Tour de France on TV

Tag: Yellow

  • Yellow jersey contenders in 2015

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    Alex
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    This year, the Tour de France delivers what it’s supposed to. All the various riders who have been off doing their own thing for the last couple of years all come together to face one another. Even better, there’s no one outstanding contender. Rather, there are four riders each of whom would normally expect to…

  • How did Vincenzo Nibali win the 2014 Tour de France?

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    Alex
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    Last year, I looked at where Chris Froome gained time on his rivals in a bid to explain how he came to win the Tour. That’s not really so necessary this year because the result was so much more clear-cut. Vincenzo Nibali gained time on pretty much everyone, pretty much every chance he got. These…

  • Marcel Kittel’s back off holiday

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    Alex
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    Because that’s where he’s been, right? On the eighth of July, he’d won three out of four stages and then, on the 27th of July, he won a fourth. In between those times, he disappeared. I can only conclude that he had a fortnight in the Bahamas. What an oddly protracted sporting event the Tour…

  • A French majority on the Tour de France podium

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    Alex
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    Chances are, if you’re into cycling, you’re not anti-French. I think most of us would consider having French riders finishing second and third in the Tour to be ‘a good thing’. Okay, you’d probably prefer someone from your own country to be standing somewhere on the podium, but failing that, it doesn’t do any harm…

  • Alejandro Valverde falls off the podium

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    Alex
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    He’s been tottering around these last few days, but on stage 18, Alejandro Valverde finally slipped. Now he’s lying in the dirt, clawing at the air and screeching the word ‘podium’ like Gollum. There was an unseemly rush to take his place. The French have been like queuing primary school children, all pressed up against…

  • Rafal Majka emerges from the chaos

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    Alex
    in

    The chaos of a break and then another break from the break and then a further break from the main bunch. So many groups, all moving at different speeds. So many potential ramifications that it’s all but impossible to to keep up. And then order. Only after the finish line can a bike race truly…

  • Rafal Majka having second thoughts about the Tour de France

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    Alex
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    Rafal Majka finished sixth in this year’s Giro. The Pole is 24, which is quite young for a Grand Tour contender because it literally takes years to build the endurance needed to properly tolerate three solid weeks of racing. Often, a rider around this sort of age will be put into a Grand Tour team…

  • Richie Porte always has at least one bad day

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    Alex
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    After Chris Froome abandoned, the situation was presented by Sky as being an opportunity for Richie Porte to show what he can do. What Porte can do is have at least one really bad day during every Grand Tour. This seems to be a theme with Porte: un jour sans – a day without. Yesterday’s…

  • Vincenzo Nibali cares not for gravity

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    Alex
    in

    If Richie Porte is ‘flying’ then Vincenzo Nibali’s in orbit, effortlessly circling the earth. Just as it did in 2012, La Planche des Belles Filles brought clarity to proceedings. Searing, searing clarity. What happened? One of the greatest aspects of the Tour de France is the sheer number of different stories unfolding simultaneously. Sometimes it…

  • Tony Martin gets his revenge on the peloton

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    Alex
    in

    Here are three facts about Tony Martin. He would have finished sixth in the world team trial last year, competing on his own He once told Lance Armstrong to get fucked He raced the entire peloton over the full length of a stage of last year’s Vuelta a Espana and almost won On that Vuelta…