Well done to Froome, King of Mountains and winner of le Tour, amazing. Managed to watch it all today even if I was confused a bit by the commentators, they should have just said straight off that Quintana was a bit crap descending and crashes a lot instead of spouting a load of hyperbole about him and Val Verdi upsetting the applecart
bit of a novice with the tour, but for the past 3 weeks been glued to the t.v. watching it, just a bit confused with the everyone saying Froome won it , when there's still one more stage to go, can someone explain please.
Unless Froome falls off his bike tomorrow and can't get back on he can just tour to the finish, the fight is over, I don't know that much myself but from watching the previous years unless there are a few seconds in it this is what happens.
Last day is essentially a victory parade for the one wearing yellow. Unless on the rare occasion the difference is only a few seconds it's not contested. That would be considered ungentlemanly. Also it's generally a stage for the sprinters to shine.
Have to say on the whole ITV coverage has been very good, really like Chris Boardman as a pundit, but still find it hard to accept David Millar.
I can only go on today, usually Boardman is OK and the other fella they have on, it seemed like they got it a bit wrong though when they kept saying the work riders in the Sky team for Froome had dropped away when they hadn't
They did, on the first climb, but they caught up again. Even so, there was only Richie Porte with him on the last bit. edit: Sorry, Poels too.
But then it's been quite an ungentlemanly tour this year in general hasn't it? Froome getting gobbed on repeatedly by a French public wound up by TV pundit and himself proven but not convicted EPO drug cheat Laurent Jalabert then among the other riders Nibali attacking during a breakdown yesterday, which is also not 'the done thing'. I can't see anything untoward happening tomorrow, but it wouldn't be too much of a shock.
I think what happened on the 2nd climb the SKY riders did get dropped just before the summit, but managed to regroup on the decent which I think was either 12KM or 20 KM (12 miles) Iong, so gave them time to get back together.
I'm sure there were 4 of them again but I could be wrong, wish I'd watched a bit more of it but to be honest it's passed me by this year
On a flat stage it's extremely difficult to make time due to the slipstreaming effect (requires much less effort if you're not on the front). Mountain stages are the only ones worth watching because the impact of the team is reduced, making it more man against man. Everyone wants to win on the Champs-Elysee so the likelihood of Movistar getting a breakaway of over a minute for Quintana are slim to none. Even if Froome falls off, he'll have a new bike in seconds and Sky will just pace him back to the peloton.
Geraint Thomas (yesterday): He did it, huh? Yeah? I didn’t know. Perfect. That’s great news. We worked hard for this. It’s been a real long three weeks. Hard fought for sure, and to finish it off is incredible. [Froome] was controlled yesterday, but today I think he just rode it. We knew he had that advantage and it was just a matter of not blowing up and not getting too carried away. We knew Quintana would attack because he’s strong. But, yeah, it worked out perfect. Just not go into the red, not panic. Ride the power that you know you can. The main thing was not blowing up if he does gain time slowly. We could hear on the radio, you now, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, but the kilometres were ticking down pretty quickly as well, so perfect. [Froome] is super confident and he has that belief. He knows his body really well and he knows how fast to push himself. Everyone knew we had to get over that first climb, and everyone dug deep to have four of us, yeah, it was four wasn’t it, including Chris. It was perfect. We just rode to the bottom of the climb and then it was over to Wout [Poels] and Richie [Porte]. Richie really came up well today. He’s had a few ups and downs this tour, but when it really mattered he was there. I think we can all be proud. We all stuck in and really gave each other everything.
Chris Froome: I can’t quite come to terms with it just yet. There were so many emotions going through my mind going up that last climb. There were moments when I felt that I could be danger but always having my teammates with me, Richie until the end, I thought of all the sacrifices, all the team camps, time away from my wife and my family and everything went through my head. I was on my limit going up that last climb but I just had to find something else just to keep pushing. That was only 110km but it felt like 300. It was such a hard stage. It’s unreal, absolutely unreal. I’m sure that I haven’t quite taken it all on board yet but it’s an unbelievable feeling to be still here wearing this jersey.
On that last climb my heart was in my mouth, I was half expecting some idiot to pull him off his bike, hope they get that bastard who spat at him what a prick.
