Never had him down as a future winner. What a legend. Bit emotional watching all the coverage to be honest.
It’s a lovely story. Not a huge fan of the internal politics surrounding tour cycling so I’m made up that he has won here.
Six wins in the past seven years for Team Sky, with three different cyclists. Not bad for a team that suffers so much with Asthma. It's surprising how many guys who have such a serious condition, want to take up such a demanding sport.
In the mid 90's I had a flat mate called Geraint (he liked to be called Ger). I have to say we spent 3 summers DJing in Ibiza & would probably not have passed a random drugs test. The rest is speculation. He seems to have nailed the tour.
First British born winner. Been a big fan of his since he was winning Olympic golds, so glad he finally got the big one.
I think you will find I was joking. Although I did live with Geraint, he was more of a rugby union winger & total womaniser.
and it’s not just cycling, there’s a surprising number of footballers and athletes with it. Funny the kid with actual asthma in my sons year 6 class finishes last in running races, weird or what?
Love him as a bloke, he’s much more likeable than both Wiggins & Froome & 99% of sportsman but do we believe what we’re watching? Riding for a team that went from massively under performing given their budget in 2010 to the best stage racing team in the world for the next 8 seasons virtually over one winter, the same winter in which Geert Leinders who doped riders at Rabobank joined the team as a doctor. Since then we’ve had Wiggins take Kenacort before his grand tours & Froome getting caught with a ridiculous amount of Salbutamol in his system & the case has basically been thrown out because the UCI can’t afford a legal battle with Team Sky because of their budget. On top of that there was the ‘accidental’ delivery of testosterone to Team Sky headquarters. Massive foreign talents join Sky & don’t perform (Lokvist, Boasson Hagon, Henao) yet Sky can turn track specialists (Wiggins & Thomas) & pack fodder (Froome) into grand tour winners. Why does whatever Team Sky are doing only seem to work on certain British riders? I can’t get my head round why riders around the 70+ kg mark are not only the best time trial lists but also the best climbers. You could explain it previously with EPO for Indurain & Armstrong but how are Froome, Thomas, Dumoulin & Roglic outclimbing Quintana, Bardet, Landa etc but also putting minutes into them in time trials. Riders like Landa & Fuglsang saying they’re performing at the same level as last year but are nowhere near the yellow jersey. Then there’s the motors question, lots of rumours about riders using them. Froome on the Ventoux in 2013, Roglic at Strade Bianche, Cancellara in classics, strange wheel spinning incidents following crashes. None of it makes any sense. Not just digging cycling out by the way, I don’t believe half of what I see in football, tennis, athletics, boxing, at least cycling actually does blood testing & tries to do something to address doping.
Amazing isn't it. I also don't get why the last stage is redundant. That whoever is leading with a stage to go is the actual winner looks like match fixing. I don't get why the final stage isn't like all the others.
It’s just tradition, on the last day the leader & his team along with the other teams all pose for photos riding round Paris, the winners even drink champagne. In theory any rival could get on the front & attack but it’d be frowned upon whilst Thomas or Froome for example are at the back taking photos. The race does come alive in about the last 40k & all the sprinters go for it still so all the top 20 or so ensure they stay at the front to not lose any time. Even if Dumoulin for example attacked the chance of him making any time up on Thomas is virtually impossible, they tend to have the biggest stages just before the final day so he’d be knackered & trying to attack Thomas after going incredibly deep in a time trial & big mountain stage where as Thomas would just put his team on the front & have 5 riders chasing him down on big, wide, flat roads. There’d also be several sprint teams chasing him down as well. Just be pretty pointless
