Stage 3, Monday 6

196 km, D+ 3900 m

Arrival in a ski resort in French Catalunya. Is this a mountain stage or a puncher stage? Or simply a very good day for breakaways?

Everyone wanted to be in the breakaway, so it took long to develop. It wasn’t allowed more than the modern standard gap. The UAE pulled the peloton, and Pogatchar won the sprint.

There were a few crashes (notably Armirail after about 12 km). Poor De Lie was dropped since the start, as it was a succession of strong uphill false flats; he fought all day, but withdrew just a few miles from the line, as he had no chance to make it in time any more after suffering all day long: eliminating badly ill or injured riders is the only thing that modern delays ‘achieve’ on modern GTs 😢

Reluctant with good reason! It’s the day after a time trial and more than a week to a rest day. Would you really risk a good classification place or later stage wins this early, attacking on a hillside crit circuit that the breakaway has maybe 1% chance of winning? Be serious.

1. A circuit like this, like any punchy finish, is a perfect place to attack if one is afraid of losing GC: losing GC won’t happen. One can pick one’s distance for attacking, and if it fails, one may recover or attack anew when it comes back again. Even if one blows up, gaps won’t be big.
2. There aren’t only GC leaders in the race, there are punchers who don’t give a damn about classification and who won’t be served many suitable profiles this year.
3. Last year, both punchers and GC leaders did use punchers stages. There were attacks by Visma lieutenants and even a bit Vingegaard as soon as stage #2. Pog and Ving attacked and created splits in the punchy finish as soon as stage #4, the day before the ITT. It was just an attack 6 km from the goal, but still better than yesterday.
4. I’ve heard of Time Trial ‘blocking’ the race for a couple of days before the TT, but blocking it for a few days after the TT would be a first ;)

All right, but if I remember correctly, all typical punchers stages last year were fiercely contested.

Benoot (🇧🇪 Decathlon) did the same thing as on the Tour de Suisse a 2 weeks ago: he started pulling the peloton like crazy and as a result his leader went backwards. Luckily this time, there were enough riders between the first 3 and Seixas🇫🇷, so a split wasn’t created.

It appears that the car gave the order, while Seixas🇫🇷 wasn’t willing to accelerate or attack, after his difficult chase to get back into the peloton following his puncture and double bike switch.

Stage 2, Sunday 5

169 km, D+ 2000 m

A stage for punchers, again finishing in Barcelona’s Montjuic

This stage was turned into a joke. Nobody attacked, except for Johannessen (🇳🇴 Uno-X) followed by Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF), about 18.3 yards from the top of the very last climb. It was just a strong-ish pace by the lone McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE) all along. And then Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) won because Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) left him the victory. Yep.

Tomorrow, spectators will be banned from the part of the course in France, as there is a major forest fire developing (far) down the valley.

Stage 1, Saturday 1, Team Time Trial

20 km, D+ 220 m

A very short TTT in the streets of Barcelona, with some climbing near and at the end (your usual Montjuic).

This format created quite some mess. Suffice to say that Bernal (🇨🇴 Ineos) will wear the Green jersey tomorrow 🤣

At FDJ, the two guys who were supposed to aim for a modest top-20 in GC crashed. G. Martin🇫🇷 and Berthet🇫🇷 finished the stage, but the latter won’t restart tomorrow. Grégoire🇫🇷 finished very well, but it looked more impressive than it actually was because he used a huge gear ratio with a low frequency while standing up .

Astana also crashed.

At Ineos, Vauquelin🇫🇷 who was supposed to be the final arrow and hadn’t taken any relay, got a puncture… Subsequently, Ganna, who had taken the heaviest relays on the flat, was forced to also lead the finish. This beast managed to almost win! He climbed faster than all punchers and GC leaders, but one.

At Bora, Evenepoel🇧🇪 dropped Lipowitz🇩🇪 in the last climb.

De Lie (🇧🇪 Lotto) was completely ill. Cian U. (🇧🇪 Movistar) overheated, blew up and had cramps. O’Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco) quickly sank.

Vinegaard (🇩🇰 Visma) and Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) are already on the podium. Top-10 favourites are already in the top-10… And there are still 20 stages to go.

It seems designed to create differences, so I guess there will be a few. What could happen to minimise them is one stronger leader with a weaker team vs the opposite; perhaps the Pogatchar-UAE vs Vingegaard-Visma will be along this line. But the flat section is relatively short (for a TTT), so I don’t know whether significant advantage can be gained there by a strong team.

I don’t expect much from Seixas/Decathlon, given what they showed on the Dauphiné.

It could be interesting to see what happens at Bora, performance-wise, but also circus-wise 😀

We can note that the organisers had the ‘brilliant’ idea of scheduling the last/favourite teams/leaders at the same time as the WC first 1/8^th match of the day 🙄 As if they couldn’t have made it just 20 minutes earlier…