14h Giro di Francia, aka the post Giro criterium also known as Tour de France 2024

[Robyklebt]

Hoped for an easy day, escape, Gipfel, Credit Pommes, T-Mobile, Schappy, some of those. Ideally all 4, group goes, all calm, some safety tempo towards the end, that's all.

But no, T-Mobile off, so missed the escape, Credit POmmes off a bit late I think, escape gone. But 4 Gipfels, and we basically knew what that most likely means. Aïnouz attack. And so it happened.

Ideally then the 3 remaining teams, GC teams just ride green/blue, a bit faster towards the end maybe, Get the group or let it through with around 2', both ok. But no, Tukh only joined after 50 km, CC then stopped, and he had some thinking breaks before too. So Donkey doing the most. NO chance for Aïnouz, as could be expected, then big Donks mistake, Woldemariam on a 5, and since he was helped, he siebed like crazy. Wait, but that km Sullivan goes. Donks on Tarabesh, 2 more CC go, so 4 CCs including Sullivan vs Tarabesh and Marquez, was afraid of the second attack, Sullivan helped might follow why Marquez doesn't, but wasn't tried. Good. Not a fan of these GC battles on non-GC stages anyway... launched by Gipfel, countered by CC, blah. Revenge, kick Schmalen out, failed at that, ok today and tomorrow so short he should not be at risk.
Anyway, team not fit today, but hopefully others have the same problem.

Now the 3 final days, which will decide the GC. 1-2-3.

[Robyklebt]

Not happy today....

Yellow, as expected, but 2" is nothing. Need another 30"+. That's hard.

Afraid of getting siebed early with my weaklings, so saving of helpers, but no problem at all, could have not done that. Then not much happening, Woldemariam for once there, tried a clever downhill attack, blocked, bah. To get to the front and not have helpers for the others if they don't follow Wolde. But somebody simply made tempo... blah.

Final climb, 135 wanted to go, put it in too late, but IMO early km change, more often than not to me seems rather late, this time rather early, close to 1"2" I guess. Then went on the 9%, which is when Sullivan went too. The usual, Tarabesh with Marquez. In the back Sullivan with Wingelaar. Wingelaar early tempo a danger, but otherwise all good. 6%, Tarabesh not in tempo, ok, second attack he can't follow, I have 16", he wins the stage, 12", ok for me. Did the 10% already, so 2 km more than Tarabesh, next 6%, he doesn't come in again. 2 possibilities, me out too trick out, or attack, both losing tactics, but while Tarabesh can win the stage, we need to win time on Sullivan, then we can talk about the fight between us, which I haven't won yet, with 1 less TT. But 2 km off, then I might be the guy not following anymore. If he says, next km I'm in, ok, maybe I tell myself ok, but no announcement, so attack. We won 2" in the first 6%, so 5", just go together and we win a lot. Until Wingelaar joins. If he joins too late and the stage is gone and he goes out again, perfect for us, if he joins early, and brings the advantage down.... continues, then not good. But IMO we could have hoped to win 10" , so 20" and 16" won, which leaves another similar win for the day after. But as I said, if that damn Wingelaar joins early, gains time, then we win less. Too late, then we win more.
Tarabesh out complicates all for both of us now. Regardless of training tomorrow. Ok, downtraining TT for Marquez, then I'm almost out vs Sullivan, then it's simple, try for stage, accept GC defeat. Not TT loss, with a big win tomorrow, still in, but now Sullivan is the favorite. Too bad, after almost perfect cooperation (from which I benefited with stage wins, while he didn't, but if he did what IMO was sensible today it's 2-1 stage wins, 12", which is pretty much the difference between us in the TT)

Wingelaar of course complicates things for us too, he will want another stage win tomorrow, ideally he is strong enough to follow Marquez-Tarabesh, sucks, wins, but if he's with Sullivan... he might bring him back, or keep him close. Which of course is 100% right, he wants stage wins now.

Anyway, some anti CC needed tomorrow.

Mountain jersey looks good for Tarabesh though now. Might need a big try from Garcia tomorrow, not let the first mountain be like today.

[CircleCycle]

no more anti CC please, thank you

[Robyklebt]

Sullivan's collapse, Tarabesh's heartbreak, Marquez' turnaround

Complete collapse by Sullivan on the final TT, mental or physical? But after fighting for 20 days he just seemed empty, 16" behind Tarabesh, 12" behind Marquez after 3 flat km, slow start, he'll recover in the climb, a bit, but 21" and 14" back after 10km. And he needed to win 4" and 19" respectively. After 34 km he lost 27" and 14" to Tarabesh and Marquez.

Tarabesh? He won this at least 3 times. After 10km 7" ahead. And that was supposed to be rather Marquez-friendly terrain. 4" in the first 3km, 3" more in the 6km climb. He's won it. Last km of the climb +2", after Marquez had managed to gain one back the km before. It's over. Next 10km, went up to 9" after 16km, km 17 the +11 Marquez gained back 2", ok, he's still in it, 17km still 7" lost, next 3 km 1" each, up to 10" after 20km, 3 black km each in the 2 first 10km segments. 4 in the next 10km, then 4 more completely flat km, where Tarabesh should just be stronger. After 26km, 14" ahead, one second missing, won 1" each on theblack he's won it again, second time. Marquez fights back in the downhill, 13", then in the black -2 even 12", 5 flat km remaining, all 0, in the first one back up to 13", 2" left to gain in 4km. He did it in one 15", same time, 3km left. He won it. Third time. Then 14", then 15" again, last km and... Marquez gains 2". Tough loss for Tarabesh after looking like the winner for basically the whole TT. Sometimes doubts came up again, km 16, km 29.

Pff... so the winner is Marquez. Slow start at 95% (just one km, hoped to be lucky, lose 1" and then go 100%, just on principle, wanted an energy advantage. Yes dumb. Then some km at high risk, the 2" loss at km 31 was one of those too, regretted it, km 33 was low, forgot about 32, km 34 high risk, paid off.

Very tight stuff, Marquez, Tarabesh 2", Sullivan 31", but for a long time he was very close, his collapse today cost him all. And even 4th place Kalma is only 2'09" back. So was a seconds game the whole tour. Biggest mistake by Donkey was the Galibier, 1, the Woldemariam attack that put the classics into play for the stage. And then not doing yes alone with Marquez to stay away from the chasing Sullivan-Wingelaar-group. But it changed the whole tour, in my favor finally, so was right it seems. But doing that properly Tarabesh and Marquez get an advantage there already, some seconds to Sullivan and Wingelaar. Earlier yellow. Then mostly collaborating with Tarabesh, and having luck on my side. 2 stages. 4" gained by luck in the first TT (all low risk,) but new I was lucky (or others unlucky?)since I gained time on Garcia who had better form, 8", but 3 better form, so was 0.2x weaker in TT than Marquez, but 8" back. middle risk I think. 19" before yesterday, 15" after.. regretted that cooperation quite a bit today, was just a bit too nice... and then luck struck, Marquez wins it. Not undeserved, Tarabesh would have deserved it too though, Sullivan no, we're anti CC here. Ok, Sullivan fought well too, defended himself excellently, minimal time losses each time. Thought more in the Alps really, his Pyrenees form was rather obvious. But then went over the limit yesterday, either mentally or physically as mentioned above, and that was it.

Too bad the professional and toxic offliner Rabo was.... off. But that really was expected. Not that much, thought he would show up regularly for the GC stages, but he didn't. On different race, different challenge, but still beatable. Then it's more sieb and go with Garcia than attack against Sullivan. But he would have lost in the stupid unrealistic gravel stage, lots if we concentrate on him, which wasn't necessary at this point. And due to his rather shitty team, no flat, could be isolated in multiclimb stages too. In principle would have liked that challenge, but he was off. So only 7 teams, too few really. So no Vuelta for the Donkey. Even if now he maybe should, no more pressure, won my real stage race for 24, like to have one, usually Catalunya.... but would take any, Paris-Nice, Tour de Suisse, Catalunya... but TdF works too. Garcia would like to ride the Vuelta, he doesn't want to become the first Donkey climber not to reach 5000 points (Hochuli-Zhou didn't reach it, but left early), but 97% we'll pass. Get him to ride some cat 1 races maybe. 2 GTs with not enough teams are enough.

Ah, favorite moment of the Tour, apart from wins, Woldemariam first helper-classic yesterday, sieb and go, Tarabesh and Sullivan isolated, not much of an influence on the final result, but that was a plan that worked beautifully, doesn't happen too often. Ok, Sullivan isolated cost him energy, might have exacerbated the fighting energy loss yesterday further, so hm, some influence!

Ah, one more thing, green for Bakayev, dots for Tarabesh. So while losing the GC after winning it repeatedly today is bitter, finally still a good Tour for Tukh. CC is left a bit empty handed, but 4 stages, 3 with Natanzon is still quite good.

With this Marquez probably signs out of c4f, provisionally at least. Might start San Sebastian, might not, we'll see. Could have been his last race today. Why are there no criteriums where starting with the Tour winner gives the team a 300k starting fee or so at c4f?