OlympicsFan

How are those things related?

I understand your reasoning, but then you should also criticize players like Zverev or Djokovic.

It was a very low quality match, but very entertaining/unpredictable for me. Thiem choked away the first two sets and Zverev choked away the fifth set. The pressure of being the Favorit obviously got to Thiem, but I think in the future he will be more relaxed in slam finals.

I think they have a bunch of medal chances in sports like athletics, sailing or Mountainbike. I also don’t see why he shouldn’t skip the Olympics if he can earn more money/ranking points somewhere else.

I think it is pretty accurate to say that the polka dot jersey is for the French what the team classification is for the Spanish teams (Movistar). They are the only ones to care about it, but they are still super thrilled to win it each year.

Maybe Sagan should go for the polka dot in the future? At this point it seems like a more realistic goal for him ...

I hope not. This is the last thing that is left for France. Of course they will probably give the combativity award to some French guy, but they probably also want a jersey to get over the failure of Pinaut.

And why would it matter?

After witnessing the improvements of Pogacar and Roglic I am really interested to see what time Mismas can run in women’s 3000 m SC tomorrow. I think overall there will be some nice performances at the ISTAF in Berlin tomorrow.

If that was the idea ... then his teammates didn’t do a very good job. They seem to have imitated him too well by doing absolutely nothing for the last 2 weeks. Edit: This also reminds me of a question Someone asked on german Television a couple of days ago after Buchmann lost a lot of time: “So will Buchmann just ride along like a tourist from on?“ Answer by the German tv expert: “Maybe you should try to ride a stage like that before you call him a tourist“ It was quite funny, you almost got the impression that the guy (on his couch at home) saw it as a personal insult that Buchmann wasn’t able to do any better.

They are playing 4d chess while the rest is playing checkers ... just like Johnson with his Brexit strategy.

He was trash until yesterday and still isn’t at his best (from the Dauphine). Hopefully he will be able to take Buchmann‘s place in a couple of years.

Sadly all for nothing. This is the second stage where Bora went all out for Sagan and for the second time Sagan wasted his chance. I think this might be his last chance to win green and it’s not looking good.

German commentators said that he has a role as a mentor, also he had a crash earlier this year, so he clearly isn’t at his best.

You obviously never heard of Milan Erzen ... Also the UCI president seems to think a bit differently ...

1) Currently there is no Irish guy who is even remotely close to being lightyears away from winning the Tour. 2) Kelly never was a tour contender, so the situation is not comparable. 3) Even if Ireland would have had two riders like that I am not sure how that would be relevant here. The fact that it happened before doesn’t make it natural and doesn’t tell us anything about the reasons. Slovenia is poorer than most western/northern European countries + cycling isn’t more popular there + they only have a tiny talent pool, so if they would be doing the same as all the other nations, then the probability of them having the two best riders (by coincidence) would be ultra low. There are only two explanations: 1) They got insanely lucky (like once in a millennium lucky). 2) They figured something out that all the other nations didn’t figure out. Everyone has to decide for himself whether he considers 1) or 2) more likely.

It always depends on the point of reference. I guess compared to Croatia no country is poor, but compared to most of Western and Northern Europe Slovenia certainly is poor(er). I don’t no anything about their sports system, but I very much doubt that they invest nearly as much in cycling as Spain/Italy/Germany/GB/France/Netherlands or even Switzerland/Belgium/Austria, still all those countries combined can’t manage to produce a single contender for the yellow jersey this year while Slovenia produced 2. No French, belgian, dutch, german, swiss or danish rider has won the Tour in the last 20 years, yet Slovenia is able to produce two guys in one year who are both superior to everyone else.

I understand Colombia, but Slovenia is super weird. Small (2 million people) + poor + no tradition -> Completely destroying all the big countries (Spain, France, Netherlands, Germany, GB, Italy)

How many world records will be broken? Crouser and Warholm might finally do it, not so sure about Barega.

Sad to see that you have nothing better to do with your life than trolling.

It was Pogacar‘s own fault ...

Amazing stage, heroic effort by Hirschi, i feel really sorry for him. This is the 2nd time he narrowly missed the win, but I am sure that he will get there. This year the tour seems much more open and I find it much more enjoyable that way. Sky dominating every year was pretty boring. I still think that it will only be between Pogacar and Roglic, but hopefully at least those two will really battle it out.

97.76 m! Also had 94.84 m, which is also better than anyone else except Zelezyn has ever thrown. Vetter said that it would have gone over 100 m if it wouldn’t have been in a closed stadium. Edit: He improved his own German record by 3.32 m. I feel really sorry for him, he can only lose at this point. Unless he wins Olympic gold next year everyone will say that he messed up.

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

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.