What a day for luck to turn against you. 18 stages of everything going well for Evans and BMC and then a mechanical at a fairly important moment (plus if there's one person you don't want to have a mechanical around its Contador). Still time for Evans, but it's going to hurt his confidence.
Not Merckx, he used to eat everyone alive to kill the competition. Thankfully, he has a very bad temper, that was more interesting than the race If we have a new yellow jersey (probably) this year's winner will only spend one or 2 days in yellow. Didn't happen since 1968.
You can't say Voelker lacks passion. There was some fantastic TV that showed Voelker pedaling hard, screaming at himself to keep going (or I assume since I don't speak French). He just slammed a bottle to the ground in anger. Riders often look like a bunch of poker players so its fantastic to see someone just show pure passion. This is what sport is about.
That happened only once in 1986 with Bernard Hinault (and Greg Lemond). Please someone kill the public along the road....
Do the French maybe have a GT contender in Rolland againg after all those years? He's certainly had a fantastic Tour this year, he looked even stronger than Voeckler at times.
Maybe, [silly translation] if little pigs don't eat him [/silly translation]. Just a question...who is going to win this Tour ?
Its going to be close, both Andy and Cadel have hammered themselves in these last two days and I know which position I'd rather be in...57 sec ahead going out last. Frank I don't know about what's going on with him. Bad day or has he hit the wall? He does have a good gap behind him though, so a Schleck and Evans podium is still a real possibility. I don't think I need to say exactly how I'd like the positions to end up.
I have no idea. I'm rooting for Andy, but it's really, really close. If you look at previous recent TTs Evans is just about that one minute faster than Andy, but this year's TT is "only" 41K and a bit hilly, which Andy is probably ok with. I think it will be a matter of seconds. 2010 Tour stage 19 (52km, flattish) : Andy S- 6:14 Evans (injured)- 10:57 2009 Tour stage 18 (40.5km, one category 3 climb) Evans- 1:14 Andy S- 1:44 F Schleck- 2:34 2009 Vuelta stage 7 (30km, flat) Evans- 1:02 Andy S- 2:02 Frank S- 2:22 2008 Tour stage 4 (29km, flat) Evans- 0:27 Andy S- 1:29 Frank S- 2:14
Yeps, but 3 weeks of competition in the legs and the victory in mind can change a lot of things. I absolutely have no idea who can win. It's fun, it's like I'm 10 years old again and I'm waiting along the road between Versailles and Paris
Do you think that Leopard-Trek would have Frank sit up after he goes and wait for Andy to help him by pacing him through part of the stage so he can go harder at the end? Or is it against the rules of the stage? Unfortunately today after a bit of sleep my prediction and what I want to happen are two different things...
No. Since firstly that is not allowed, you can't draft behind another rider in a TT and secondly I've read that they let Evans start second from last to avoid any such appearence of irregularity.
Anyone want to make a bold prediction? I'm going to say Andy Schleck will finish tonight 17 secs ahead (as in overall rather than 17 faster on the stage) and hence win the tour. I think the yellow jersey on his shoulders will make the difference win him his first tour.
I say Andy will finish today relatively comfortably 20 seconds behind Evans - ahead 37 seconds overall. The TT times so far are interesting, it looks like either Cancellara is having a bad day (for him anyway) or maybe the course doesn't support big time gaps, which would bode ill for Evans.