Category: Tour de France
-
Phil and Paul’s ITV4 absence revisited
A lot of people are really, really angry about Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen being dumped as ITV4’s Tour de France commentators. I find this fascinating. I’ve mentioned Phil and Paul’s departure on three occasions. The piece linked above attracted any number of comments bemoaning their absence, as did my original piece about ITV4’s coverage.…
-
Tom Dumoulin wins something other than a popularity contest
Anyone who watched Tom Dumoulin’s six second advantage over second-placed Fabio Aru transformed into a 4m36s deficit on the final meaningful stage of last year’s Vuelta a Espana will surely have celebrated this win. Dumoulin was the heart of that race and emerged with little from it. On stage nine of this year’s Tour de…
-
Chris Froome’s descent in the 2016 Tour de France (+ video)
I daresay he’ll do a few more, but in years to come, this will be the descent that people remember. “If I finished the day lying on my face among the tomato plants and shards of glass, so be it,” said Sean Kelly about his descent of the Poggio en route to winning the 1992…
-
Steve Cummings’ wins are better than everyone else’s
They are. They just are. I don’t need to justify that statement. It’s just manifestly true. Steve Cummings’ Tour de France stage win last year when he soared past Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet as if they were standing still is Exhibit A, but he’s ploughed through plenty more of the alphabet since then. He…
-
Mark Cavendish has started beating Marcel Kittel (he’s more used to beating everyone else)
Before this race, Mark Cavendish had never actually beaten Marcel Kittel when the two have gone head-to-head in a sprint. That stat is old and irrelevant. He’s now beaten him three times in a week in the biggest race of all. Not bad for someone who’s habitually a slow starter. Where once Cavendish had a…
-
Vincenzo Nibali, Mr Popular, cheers up the peloton by losing a load of time
Vincenzo Nibali is, by many accounts, not the most popular rider in the peloton. It’s the general air of thinking he’s somehow better than everyone else that people seem to object to. Maybe he’s misunderstood. It’s rumoured that team-mate and fellow Italian Fabio Aru would be quite far back in the queue were the Sicilian…
-
Marcel Kittel is slightly stronger than Bryan Cocquard is light
This year’s Tour de France will, at some point, throw up a winner you probably haven’t heard of. But not yet. Marcel Kittel was the latest to elicit a “yeah, I thought it was about time that happened” reaction. “Today we had to work things perfectly so he could show his diamond legs to the…
-
Mark Cavendish helps create a normal sandwich
I like to think I know how years are named. Each year you just add one, don’t you? It doesn’t seem like that in cycling. My specific doubts centre on 2014 and 2015, which seem to have been parachuted in from some other history or future. In 2014, Mark Cavendish failed to win a stage…
-
Peter Sagan’s luxury wardrobe
Peter Sagan is some kind of deluxe onion. Peel back his layers and his appearance will barely diminish. His stage two victory has put him into the yellow jersey, but when someone overhauls his lead and pulls that off his back, he’ll still be wearing the green jersey as he’s also leading the points competition.…
-
Apparently Mark Cavendish can beat Marcel Kittel
It seems increasingly unfashionable to make a case for something using facts. I don’t quite know what it says that it took a Briton from outside the UK to remind everyone how persuasive such things can be. The Isle of Man’s status is not something to get into here. All that matters to a cycling…