On Friday afternoon, when a journalist friend came across in the Tour de France pressroom to say he'd be heading home soon rather than seeing out the race all the way to Paris, somebody joked "how can you do that when the Tour's the most exciting it's been in 17 years?"
That's not completely accurate by any means - without thinking too hard, you could argue Tours like 2008, 2009, 2011 and the last week of 2015 were all memorably dramatic, too. But there's no denying that as the 2017 Tour reaches its third weekend, the GC battle stands on a knife-edge that we've rarely seen in recent Julys. Nobody has been able to gain a significant advantage, and some top names that were seemingly out for the count have revived their GC status just when it was least expected.
Take Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team). Having drifted off the pace and seemingly surrendered the GC battle on the Peyresourde on Thursday, the Colombian blasted back into contention with a day-long break on Friday that concluded with him losing the stage to Warren Barguil (Team Sunweb), but gaining the bonus of two minutes on the overall leader, Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team). The result is that Quintana has re-moulded what looked like a disastrous Tour for him back into something that could - just - end up going his way.
ADVERTISEMENT
Amazingly, given he is now hovering at two minutes and seven seconds back, the former Giro and Vuelta winner is the least of Aru's concerns. Theoretically, six other riders well within that 127 second time margin all could turn the tables far more easily on the Italian.
The prime candidate to do so, for reasons of his proximity to the yellow, team strength, the course route (that time trial next Saturday) and - above all - because of very recent Tour history, is Chris Froome (Team Sky). Thursday's moment of disintegration represented a significant setback for the Briton and many of Friday's numerous testing attacks were as much designed to see how he could react as whether Aru would buckle under the pressure. It didn't happen, suggesting Froome is already bouncing back from Thursday's crisis with his usual formidable tenacity when under pressure. How high the Briton will bounce back, though, remains anyone's guess, and could well define this year's Tour outcome.
Yet Froome's failure to take the Tour by the scruff of the neck as he has done in 2013, 2015 and 2016 (and some might say he could well have done in 2012 given a different set of circumstances) confirms that at best for the Briton, this will, as he has predicted before the race, "be the hardest ever Tour I've ever had to fight." At worst for Froome, Thursday was the earliest symptom of a generational handover of power and fading strength that, at 32, was bound to come sooner or later.
- Quintana's Tour de France hopes rise from the ashes in Foix
- Uran and Cannondale-Drapac serious about their podium ambitions
- Landa: I'd love to win the Tour de France but I know my place
- Contador overcomes Tour de France injuries with long-distance attack
- Froome: Landa is a real threat for Tour de France title
- Aru lets Team Sky attack as he focuses on defending yellow jersey
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2uk3On7
No comments:
Post a Comment