Professional Cycling 2023 - No Country for Old Men

Yeah he is incredible. He could go for it, but I think he'll go for the World Championship, which I believe he's announced as well. But he can't win the WC each year, that depends on the route, whereas he can "always" win the Vuelta.

Who knows what he'll do, he's unstoppable, but I don't think he'll go Vuelta this year.

He's definitely said earlier that he won't ride the Vuelta and just yesterday UAE have said that they won't send him because they don't want to burn him out. I'm pretty sure he'll be targeting the World Championship + Olympics and then Lombardia later.

Giro, Tour, Olympic Gold would also be a decent triple, although I suspect he won’t be strong enough to win the tt

Very good stage by Jonas today. Pog is the strongest of course and the way he pulled away in the final 300m showed what he had in reserve but it was clear to see 1,2,3 in this year’s race

I don’t really follow the Points classification but I was surprised to see Pog so low in that (I think 5th or 6th?) despite 5 wins and 2 second places. Girmay has 3 wins.

Is it that mountain stage wins count for less points than flat stages or simply that the intermediate sprint points are more important?

thanks - that makes sense

Yeah the green is basically for sprint points, as opposed to the red polkadot mountain points. Green contenders generally get carried into a good position (after otherwise boring stages), to very briefly output massive power, and some of them actually struggle to finish in time on certain mountain stages.

After weeks of mountains where there is just more time to be won/lost, the general winners are by definition good at mountain stages, and you can see more orange (and purple) than green on this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_To...

Armstrong is obviously not on there and isn't mentioned on the mountain winner list, but I'd guess he had a ton of mountain points too.

Villagery comment. Dead wrong, but from a v!Viggo pov. ♥

Mmmm. He probably won't often win both the Giro and the Tour. This might be a unique opportunity to win all 3. But who knows what his desires and the teams plans are.

Time Trial = Race of Truth was 100% on. Top 3 on stage = top 3 in GC

The thing that struck me most was that Pog got straight off his bike and celebrated - it clearly wasn't a max effort for him over the final km. He had more in him

Great performance by him but also extremely impressive from Jonas and an excellent 1st tour for Remco.

Remco will be disappointed to be 3rd on that stage I think. 1 week only til Olympic time trial and I wonder how all 3 will recover. Surely there are fresher athletes than these 3?

Yeah not exactly the greatest take in hindsight LOL

It seems to me like it was more a case of Pogacar releasing some pent up anger from the past two years - his comment about Vingegaard clearly being in the form of his life after he lost that one stage also felt more about talking himself up. I think he has probably been very frustrated about losing the prior two years, having to listen to people saying Jonas was a better GC rider and so on.

Feels like we saw a different side of him. I don't find it particularly charming, but I can respect the winning mentality - which is probably part of his huge success that has made him considered an all-time great at the age of 25. I certainly tip my hat to him, and witnessing a guy spoken about as rivalling Merkx - and who may at some point be talked about as superseding him is nothing short of incredible.

He reminds me of Cristiano Ronaldo in that sense; he wants to be the best at everything always, and cannot stand to be seen as even #2. I'm hoping we see that Vingegaard is actually Messi next July.

Jonas isn't doing Olympics, and Pogi only does road race (I think?), and the main competitors for the road race are guys who were also at the Tour and not in peak condition (although not doing GC) (MvdP, WvA, Pedersen - who was in great form but crashed out so probably not peak either).

It shouldn't be a huge problem to stay in good form if it was time right, although probably not peak condition.

It might be difficult to best Tarling and Ganna for Remco at the TT, but he still has a solid shot for at least a podium.

Yes I saw the Pog road race news after I posted. It surprises me but idk - he can do everything so let’s see

Turns out Pogacar won't be going to the Olympics at all due to fatigue.

I'm 100% convinced that MvdP is peaking for the Olympics and will be better there than he was at the Tour. I also wouldn't be surprised if Wout's form will be better since it's further removed from his Spring crash.

I'd be shocked if Ganna or Tarling doesn't win the olympics TT. As a Remco fan, I'd be thrilled with a non-gold medal

Yeah MvdP will be the guy to beat - especially now that there's no Pogi.

Remco with the gold in TT.

Obviously a bit fortunate that Tarling had to change bike, but still. It's unbelievable that less than a week ago, he defended a Grand Tour podium easily ahead of everyone not named Jonas and Tadej, and today he beats TT specialists who had better prep than he did. World + Olympic champion at 24, just incredible.

Also a great result from WvA. Belgium will be scary for the road race.

Tom Pidcock now a 2 time Olympic gold in mountain bike.
Also world champ at cyclo cross as well as mountain bike and an Alpe d’Huez stage winner.

Building a pretty impressive resume at age 24. He still has one more event in Paris.

I wonder what his long term goals are?

Besides Pogi, is there any rider in the peloton with a better career resume than Remco already has?

Roglic

very impressive by Remco. He's earned his moules frites and a few beers

Crazy stuff in the women's tour. Vollering losing the tour by 3 seconds because of her own teammate

triple crown for Pog after a suitably impressive and aggressive win yesterday