2019 Road Racing Season Omnibus (Spoilers Guaranteed)

[72gmc]

the stage behind a point they had been racing to... who knows how they would have metered their efforts had they known it would have ended on iseran.

I don't know if it would have been safe to do so, but I agree with stopping the stage after the climb and the descent. Today's result feels like the game was called after half an inning.

edit: or neutralize the stage with respect to GC.

[jdp211]

Calling the stage off was definitely the right call, especially with images of mud/rock slides and deep icy water in the road. That said, calling results from an arbitrary spot on the course doesn't make sense. GC results should be nullified and try again tomorrow.

[DOOFUS]

GC results should be nullified and try again tomorrow.

Do that and it looks like ASO is fixing it for the home boy.

Calling it on the summit was awkward, but not much to race for on the descent -- Alaphillipe was already done -- and it was only awkward for the 10-20 who had already cleared the summit.

Let Ineos run a train and Bernal to win the stage tomorrow and nobody will quibble.

[72gmc]

Alaphillipe was already done

Doof, you're arguing that Skyneos should get the benefit of the doubt because they've made the Tour unwatchable for years and will probably do so again tomorrow. I am surprised.

[claritycycler]

I think from a logistics point of view the summit was the only place to stop the race/timing, how is it possible to get accurate times somewhere down the descent, who and how would the finish be determined?

[TTX1]

Hey, I was offline all morning.

Did I miss anything?

[thollandpe]

Hey, I was offline all morning.

Did I miss anything?

This would have been the year to have Andy Hampsten on your fantasy Tour team.

[DOOFUS]

Doof, you're arguing that Skyneos should get the benefit of the doubt because they've made the Tour unwatchable for years and will probably do so again tomorrow. I am surprised.

Even if Alaphillipe makes up that margin -- that big margin -- on the long descent, Ineos and Lotto work him over one last time on the climb to Tignes. He was cooked, and no one showed that they could follow Bernal on the Iseran. So, Skyneos once again showed they were the dominant team, and set their best man up for an overall win.

Ending the stage at the summit of the Iseran made the most sense of the available options, and after what we saw on that climb, the overall standings after today reflect the strength of the riders and the teams. Thomas and Kruijswijk jump Alaphillipe tomorrow -- maybe Buchmann does, too. Evil empire 1-2 may not make folks happy, but once again they found a way to run the show.

[C.Dyer]

Tomorrow's stage is being shortened to 59km due to mudslides on the originally planned parcours.

[DOOFUS]

Ineos will run that like a team time trial and hand off to Bernal on the HC climb.

[guido]

Really bad set of calls. If conditions are that bad cancel the whole stage. Letting the "surprise" positioning mid stage stand as the result is just really rotten.

It just spoils what had been the most exciting race in decades. When does the US Open Tennis start?

[j44ke]

I guess the big budget for Ineos paid off, eh? A few high powered snow-making cannons and presto!

Evidently there was no timing set up (no UCI referee with a stopwatch?) between Iseran and the summit finish, so evidently that's part of what forced Iseran to be the choice instead of the valley below. Last timing point. Ideally they would have raced to a line in the town at the bottom of the valley, but I suspect the lack of timing plus the classification of the stage as a summit finish (& that being the central challenge of the stage) meant the Iseran was the awkward but best bad choice of the bunch.

Nibali seemed okay with it.

[j44ke]

Ah correction - no timing at the top of Iseran either but evidently there was someone with a stopwatch there because they've parsed out the placements.

The mudslides looked pretty nasty too, and they weren't on the final climb but on the descent that Bernal and Yates were ping ponging down before reaching the village at the bottom.

[BBB]

Not much they could do with road conditions like that. I think the right call was made and reflected the effort put in until that point.

Bad luck for Pinot and an unusual way to go out.

[GonaSovereign]

Slightly different topic. Looks like there will be steel bikes back in the peloton this Sunday.
AG2RLAMONDIALE Pro CyclingTeam on Instagram: “🇫🇷 - @letourdefrance - Ce dimanche sera unique. @OliverNaesen roulera differemment. - Suivez-nous & @eddyMerckxBikes pour decouvrir ce qui…”
naesen bike

[e-RICHIE]

Have read none of the above today. The race ending was a just call. Safety first. Assigning the times at the top of that last completed climb wasn't well thought out. It adds too much of the human element to the outcome. Why not at the bottom of the climb? (I know. No one there had a stopwatch.) Why not at a feed zone? The only across the board fair decision is to nullify all the results for the day. That won't happen because they don't second guess these decisions. The jersey was gifted to Bernal, he didn't win it. His was a stellar ride. But today, coupled with tomorrow's changes, makes it race over. I'd like to be wrong and see real threats on Saturday. But with such a short distance and all those teams still emotionally affected by today, I doubt it.

[BBB]

It’s a bit of a Catch-22. If a result was manufactured that left the jersey where it was, then there would have been screams of French bias. Also it would have put Bernal and Alaphilippe in a difficult position as one had ridden into the lead and the other had lost it.

But, I agree that the weather has wrecked the outcome of what has been a compelling race.

[Moke]

I think the results were crap. They would not declare a winner, but they did assign finish times based on an arbitrary point in the course. I think if no one finishes the stage then cancel all the results. Yes, rider safety is the most important factor, but giving you a finish time after you had already passed the point seems pointless to me. Full nullification of the stage helps or hurts no one. Loved Peter Sagan's quote "It was like a Christmas present". I think tomorrow should be a mountain TT stage since it is shortened so much.

[King Of Dirk]

It's all down to Val Thorens.

Literally and figuratively!

[rwsaunders]

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these riders from the swift completion of their appointed race." I bet that US Postal could have lived up to their motto and made it through the mudslide...

219 Tour de France: Mudslides, hail, snow, stop Stage 19 | NBC Sports