Originally Posted by
Quel
That stage is great to watch for leadouts. The video below has the last few miles, and I've watched it a handful of times. It has a great camera shot of Renshaw and Cavendish from the side leading up to the finish, which shows their effortless sprinting form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpmnx7l_Ib0
Alright, this is in relation to both the quoted comment and CDR's comments since I seem to hear this all the time.
Does anyone else think that HTC-Columbia's Champ's win last year was more Garmin-Slipstream screwing up in the final kilometers rather than raw dominance? Whenever I see this clip I see Garmin getting on the front too early, and Julian Dean/Tyler Farrar trying to jump the last corner on a bad line, losing a bunch of speed, and forcing a gap between Renshaw/Cavendish and the remainder of the peloton. Renshaw/Cavendish hold their speed, and as Ligget says the win becomes a "formality".
Now before you start typing in anger, I'm not saying that Farrar would have railed Cavendish in the sprint, but I do think that if Garmin hadn't screwed up that the sprint would've bee much closer to a "true" field sprint.
So to try and bring this back around and on to topic, when giving a leadout don't go too early, and don't screw up lines in crucial corners trying to make up places.