patch70 said:
Great to see you're still as stupid as before.
Right, so only DSC can "permit" stage victories. Because none of the other teams are interested in such trivia and wouldn't want to chase down an attack for their own riders. And obviously nobody cares about winning on the Champs, so they just let Vino ride away from them because they just wanted a beer rather than the minimal glory of a final stage victory. Clearly you are the most idiotic person alive.
There were a lot of tactics on the day Vino went away with the cleanest and most consistent rider in the peloton: Santiago-King-of-the-mountains-one-day-lose-15 minutes-on Ventoux-the-next-Botero. There had already been a flurry of attacks and a blazing tempo from the start of the stage which went over La Madeleine and Telegraphe-Galibier, quote from Levi: "School is still in. Yesterday professor Discovery taught a lesson on how to ride your bike like a motorcycle. Today's lesson was how to ride your bike like Valentino Rossi's motorcycle. It was fast."
Everyone was very tired from the dy before because the infernal tempo Disco set on Cormet de Roseland and Courchevel. Not my opinion, read the words of Levi Leipheimer after that stage: " Discovery took care of that on the final climb to Courchevel. It's like recess is over, the teachers are back and school is in. Lesson number one - how to destroy a field of riders and take back a yellow jersey…that's what we learnt in school today."
The tempo was fast from the gun, mutiple attacks, no one except Disco could or needed to control the break, It was in everyone interest to let a break get away. The only problem was they had to keep Botero and Vino within reasonable time.
Lance:
"Well, he definitely wasn't our concern today," Armstrong responded when asked why his team let Vinokourov go.
"Our main concern was to keep the team together. He's now six and a half minutes behind on GC and we can't chase down everybody who's at 5, 6, 7 minutes - we have to prioritise. And he was not on our list of priorities, so we let him out there and controlled the pace. If his objective was to win a stage - mission accomplished. If his objective was to blow up the Discovery team - mission not accomplished."
Obviously T Mobile would not chase their rider unless he got way up on Ullrich.
Jan:
"Today there wasn't any attacks in the main bunch. Lance let his boys drive hard so nobody could go. "
CSC perhaps not strong enough to chase and would help them to tire Disco out. Phonak couldnt chase Botero. Rabobank not strong enough to chase for Rasmussen. And Ileas Balares was having its own problems with Valverde going out the same day.
So yes, Disco, like most riders have said control the race, period.
Read Jan Ullrich's words to the same effect over this weekend--that without Disco controlling the race it will actually be much harder a race and unpredictable.
So folks need to get over their anti-Lance or anti-Discovery attitude and realize that the strongest team in professional cycling and in the TdF will ultimately control the race and that often works out failry well for most riders in the race.
