Chris Froome checks up on the papers (Photo: Getty)
Following two enthralling – and markedly different – days in the mountains, I’d like to share a few of my thoughts as we head into the next phase of the race.
The extent of Froome’s dominance comes as a surprise.
Team Sky have broken yet another mould. We’d become used to cagey, largely insignificant first mountain stages. This is where you could catch a glimpse of what is to come, but where there were also important questions left unanswered, concealed by poker-faces and conservative tactics. Last year’s stage to Planches des Belles Filles, won by Chris Froome himself, was a break from this pattern, and on Saturday we saw Sky operate the same tactic to an even greater degree of success.
I’d anticipated that Froome would be comfortably the strongest climber in the race, but no-one could surely have envisaged that the chasm between Froome and his ‘rivals’ could be quite so profound. Team Sky controlled the stage, eventually cancelling out Nairo Quintana’s attack on the Col de Pailhères and laying the foundations for Froome to strike out with unerring ease. That Richie Porte finished a strong second, despite doing a fair amount of pacing, only highlighted Sky’s dominance.
The difficult part of Froome’s victory was that it raises questions about how much cycling has changed. It would seem that Froome completed the stage 15 seconds behind Lance Armstrong’s time in the 2001 Tour de France and 17 behind Roberto Laiseka’s record in the same stage. Sports Science is not at all my area, so I’d point you towards The Science of Sport’s excellent analysis. Froome’s impressive ascent time does absolutely not provide any evidence that he is doping, but at the same time, it is perfectly reasonable for people to be worried about what they watched on Saturday. Fans have noticed that a core group of riders have made tremendous improvements whilst at Sky and it is natural for there to be concern about how these have been achieved, given the history of the sport. We have been lied to many times before.
What I would say, however, is that it is interesting that Sky seem to completely polarise opinion, much more so than other teams (some of which have serious question marks over the credibility of staff). There is the so-called ‘Anti-Sky Brigade’ and the vehement defenders of Sky as a clean team. I wouldn’t want to place myself into either of these camps, and I think that this division is unhealthy when our common hopes for a clean sport are the same. It is absolutely right – contrary to McQuaid’s wishes – that difficult questions regarding doping and ethics are not avoided by journalists to appease the riders. The riders are in an unfortunate situation, but any questions on doping are an opportunity for them to convince us they are not cheating. Reluctance to talk can, rightly or wrongly, be (mis)construed as having something to hide. The same can be said for reluctance to publish power data, or to be a part of the MPCC.
Unfortunately for Froome and for everyone at Team Sky, the speculation won’t go away over the next two weeks.
Movistar find themselves in a perfect scenario, but their attempts to exploit it are unconvincing.
Movistar ride tempo for Froome (Photo: AP)
Sunday’s stage to Bagnères-de-Bigorre could hardly have been more different from the previous day. Team Sky fell apart in the early stages when a flurry of attacks from riders with contrary and overlapping motives allowed GC teams the opportunity to attack Froome in a unique scenario that they will probably not find again.
It was a bizarre stage in that the first half was actually a great deal more exciting than the second. The reason for that was that Movistar’s tempo riding in the latter half appeared to be completely devoid of ambition. Movistar team manager Eusebio Unzué asserted that his team’s goal was to eliminate Richie Porte from his high placing overall. So now that Porte is out of the GC race (but still in a position to keep helping Froome), what are they going to do about Froome? Their opportunity to put him under serious pressure has vanquished.
It is true that Quintana threw in some testing accelerations, and that Froome was equal to these, yet the attacks came towards the end of the climb when they should have come at the bottom, where the gradient was at its steepest. In fact, the attacks should probably have started on the penultimate climb, but such was their conservative tactic of dropping Porte that I was left with the conclusion that Movistar were content to move Valverde up to second in the overall classification, and that they don’t believe that Froome can be beaten. It’s a pity for the good of the race that they weren’t more committed.
Of course, it wasn’t just up to Movistar to dictate the attack on the race leader, though the Spanish team are certainly the strongest opposition to Team Sky. There was little inter-team co-operation between the teams, and as I wrote before the Tour, this is absolutely necessary in beating Froome. It must have been a relief for Froome that he was not pelted with acceleration after acceleration from dangerous climbers, but clearly a lot of riders were simply happy to be in that group.
As for the question of why so many Sky riders suffered a bad day simultaneously, we have no way of knowing the answer. Vasil Kiryienka, perhaps the most revered and feared domestique in the peloton, couldn’t even make the time cut. I’m not convinced that the answer is simply because they went so deep the day before. Richie Porte, for example, raced all the way to the top of the climb of Ax 3 Domaines, just like Alejandro Valverde did, and Bauke Mollema, and Contador … I think that it is probably no coincidence. There are a few possibilities of why this might have happened, illness being one. But again, it’s speculation.
Kiryienka is a major loss for Sky, but they are blessed with so many able domestiques, that as with Konstantin Siutsou last year, they may not miss him as much as they fear. But when you consider that Geraint Thomas is slowly recovering from a crash in which he fractured his pelvis, and Peter Kennaugh has also fallen, it is becoming a bit of a worry. Before the Tour started, I highlighted Thomas and Kennaugh as Sky’s likely third and fourth men in Sky’s hierarchy, and Kennaugh has certainly matched my expectations, while Thomas has obviously been unable to show his true strength.
Some final thoughts
I do hope Quintana didn’t have something rude stuck to the back of his jersey (Photo: AP)
-Nairo Quintana has been a joy to watch and looks like the strongest rider behind Froome (with the possible exception of Richie Porte, regardless of Sunday’s stage). His performance is a confirmation of the raw talent he has shown since winning the Tour de l’Avenir in 2010. Funnily enough, the Tour de l’Avenir winner in 2008, a certain Bauke Mollema, isn’t doing too badly himself either. A podium is a possibility for both of these riders.
-Michal Kwiatkowski is proving himself to be the strongest all-rounder in cycling. He can climb, time trial, descend, sprint, ride cobbles…it’s about time we had a rider who is touted as a possible future winner of the Tour of Flanders AND the Tour de France, right? All-rounders are typically popular with fans, too, so I expect ‘Kwiatek’ to be a firm fan favourite in years to come.
-Romain Bardet is enjoying a fine debut. He wants a stage win and is going about it the right way. He rides aggressively and intelligenty, and most importantly, he has bags of talent. I’ve written about him before on this blog, so I’m pleased to see him riding so well. Watch out for him for the rest of the race.
-So many disappointments. Not everyone can impress, unfortunately. To name just a few names, Tejay Van Garderen, Thibaut Pinot, and even Joaquim Rodríguez, have not done their talent justice so far. I really feel for Pinot in particular, who says he is terrified on the descents and feels like his whole Tour is now hopeless. Hopefully he can at least put in a good performance on Mont Ventoux on the coming Sunday, because the stage-long run-in to the climb is entirely flat. Bonne chance, Thibaut.
procyclingfanatic 
Posted on July 8, 2013
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