Rascal said:
Interesting stuff lads.
From what you have been saying it does sound like a massive missed opportunity as i dont expect Porte to have another bad day like Sunday. Team Sky apart from Froome had a collective shocker especially in losing Kiri, but now they have a few flat days were they can recuperate ready for Ventoux or will the other teams force Sky to chase all week? And if Sky have to chase Cav would be made up surely as his train can sit in the peloton and make it easier for them for stage wins.
Do you think Porte being out of the GC is a good or bad thing? Can he concentrate on just helping Froome now his podium chances are gone. On saturday he attacked and maybe that took more out of him that he realised and now he doesnt have too at all because if Froome goes he can rest up and ride in.
I don't think Porte being out of GC makes a great deal of difference to be honest Rascal. First and foremost his job coming into the tour was to protect Froome, and bury himself on his behalf if needed, that hasn't changed. The podium was always going to be a bonus for him. On the negative side it limits Sky tactically somewhat, but balancing that out Porte can now conserve energy in the individual time trials if he wishes, so it's neither good nor bad in that sense. I think they would have preferred him still to be right up there in GC but it's not a massive blow (provided of course it's a one off and not symptomatic of an inability to handle back to back mountain stages in this heat)
As for your other question about this week, that's a real wait and see one. Normally Sky would be looking at a serene few days where the sprint trains take the lead, and that still may be the case, but I wouldn't rule out other teams trying to test their strength out on the flat, especially if the wind blows and theirs the chance of echelons. To some extent the complete dominance Froome showed on Saturday could end up counting against him. With such a large margin of victory in one fell swoop he effectively took a lot of good riders and even whole teams (i.e FDJ, Europcar, even BMC to a degree) out of the GC picture. Those guys will still want something from the tour, i.e stage wins or shows of strength, and with the shackles off they may be looking to animate the race as much as possible. Fractured racing means Sky will have to concentrate to make sure people of danger aren't sneakily slipping off the front in to breaks. Alternatively it may be the sprint teams who take the lead in controlling things with a really high pace, which again could be punishing for all the Peleton and particularly Sky if Sunday is any indicator.
Ultimately the riders make the race so we'll just have to see how they choose to play it.
Course that could all be rubbish! :)
