Does anyone rate Rasmussen as a genuine GC chance?, There is only 109km of ITT in total, with a lot of mountains still to come. Could he ride everyone off his wheels again getting big mins and hold on?..
Yeah, no doubt. He has three minutes basically one everyone, and i reckon he can hold 4mins in the TTs, just. I think it's all about the Pyrennes for him. The past three years he has attacked in the Alps and won, but no doubt he can climb. He said he wanted yellow, now hes got, and yesterday he, " i'd be stupid not to defend it ". Honestly, if he holds this lead tommorow, he may be the first since Pantani. Also, he has the team.The Double Zero said:Does anyone rate Rasmussen as a genuine GC chance?, There is only 109km of ITT in total, with a lot of mountains still to come. Could he ride everyone off his wheels again getting big mins and hold on?
What seems inexplicable is how come, assuming Moreau is clean and his resurgence the last couple of years is due to a cleaner peloton, is how come he TTs relatively poorly now and climbs well?ad9898 said:All i can say is doping must have had a huge impact on the tour in previous years when you have the likes of Moreau "attacking", when in previous years he was "average" in the mountains and to think he's 36 now.
and I don't want to see him winning.Trev_S said:Nah, I don't think so.
He can hold Yellow up until Stage 13's TT.
He could try and gain time tonight (stage 9) but with 40km's of descending he'd have to have a very big lead at the summit of the Galibier. Unlikely given his efforts on stage 7. He won't be as fresh as some.
Stage 9 won't really suit Rasmussan so maybe it would be best for him to just mark the others, conserve & recover. Ride a max all out effort in the TT to limit his loss there, loose the GC lead, then go on the attack again in the pyranees hill top finishes, stage 14 & 16. The catch for him would be could whether he could do that successfully as he is going to need anything between 6 & 8 mins lead before the final TT to have a chance.
I can't see him winning.
He needs more time. A lot more time. It's not that Rasmussen doesn't excel on the TTs --- he's flat out horrible. He finished 9 minutes behind the winner in last year's stage 19 ITT, and 6 minutes behind in the first ITT. In this year's prologue, a mere 8K, he lost over a minute, finishing in 166th place. In other words, he's likely to lose at least 3-6 minutes, in my estimation, to those who challenge him for the GC -- in each ITT. He needs six minutes minimum cushion to even have a chance, and they're not going to let him go again like they did on Sunday. He'll have to ride them off his wheel more than once, and I just don't see that happening.Tubbs said:he put a solid defence of the yellow jersey today. He does have half decent helpers afterall. (Boogerd and Dekker) I still think he needs to take more time in the mountains. Maybe he won't lose as much time on saturday's TT as one might think. At about the 38km mark there is a Cat 4 climb. Everyone is expecting him to lose gobs of time on saturday, which very well may happen, but if he can limit those losses, he will be tough to beat.
ewwFrihed89 said:Rasmussen says he will "defend" the yellow jersey. If he does that in the typical manner, the answer is: no, he stands very little chance of winning the GC. To win the Tour, he must destroy his mountain-riding competition by attacking them hard enough and often enough so that they have no legs and will left to attack him and, in the process, build up an unsurmountable and demoralizing lead for the TTs ahead.
Can one man do this alone? Any man? Dope or no dope? Without a team? Will any other team help?
Frank Schelck can win the tour if Rasmssen can not.
Both are my outside shots.
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