Quote Originally Posted by Marco View Post
Evenepoel had a bad day. The difference is, however, that either Evenepoel, or his director in the team car, is very intelligent. Instead of losing 3-4 minutes, and still being a threat, Evenepoel chose to have an easier day and lose a huge amount of time. By no longer being a threat to the GC leaders he was allowed to get into breaks and win stages.

Proof of this tactical genius is that he changed tack completely mid-race and won the Mountains category, the Combative category, and had Kaden Groves failed to finish he would have won the Points category too. He also won three stages, had three second places, and gained more publicity for his team than any squad other than the yellow and black one.



I might have agreed with you about Pogačar before the time-trial, but I'm now firmly in agreement with L'Equipe - and they started the Tour de France in 1903 and have been following it ever since.
I haven't seen that either Evenepoel or his director have acknowledged such genius, more that it was assumed by followers of the sport and pundits.
Have they come out with such an admission?
I do see it as a likely conclusion and the doubt I have is about when he started to ship time, it was on the Aubisque which isn't the toughest climb and was only 50km in. It also seemed incredible that Almeida took such a big hit as well without LJ even trying that hard and their other main rider Soler also had a below par day.

Funnily enough considering the matter at hand, the day after what Evanepoel did put me in mind of Landis

A still maintain Pogacar was under-prepared and rode recklessly early on in the TdF. I expect we will see a different Pogacar next year.

I don't think the sport is helped at the moment by a couple of teams having so many riders that would be main GC in other teams.
I suppose Sky started that.
But for GC contenders these days you are looking at riders from only a few teams.