Le Tour de Pharmaceutical 2021

Last interesting stage tonight.

... and it’s all over now. Another amazing ride by Pogacar. He won’t win the Green Jersey, but all the others are safely in his keeping. A battle between Vingegard and Carapaz for second, and perhaps O’Connor can hang on for fourth.

lardbucket wrote:He won’t win the Green Jersey

Needs to work on his sprinting for next year then

The polka dot jersey might as well have a yellow background, given the bias towards the big GC stage finishes. Still, if anyone else really wanted it they perhaps should have set out to mop up the points earlier on in proceedings.

All over red rover with Pogacar in an unassailable position (barring a crash). Just another sprinters stage & the time trial to go.

Cav going for the record tonight?

Matej Mohoric takes out the stage after the main contenders were happy to protect their positions back in the Peloton. Time trial tonight should sort out the minor placings.

All down to Paris for Cav then. I’ve a feeling he’s not going to ever want to drag himself over the Tourmalet again…

Stunning TT countryside - the heart of the Bordeaux wine region.

JGK wrote:Stunning TT countryside - the heart of the Bordeaux wine region.

Pogacar could have filled his water bottle with it and not lost the yellow jersey…

WOUT VAN AERT wins the TT with no change to the GC. Final stage today is really just a procession with Pogacar being crowned at the end.

A certain man in green and his team won’t quite see it that way…

WOUT VAN AERT & JASPER PHILIPSEN deny Cav the record. Matthews finished seventh. Congrats to Pogacar who cleaned up overall.

Can anyone stop him in the next decade, barring dope testers?

Vingegaard should be better for the experience (not forgetting he was effectively racing week 1 as a domestique), Roglic may be back and it was only a couple of years ago we thought Bernal was going to be the next dominant force. But all those things considered, Pogacar looks pretty short odds to be the second first man to win more than five

beamer wrote:Can anyone stop him in the next decade, barring dope testers?

If he can replicate current form he should have a long run.

It will really just be about desire you’d think.

JGK wrote:It will really just be about desire you’d think.

And his ambitions beyond one event. Lord Voldemort of Texas practically went into hibernation for 11 months of the year in the days when he was running the show… today’s riders seem more interested in the other Grand Tours and a wider spectrum of events. Pogacar looks capable of a calendar year Grand Slam which I don’t think has ever been done.

UAE’s team manager has something of a dodgy history by the way, including the notorious Saunier Duval team of the mid-late ‘00s. People starting to fling around accusations of both pharmaceutical and mechanical doping, though aimed at more than one team and with no obvious concrete evidence of either (bar “strange noises coming from a few bikes”).