Tour de Pharmaceutical 2019

Spoke in four languages on the podium as well, a young man of many talents clearly...

Anyway, bit of a damp squib ending with the weather disruption and French hopes falling away, but one of the better tours of recent years, probably the best since Cadel Evans’s battle with the Schlecks and Contador in 2011, when Voeckler played the Alaphilippe role...

Question is whether we will get another contest in the near future or if Bernal will just sweep all before him for years. Will be interesting to see how Ineos manage three “leaders”, if Froome does return to the highest level. He could well end up like Schleck and Beloki in being a shadow of his former self after a serious injury, though, and is approaching the age ceiling for a GC contender in any case. Seeing him as a super-domestique again as per the Wiggins era would be interesting...

The three Grand Tour winners (to be four next year when Giro winner Richard Carapaz joins them for the new season) on one team must be unique - what to do with them all?

As a multiple winner, Froome must still be undisputed number 1 for next year if he regains full fitness. I feel sure he will be given the chance to win his 5th TdF. Bernal as his super-domestique is a credible alternative should he suffer illness or injury.

I can't see G being part of the Tour squad. If I were Dave Brailsford, I'd be minded to see how Thomas felt about going for a Giro/Vuelta double. If he were only to win one of them, he targets the final one in his last years. Retiring having won all three would be a legacy matched by only seven other riders. Carapaz would be an able deputy for this endeavour.

It will be remarkable if Froome is in anything like Tour-winning shape in a year’s time, given the severity of his injuries. Even without that factor, he will be 35, only one man has ever won it beyond that age, and that was nearly 100 years ago!

I guess the route might inform Ineos’s strategy, this year was particularly heavy on high mountains and summit finishes, next year might be more of an all-rounder’s course.

Bradman wrote:Sounds like a muggers picnic.

3 days left and haven't been groped, jostled or even hassled in a mugging sort of way.

But the "salesmen" are like vultured - waiting to pounce everywhere you go.

Don't buy any coffee.

I hate coffee - and headphones - and drugs.

You bringing anything back you miserable old git.

... kidnapped any children?

skully wrote:I hate coffee - and headphones - and drugs.

So WTF did you go to Colombia?

hairy lasso took him

Something like that.