<
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| Ryan John Cousineau wrote:
|
| > Stage 18, the day before the final TT, and the day after they leave the
big
| > mountains. Landis has a couple of minutes on GC against all comers, the
| > T-Mobile team have all had their mandatory jours sans, and after a
[random
| > misfortune] Kloden is not in contention. The stage starts out tired, but
| > somewhere around the first sprint point, a group of ten riders takes
off,
| > with no Phonak representation, and . . . Christophe Moreau and Eddy
| > Mazzoleni have snuck into the bunch!
| >
| > Nightmare scenario for Landis: his team sucks, so the hopes to chase
down
| > and control such a break are marginal. This isn't an obvious stage for
| > sprinters, so those teams won't help. T-Mobile is strong, but if they're
| > represented in the break, they'll sit in.
| >
| > The break works well together, and the decimated Phonak cannot catch
the
| > break. Landis ends up trying to pull the peloton himself.
|
| In addition to the other objections people raised to this
| possibility, you're exaggerating Phonak's incapacity.
| Phonak has Axel, Perdiguero, Mourenhout, Jalabert,
| Bert Grabsch, Hunter, Moos and Pena. There are some
| pretty good rouleurs in that bunch (Axel, Grabsch, Pena
| for starters). Their problem is that they don't have anybody
| who's showing climbing ability right now, except Axel,
| more or less.
|
| They'll be tired by stage 18, but so will everyone else. Also,
| stage 18 is fine for sprinters and one of their last chances,
| so if the MJ's team can keep a break within a few minutes,
| the sprinters' team will take over at the end.
|
| Their bigger problem is a lack of climbers. There are three
| hard Alpine stages in a row. If the MJ, whoever it is, has a
| weakened team, and a group attacks on the climb before
| the last one and forces the MJ to burn up his team chasing,
| leaving him isolated before the last climb, that's a weak spot.
|
| I don't think this would happen on stage 15 to Alpe d'Huez -
| the second climb, the Lauteret, is probably not hard enough.
| But on stage 17 to Morzine, there is a section of flat after the
| first series of cols and before the Joux-Plane. If the leader
| arrives here with a break up the road, no teammates, and
| everyone looking at him to chase, forcing him to the front
| for 15 km, he's got problems.
|
| For reasons other people gave, there will probably be
| other teams that help chase. And you can't count on
| T-Mobile to execute successfully. Still, don't risk bonking
| on the Joux-Plane, Floyd - take an extra clif bar.
Well spotted. That one section could give problems. I'm sure Rabobank and
Menchov haven't forgotten losing the Vuelta last year when Heras was able to
drop Mechov getting up a hard climb before a long flat, and gain some
precious extra seconds going all out on the descent in order to rejoin his
waiting teammates at the bottom and power away from an isolated Menchov on
the flats. If Menchov trails Landis at that point, I think they might try
something similar.
However, according to Floyd, he didn't have many teammates by design. All
but one were told to take it easy. Landis has said that now with the yellow
jersey, thats probably no longer possible. It could of course be BS to try
to cover up the team's weakness. Like Kloden's "cramp". If it were really a
strategy, I'd let the world go on thinking it was a problem. The cardinal
rule of racing is to make the other guy think that you're weak when you're
strong, and that you're strong when you're weak.
<http://blog.reippuert.dk>
