Keith99

This post will not include the finish just what I thought well before the last climb. It will include race situations up to the foot of the final climb. The spoiler quality of this will be far less than the titles of some other posts and really will be more like an advertisement to watch the stage.

Are the OLN crew complete idiots? I can not help but think so listening to them on stage 17. Landis gets out in a break and the rest of the teams leave the chase to Pereiro's team. The OLN guys repeatedly say this is a mistake. Bull. It is a mistake if all the other riders care about is denying Landis Yellow in Paris. But this is NOT what riders ride for. Each of the contenders was riding to maximize his chance of being in Yellow at the end. For Pereiro a huge portion of that is to not let Landis get too big a lead. But not everything. If his team makes a big effort to do that and they start the final climb with nothing left then when the attacks come the 3 other contenders have a good chance of putting major tme on Pereiro. For the other 3 contenders Landis is not even the main worry at this point. There is a good chance Landis will begin to pay on the final climb and they can pull back all the time they need. For them the danger at this point is Pereiro. They have to make him work and then put time on him (and in the process pull back enough of what Landis has). And there is that 15 km of flat before the final climb. The teams of the other 3 have plenty of chance to see who is still in the lead group at that point and pull back some time on Landis if needed. The goal is to give your rider a chance of winning. For the 3 other contenders that means a chance of pulling back time on Floyd and also a chance of putting time on Pereiro for the stage. It does not matter if you are outrageously successful in either one if you flop on the other. I thought then that the strategy was spot on. Each of the three would have the chance come the final climb. I will say no more other than that by the approach to the final climb the race started getting very exciting and kept getting moreso. The expected result of correct strategy.

worker4youth

Obviously it WAS a mistake now, wasn't it?

Mo'Phat

You're entitled to your opinion.

I defer to Phil and Paul's credentials over yours, however. Tour riders and commentators that have been doing it for decades probably have a good idea of race tactics.

Smoothie104

^+1

hollow

I feel like an idiot for replying to a post that is pretty suspect in it's reasoning. Seeing that you posted this after the results bore out the "idiot announcer's" suspicions makes me wonder what you were thinking. If the teams' goal wasn't to keep Landis out of yellow, it should have been. I think they'll regret it on Sunday. You can let a Rasmussen or even Leipheimer get out on an attack, but not someone of the caliber of Landis, Kloden, Sastre, etc.

Piuma

It seems to me that any team with a GC contender that doesn't help chase down a dangerous break deserves what they get. Everybody hammered on Phonak for not chasing down Pereiro but if Oscar ends up in Paris in yellow and Sastre is one step down on the podium, won't it be CSC that ends up paying the price? And if Floyd gets yellow, all the other contenders will pay for their teams' stupidity today. It seemed obvious to me that Floyd's huge gap was as much due to the exhaustion of the Caisse D'Espange guys as anything else. Did you see the way they were looking around with looks on their faces like "what the hell, do these guys think we're going to bring him back?" The results prove that when it's as close as this tour, all the contending teams owe it to themselves to lend a hand, it's in their own interest.

Helmet Head

After the stage I went back to the beginning to show my wife what they said about Floyd's chances before the stage.

Al asked them flat out, is Floyd winning the Tour is still at all possible. Phil answered, without hestiation, "no". Paul gave a long explanation, the difference between allowing Pereiro to have time, and allowing Floyd to go ahead, etc. Bob... well, Bob made the call!.

If you missed any of this stage, go back and watch it from the beginning. I'm going to record it to keep forever. What a classic.

However, Phil and Paul did get this part right, I believe: the reason the other teams did not chase is because they didn't have it in them. This was confirmed on the final climb where no one got any signficant time on Floyd, except maybe Sastre, a bit, but even then he was so cooked he lost almost 40 seconds on the final descent!

Keith99

You have a point. Counter point - The team managers have far more experience and inside information. There were 4 different teams where the manager in effect made the same decision. Why?

I still stand by my analysis. On a rethink I want to move the blame for idiotic (or perhaps shallow) analysis by the announcers. I know d@mn well Phil and Paul are well aware of the issues I brought up in this thread. I went back and checked the first ITT. Pereiro finished only 2:41 down. The other contenders who were chasing Floyd were from 1:43 to 2:11 down. That puts the BEST of them only a minute better than Periero. They all needed to make up some time on Periero to give themselfs a reasonable chance of making up the remainder on the final ITT. I just want to make that very clear. All 4 contenders in hte pack have the others in the pack to worry about.

Again thinking about it I know Phil, Paul and Bob all know this. Why not say it. Over the years they have taught me a lot, but it always comes in small, easy to digest bits. They all know what I do and should have some inside information. I'm beginning to think however that they have over the years been told to keep things overly simple. They kept making it seem like chasing harder was a no brainer. It wasn't. As others have pointed out they did hit things spot on that perhaps they just did not have the legs. But that was not all of it. It surely was not all of it as far as the domestiques went.

In the end of the contenders in the chase only Sastre and Pereiro had the legs. That is what killed the other contenders, not bad strategic decisions. Look at how things would have been far different if Kloden had some legs. T-Mobile would have pushed at the bottom and kept pushing using their domestiques. Any of the contenders who stayed with that train would have made up at least 30 more seconds on Landis. Probably more like 1 minute, perhaps more. Who would have been in best position now would have depended on who came out best in the scramble from the pack.

Stop and think about it. How often have the announcers pointed out situations where there is complex strategy? Almost never, but at least some of them know it far better than most of us. I can only conclude thay are told to dumb it down. After all their audience can not walk and chew gum at the same time.

Blackberry

Right you are, Helmet Head. Bob Roll, the guy people love to call a fool, made the call. And he did so without hesitation.