Originally Posted by
Rich Gibson
1. Don't be surprised to see Cav abandon...for a medical reason of course.
2. Sagan might have gotten higher in the sprint (of course not beating Greipel) except for Coquard blocking him at a critical moment. The break strategy was a very good decision. He can never beat Greipel, so padding points at the intermediate sprint helped tactically. You have to be suspicious of the Tour folks changing the rules ....trying to break Sagan's string? I hope Peter can widen the gap in the sprints in the mountains....unless the officials have front loaded the sprints ahead of the mountains (I haven't looked very deeply into the remaining stages).
Rich
Coquard wasn't "Blocking" Sagan, that was a BS move by Sagan, he should have been relegated IMO but it doesn't really matter anyway, he didn't win.
Originally Posted by
seypat
Le Tour says that Pantano gained some 18 minutes in the overall and moved into the overall top 16. So you are probably right.
16th place has no affect on the winner or even the podium. The top GC teams watch and see who goes in what breaks and when the right combo is up the road, they let it go for a bit.
Also, if you are a GC contender and you get in a break, the guys in the break will often give you a hard time cause you jeopardize the break, also etiquette says if youare a threat to the GC, you don't get in the break.