champion who fought tooth and nail.

Simon E wrote:

I heard a lot of booing of Froome today, that is deeply disrespectful and disappointing.

Booing the away team in sports event: how unimaginably awful and completely unacceptable. In the good old days guys like Armstrong were ... oh wait. Actually Lance was treated much better than Eddy was in France; Anquetil was treated even worse in Italy. Old Jacques was not exactly universally revered in France either, Pou-Pou was by far the more popular of the pair. And, the French can be savage on their own, too. The leader of the 1903 race apparently had to fire of a round in the air to get his "supporters" to stop beating up one of his rivals.

Aside from a few idiots, who should be prosecuted, I actually think the French have a better opinion of Froome than they did of Armstrong. In any case those cases have little to do with the doping skeptics, who by and large only want to more transparency and cleaner sport (cycling is hardly the worst offender). That's like saying that the today's more radical Labour MPs are responsible for the regime in North Korea since they both believe capitalism has flaws.

Pretty sure there was a lot of booing as Froome went past sections of the crowd too.

The peleton should refuse to take part next year unless some form of crowd control is brought as many on the alp seemed more interested in getting themselves on the telly than watching the race.

This year urine, next acid or bleech or .....

spen wrote:

Pretty sure there was a lot of booing as Froome went past sections of the crowd too.

The peleton should refuse to take part next year unless some form of crowd control is brought as many on the alp seemed more interested in getting themselves on the telly than watching the race.

This year urine, next acid or bleech or .....

Err ……… booing you can't do anything about. Ever been to a football match?

Maybe you are being a bit melodramatic.

What they should do for next year is have more gendarme motorcycle outriders with cameras shadowing the various groups of riders and certainly the yellow jersey or the group he is in as some nutters have malevolent agendas. Mind you all the people who were filmed spitting or impeding the yellow jersey or indeed other riders should be hunted down. The racist football scum on the Paris Metro were caught using footage that was taken of them so why can't the footage showing the scum spitting at Froome be used to trace, prosecute and punish them? Seems pretty sensible IMHO. It would greatly endorse the credibility of the Tour and send a message to spectators that this behaviour will not be tolerated. It might also make the riders feel safer. Simples.

Or put barriers up the whole length of the stage.