Quote:
Originally Posted by deluz
He just needs to do enough to win and no more.
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Agree. I almost posted this a week ago, postulating that winning this Giro could cost Pog less physically than it has any person who's tried it in recent memories. He doesn't have to race like an idiot, as he does every year at the Tour (and I say that admiringly, I love the way he races). Coupled with the back end at the Tour looking a lot softer after yesterday and he's got a super shot at it.
As for the racing, the impression that I get is that it's evolved a lot in the last couple of years. The aggregated gains of aero, tires, and now especially nutrition have reduced the penalty for being alone or in a small group vs drafting in a large group. This is why you see breaks being kept on relatively short leashes now - you give a couple of talented breakaway guys 2 minutes and it's good night, Irene. If you've got 3 strong people in TTT mode chasing one strong rider in ITT mode, the 3 can't do all that much more than their threshold over a long period, plus they get slowed by gamesmanship and lumps and turns while the ITT is just flat out.
The nutrition products and protocols change the fatigue and recovery dynamics so much that you have more people capable of going faster day after day, and so you REALLY need to smash the gas and make it super hard to create differences, and so you get this kind of hell for leather racing that sometimes winds up with a bunch of people broken on the ground.