Quote Originally Posted by Marco View Post
It's very flowery, Graham, but what does it tell us that we didn't already know from watching yesterday's highlights show?

Kwiatkowski was lucky, and he admitted it himself. Under normal circumstances the breakaway would have been caught before the summit; I think he said "We had a free ticket to the bottom of the climb"

As to the Ineos Grenadier team, they don't have a genuine GC contender and haven't for some time. I don't know if this is through under-funding, (relative to other teams), poor coaching, or bad recruitment. Yes, they've had some bad luck, including a really bad crash to Egan Bernal a while back, but a team of their stature should have two top leaders.

I don't see Ineos Grenadier winning a grand tour anytime soon, unless it is through a top GC contender crashing out and them inheriting the win. If Rodriguez and Pidcock were going to be top GC contenders we should have seen it by now; they are 22 and almost 24 respectively and Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel both won grand tours at 22. Contenders, maybe, but with Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel all racing at the moment it's going to be hard for anyone else to win a grand tour in the foreseeable future.

Not mentioned in Stephen Puddicombe's writing is the other two-horse race in this year's Tour de France; the battle between the Yates twins. In theory it should be Simon, as Adam is doing heavy-duty domestique duties for his boss, but I'm not sure that will be the result as Adam looks to be in slightly better form.
How many potential Grand Tour winners are there around at any one time?

Sometimes you will get a winner by default such as Tao G-H a few years ago at the Giro. But it's bloody tough these days with the increased profile of these races to look beyond the same 4 or 5 riders.

Let's face it everyone thought this TdF was a 2 horse race from the start, with the rest fighting for 3rd place.

If Pogacar, Vingegaard, Roglic or Evanpoel turn up, the rest almost might as well not bother, barring crashes or illness.

So when Ineos have slipped a little from the domination they had, it's only to be expected. They have looked mostly to the Hispanic riders for recruitment, which hasn't worked for them.

They've clearly missed out on Tao G-H as well, who early season looked to be riding better than ever.

In terms of age, cycling age surely must come in to it. I reckon most will get 5 years at the top. That for some could be 22-27 and for others 27-32, much depends on the training and competition pathway they've taken.

Pogacar has been on the radar since age 11, is the youngest to ever win a UCI stage race and completed his first Grand Tour 4 years ago, and Pidcock has only been a Professional for 2 years.