Tour De France 2014 Stage 3: Cambridge - London

[monty1104]

Stage 3: Cambridge - London

Current Jersey Leaders
Yellow: Vincenzo Nibali (AST)
White: Peter Sagan (CAN)
Green: Peter Sagan (CAN) worn by Bryan Coquard (EUC)
Polkadot: Cyril Lemoine (COF)
Team: SKY

Stage 2 could go down as the stage of the tour. Brilliant work from a number of teams and riders to really animate the race. I don't think many people expected that stage to be fought out by the GC contenders, but they may have had it in the back of their mind that stage 3 is a relatively flat stage where they could "rest".

General Classification after Stage 2
ITA 1 NIBALI, Vincenzo (ASTANA) 9:52:43
SVK 2 SAGAN, Peter (CANNONDALE) + 2
BEL 3 VAN AVERMAET, Greg (BMC RACING)
SUI 4 ALBASINI, Michael (ORICA GreenEDGE)
GBR 5 FROOME, Christopher (SKY)
NED 6 MOLLEMA, Bauke (BELKIN)
BEL 7 VAN DEN BROECK, Jurgen (LOTTO BELISOL)
ESP 8 CONTADOR VELASCO, Alberto (TINKOFF-SAXO)
USA 9 VAN GARDEREN, Tejay (BMC RACING)
DEN 10 FUGLSANG, Jakob (ASTANA)

A reasonably flat stage heading right into the heart of London, this is a definite stage for the sprinters. Expect Lotto-Belisol and Giant-Shimano to do a majority of the pace-making for their sprinters, Greipel and Kittel. OPQ will be much less active now that Cavendish is out, but they still have Alessandro Petacchi who is more than capable of a sprint finish, even though he is getting on in years. The other really quick rider to look for is Arnaud Demare. He is the current French Road Race champion, defeating Nacer Bouhanni, who was the points classification winner of this year's Giro. I'd still expect Marcel Kittel to be too quick for them all, but just hope we get to see a proper sprint that isn't affected by a crash.

Look out for: A hotly contested intermediate sprint. There will be no riders off the front looking for KOTM points, so we might see a situation where the breakaway is brought back by he intermediate sprint so riders can gain as many spring points as possible.

 

[iluvparis]

FWIW the betting market suggests Renshaw will be OPQ's primary sprinter now rather than Petacchi.

 

[monty1104]

FWIW the betting market suggests Renshaw will be OPQ's primary sprinter now rather than Petacchi.

Will be interesting to see. When Renshaw was the sprinter with Rabobank he had rather a poor string of results, whereas Petacchi has more than proven himself.

 

[alfy!]

FWIW the betting market suggests Renshaw will be OPQ's primary sprinter now rather than Petacchi.

Wouldn't have thought so, don't believe Renshaw has that top speed that Petacchi has. We'll see I suppose!

 

[Saladin sucks]

Be interesting to see what they do. FWIW I think I read somewhere in a team interview they would probably go with Trentin.

 

[Santoz]

Heinrich Haussler each way ($400/$22)

Fingers crossed for an upset ...

Carn Aussie!

 

[dart]

Heinrich Haussler each way ($400/$22)

Fingers crossed for an upset ...

Carn Aussie!

I grabbed him for my fantasy team, he was very very cheap, hoping he puts all his bad luck behind him and snags at least a podium on a stage this year.

 

[monty1104]

Only 2 men in the break, the sprinters will be happy with that; less points lost at the intermediate sprint point.

 

[iluvparis]

I grabbed him for my fantasy team, he was very very cheap, hoping he puts all his bad luck behind him and snags at least a podium on a stage this year.

Haha also in my fantasy team as a cheapie.

#Aussiebias

I am heading down towards the Tower of London to watch the finish today - not sure how much I'll see at the speed they are going by then.

 

[dart]

I am heading down towards the Tower of London to watch the finish today - not sure how much I'll see at the speed they are going by then.

you'll be blown away by the speed they go past at.

And then head to the pub for the finish! Win-win.

I caught the finish in 2012 in Paris, so we got to see them go past 6 times, they were absolutely smashing it, so amazed.

 

[Ichabod Noodle]

At what point are Phil and Paul going to say "f#€k it! we're just going to commentate on what's going on and not try to explain it all to idiots who should have learned by now"

"Andre Greipel, he's a long way down in the overall standings but that won't worry him because he's a sprinter and they know they can't win it but that's what the green jersey is for" etc etc etc.

Spare me. I know who the f#ck Andre Greipel is and so does everyone else I know - even those who don't watch the cycling as much as me. The once-a-year-tour-de-francers know who he is. My dad who doesn't watch any cycling knows who he is from the evening news. They also know the difference between sprinters and climbers and those going for stage wins and those going for the GC.

At some point they have to stop catering for idiots in their commentary and start just commentating.

That's why I prefer Eurosport - pity we get every race except this one from them.

 

[Duck Farmer]

Spare me. I know who the f#ck Andre Greipel is and so does everyone else I know - even those who don't watch the cycling as much as me. The once-a-year-tour-de-francers know who he is.

Not to mention that he's also won 16 stages of the TDU (and 2 GCs) so is pretty well known in these parts.

 

[Donakebab]

lol cycle lane, oh the irony.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

turned it to sbs with 26 km to go. the crowds are *en huge from Olympic Park onwards.

with this rain I can see a crash coming up.

 

[Donakebab]

Is Kittel just going to monster everyone? OPQ just faded too early, obviously leading out someone other than Cav is going to take some getting used to.

 

[monty1104]

Big finish by Kittel. I thought he went way too early but he just couldn't be caught.

Looks like Renshaw will bet the sprinter for OPQ. That's surprising.

 

[iluvparis]

Was about 300m past the Tower - sadly the footage cut to a replace of Kristoff nearly crashing on the preceding corner so didn't get to try and spot myself.

Roche and Contador lead the field 5km out...

 

[Vader]

Not to mention that he's also won 16 stages of the TDU (and 2 GCs) so is pretty well known in these parts.

To be fair, SBS aren't the only network taking Phil & Paul's commentary. Greipel is particularly well known in Australia because of the TDU. Maybe not so much in other countries, though if you can't name the top 4 sprinters (Kittel, Cav, Greipel, Sagan) then you're not really much of a cycling fan.

 

[Vader]

I sometimes wonder if Phil & Paul even listen to what the other person is saying. How many times do we hear Phil say something, only for Paul to say exactly the same thing (as a new revelation) 10 seconds later?

 

[dart]

At what point are Phil and Paul going to say "f#€k it! we're just going to commentate on what's going on and not try to explain it all to idiots who should have learned by now"

"Andre Greipel, he's a long way down in the overall standings but that won't worry him because he's a sprinter and they know they can't win it but that's what the green jersey is for" etc etc etc.

Spare me. I know who the f#ck Andre Greipel is and so does everyone else I know - even those who don't watch the cycling as much as me. The once-a-year-tour-de-francers know who he is. My dad who doesn't watch any cycling knows who he is from the evening news. They also know the difference between sprinters and climbers and those going for stage wins and those going for the GC.

At some point they have to stop catering for idiots in their commentary and start just commentating..

a pet hate of mine is people that complain about commentators, I see it a lot on bigfooty, really annoys me.

BUT IN THIS CASE YOU ARE BANG ON.

oh man it terrorises my ears.

"now you'll see there are two men at the breakaway taking it in turns to be on the front, that's because when you sit in the draft of the other rider you'll use THIRTY PERCENT less energy!"

I have heard it all before, for a number of years, and unfortunately, it's not just a keyword that gets used over and over again, like Bruce M might use "SPECIAAAALLL".

It's whole phrases, in some cases whole paragraphs, that you heard last year and you will hear again next year.

And getting riders names wrong, missing important moves, it's frustrating, and I have found that if you watch with the sound down there is the danger of falling asleep.

I sometimes wonder if Phil & Paul even listen to what the other person is saying. How many times do we hear Phil say something, only for Paul to say exactly the same thing (as a new revelation) 10 seconds later?

I often wonder whether this is because they are doing 2 lots of coverage at the same time, as you can often hear the other one talking in the background at the same time. This could be just because they both just talk non-stop for 4 hours and the producer has a switch device with two options "PAUL" & "PHIL".

 

[Vader]

I'm not sure why they've been spending so much time in the commentary booth either. In the past, Matt Keenan has done the early commentary, until Phil & Paul rock up and take over. So far they've done all of the commentary on the 3 stages to date.

I don't mind them explaining the basics of cycling, such as drafting. I don't even mind them doing it every stage - there will always be some people who are watching the Tour for the first time, who don't have a great understanding of what they're watching. What does irritate me is the number of times they repeat themselves within the same stage - how many times did they tell us about the National Titles pedigree of the Czech rider in the breakaway last night?

 

[grouse mate]

Is it just me or has Greipel been shithouse so far? I will take joy in sacking this bum from my fantasy team.

 

[Vader]

Is it just me or has Greipel been shithouse so far? I will take joy in sacking this bum from my fantasy team.

18th on Stage 1, 23rd on Stage 3. He won't have helped your fantasy team much based on those results.

 

[grouse mate]

18th on Stage 1, 23rd on Stage 3. He won't have helped your fantasy team much based on those results.

And had good support from his team, just nowhere near Kittel and Sagan at the minute.

 

[dart]

Is it just me or has Greipel been shithouse so far? I will take joy in sacking this bum from my fantasy team.

I think he was hampered by the cavendish crash on the first stage and was never going to get near stage 2, what happened last night? I was expecting a second place from him, was he hindered at all on the run in?