Me, a fan?
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GC Stages 1,7,15 only2 mountain top finishes and one short ITT gives a better indication of who the strongest rider is as opposed to the current GC Standings. Without the TTT and Lance's extra 40 seconds, here it is:
1 Contador
2 Wiggins 1:28
3 A. Schleck 1:46
4 Evans 1:52
5 Nibali 1:53
6 Kloden 2:15
7 Sastre 2:15
8 Armstrong 2:18
9 F. Schleck 2:45
10 Martin 2:49
Maybe I missed somebody that should be in there somewhere, but these are the main contenders anyway. Armstrong's 40 seconds make him look really good, oh, and the TTT too.
Wiggins and Nibali the big surprises to me. Nibali's only 24, hopefully he'll be able to give Alberto a run for his money in years to come.
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Bartali
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Thank you 'Me a fan'. You have very neatly summed up what I have been saying on other posts in a much more verbose way.
SR - This doesn't mean we are re-writing history, just an indication of the relative 'strength' of each rider with an ITT and mtf to come.
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SlowRower
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Bart,
I agree; it's just that pro-Armstrong analysis is usually flamed as an attempt to re-write history!
What the table above shows is that Armstrong has not lost much on the key stages to anyone other than Bertie. Given how far Evans, Nibs and Sastre are behind at the moment, their likely future gains between now and Paris relative to Armstrong may not be enough to overhaul him. Wiggo and Schleck the Younger are in with a very good chance, though.
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Jackov
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hooray...we can turn the TdF into a 5 day event and not even spoil a weekend. 
Good stuff. And I know how tedious the effort for this kind of post.
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headwind
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| Jackov wrote: | hooray...we can turn the TdF into a 5 day event and not even spoil a weekend.
Good stuff. And I know how tedious the effort for this kind of post. |
already exists...its called the Dauphine!
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Bartali
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Me, a fan?
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| Jackov wrote: | hooray...we can turn the TdF into a 5 day event and not even spoil a weekend.
Good stuff. And I know how tedious the effort for this kind of post. |
Contador made it pretty "non-tedious" by being at the top each time. (except for stage one, but subtracting 21 isn't too much trouble)
Seeing how close these guys are in this repect makes me a little more excited to see the last 2 meaningful stages. It's probably just a dream, but I think there's a few guys on that list that can give Contador a go in the TT (mostly Wiggins). Maybe the length of Ventoux will be enough to crack Conti more than, say, Andy? Maybe Liggett was lying, but he was saying that Conti actually was losing time to Schleck in the last bit on Verbier. Sastre has got to have more in 'im than what he's shown so far.
But then again, maybe I'm searching hard for a reason to stay interested. I must say, I did enjoy seeing the climb get blown to smitherines Sunday. Beats the hell out of seeing a big gob of bastards swarming to the top like a big happy family.
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