Men's Road Cycling UCI World Tour 2020 (Tour de France)

[OlympicsFan 858]

15 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

There was a period, around when Sagan had his three-peat at the Worlds, where he actually was a very solid sprinter and a solid tactician. In his early career he had the speed, but the lacked the tactics to win more sprints. Now, it seems like both tactics and speed are starting to leave him, or at least he’s having a poor year in the saddle. Like some others said, it’s a long tour and he may improve, but I have yet to be impressed by his performance. I’d say he has only his team to thank for that green jersey right now. 

He used to be a very good sprinter, but he never was on the same level as guys like Kittel or Cavendish. In my opinion the green jersey should be for the best sprinter, so there shouldn't be any intermediate sprints. You only get points for finishing top 5 or top 10.

[OlympicsFan 858]

15 hours ago, hckosice said:

Jeez, I sometimes feel like a parrot. Every year repeating the same...The Green Jersey is NOT and never was the Best sprinter competition or the fastest sprinter competition,

 

The Green Jersey is the trophy for the Points Race competition winner. Riders have to collect points throughout the competition. The one who will collect the more points will win the points competition thus the green jersey.

 

Period.

 

 

Yes, i think everyone knows that. People criticize it because they think that the green jersey SHOULD be for the best sprinter, not because they think that it actually IS for the best sprinter.

[dcro 10,210]

3 hours ago, hckosice said:

cool, but why the sprinters should be favored ?

 

They do have already 50 points for flat stage win, a sprinter can win 4 stages and has already 200 points than can finish the whole tour on the gruppeto without moving his ass in the hardest stages.

 

The intermediate sprints before the climbs is just ridiculous, this completely removed any chance for breakaways for riders fighting for the Green, there absolutely no more motivation for them to attack if their only goal of the stage is before already the first mini climb at KM 20.

 

But yeah, I understand it is the highest time to stop Sagan

 

 

It really is not. Actually, Sagan's domination seems to be getting plenty of approval on this forum.

Just imagine if he was from Britain. We would never hear the end of people complaining about him then.

[OlympicsFan 858]

3 hours ago, hckosice said:

cool, but why the sprinters should be favored ?

 

They do have already 50 points for flat stage win, a sprinter can win 4 stages and has already 200 points than can finish the whole tour on the gruppeto without moving his ass in the hardest stages.

 

The intermediate sprints before the climbs is just ridiculous, this completely removed any chance for breakaways for riders fighting for the Green, there absolutely no more motivation for them to attack if their only goal of the stage is before already the first mini climb at KM 20.

 

But yeah, I understand it is the highest time to stop Sagan

 

 

So what exactly is Sagan's achievement? He collects points by being a better climber than the other (true) sprinters, while still being a horrible climber compared to the top guys. Why should someone be rewarded for being the best climber out of a group of horrible climbers? In my opinion sprinters by definition have to be bad at climbing because they have to carry a lot of extra muscle mass that is bad for climbing but good for sprinting. Normally it should be physically impossible to be good at both (except for a freak like Van Aert) and that's why there should be separate jerseys for sprinters and climbers.

[OlympicsFan 858]

3 minutes ago, dcro said:

It really is not. Actually, Sagan's domination seems to be getting plenty of approval on this forum.

Just imagine if he was from Britain. We would never hear the end of people complaining about him then.

I guess it helps that he never wins any stages ...

[Grassmarket 3,408]

Anyway, he gets an easy ride today - large breakaway group of ordinary French riders showing off for the weekend crowd take the big points, so Sagan & Bennett will scrap for single figures.

[heywoodu 15,141]

3 minutes ago, Grassmarket said:

Anyway, he gets an easy ride today - large breakaway group of ordinary French riders showing off for the weekend crowd take the big points, so Sagan & Bennett will scrap for single figures.

Sagan in good shape would have had good chances to gain a good amount of points this weekend, but he's not in the lead group today. Maybe tomorrow, when the sprint is after the first big climb, although he just doesn't seem nearly good enough to survive a climb like that this week.

[Grassmarket 3,408]

Well that didn’t work out - Bennett got 2pts, Sagan, like Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest, got zero, so more work to be done.

 

Now, big climbs!

 

Nizzolo abandons.

[heywoodu 15,141]

Too bad Nizzolo got injured, in his shape he'd have been probably one of the two or three biggest favorites for the green

[dcro 10,210]

Cool, Toms is in the front group.