2019 Tour de France
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Alaphillippe now the big favourites with the bookmakers. Thomas odds have soared today.
https://www.oddschecker.com/cycling/tour-de-france/winner
Kruijwijk is my pick to win it now. Both he and his team looked very strong today.
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The clibs have suited Alaphillipe more than they have suited Skineos - for one thing yesterday was a shorter than usual stage and Tourmalet rewards those climbeurs who are puncheurs if they can hang on at the end. Jumbo-Visma have a nasty 1-2 punch with De Plus (who did a lot of the really hard grunt work that sapped Thomas, Porte and Quintana early on) then Bennett who is seriously creating a very solid career - watching Kruiswijk ask him to accelerate the pace three different times - that was freaking special.
You don't win KOM on the TDF these days without having some serious climbing chops in the second and third week - so Alaphillippe who is in better form than most of the peloton is scary asf right now to all the others, But it was good to see Frenchmen winning on the Tourmalet again.
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That was great watching today - seeing all of those big guns dropping off and George powered up the climb! Certainly the most super of the super-domestiques today!
Be interesting to see whether Thomas and Ineos just had a bad day and can come storming back tonight, or whether he's properly cracking. Was very surprising to see those Ineos support riders fall away without them really having had to do a great deal of work all tour.
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@sparky Turning out to be the most exciting tour for ages. Any of the first six could realistically win from here, with just 40 seconds covering 2nd to 6th.
Right now, Pinot looks the strongest, but that could easily not be the case with another week of racing in the legs - and three huge mountain stages at the end.
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@Chris-B said in 2019 Tour de France:
@sparky Turning out to be the most exciting tour for ages. Any of the first six could realistically win from here, with just 40 seconds covering 2nd to 6th.
Right now, Pinot looks the strongest, but that could easily not be the case with another week of racing in the legs - and three huge mountain stages at the end.
Why is there an Asterisk by Egan Bernal?
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Pinot is riding like he is the guy to beat, but that wind disaster might end up being the difference.
The end of the mountain stages are brilliant, just watching guys with empty tanks dropping out the back, not matter what their name.