Tour of Switzerland ...Spolier tags required before midnight on day of each stage

Darkglasses

How bad is Tony Martin at climbing? Wondering how long he can hang onto the leader's jersey.

dragratchet

didnt catch todays stage, is wiggins simply not bothered putting in the work after the tdf snub. was hoping he'd give it a bit of welly to stir things up a bit, though i suppose with wiggo, its equally plausible that he'd just sit up and enjoy the scenery

MPFG

Darkglasses wrote: »

How bad is Tony Martin at climbing? Wondering how long he can hang onto the leader's jersey.

well he is not really bad at anything...he looks abit strange at present .......different from his usual self as if he has been remodelled.....Imagine at weekend one of the usual suspects of Costa, Mollema , Kresugier, Frank & Pinot will take over

dastardly00

He's actually not too bad. Similar to Cancellara, when he's holding the leader's jersey, he can climb ok for a while and stick with the GC guys. Looking at the stages to come, he shouldn't have any problems with the next three. Stage 7 is an ITT so in theory he should be able to extend his lead. But Stage 8 finishes with the climb up to Vernier, which should be a bridge too far for the German.

neris

wiggins down 25km to go

whacker00

spoiler :

good sprint finish today and it was great to see the second kick from cav, looks like he is carrying some good form into the tour. dagenkolb seem to lose it and Sagan had not got the legs

MPFG

Think Degenkolb crashed or had some mishap...Hard to say about Cavendish without Greipel or Kettle there for competition

dragratchet

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/06/wiggins-tour-hopes-fade-after-withdrawal-from-tour-de-suisse/

neris

dragratchet wrote: »

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/06/wiggins-tour-hopes-fade-after-withdrawal-from-tour-de-suisse/

he hasnt really seemed that interested in the whole thing. was watching him few days ago and he was just coasting along as if it was a gentle training spin. wonder was he officially told hes not in the TDF team and this is his sulk/two fingers to sky

whacker00

i really thought he would have show some real character and reacted the oposite way. Go to Switzerland to prove a point to Sky and then put additional pressure on Brailsford to bring him to the tour

i seem to be way off in that thinking

neris

sprint finish. crash 300m to go Cav was involved. Looks like someone oushed a Orica rider who took Cav down with him. Modolo (lampre) won ahead of sagan

RobFowl

Not a spoiler (I think) but that route/course today was dreadful.....

dastardly00

ITT profile for today:



Start times here.

Tony Martin starts at 3.30pm GMT.
The Panzerwagen should win this.

laraghrider

Anyone see this. Inside stage 5 sprint finish. Bloody fantastic video and scary too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE97iUvSHk0

dastardly00

From Cyclingnews:
"Reports that Sergio Henao is out of the race. Details are a little fuzzy at the moment with conflicting reports but according to a number of outlets he was hit by a vehicle while riding recon on the course. Reports are that he went to hospital straight away but Sky have told us that he was with the team doctor until recently. As soon as we know more we'll update you."

godtabh

dastardly00 wrote: »

From Cyclingnews:
"Reports that Sergio Henao is out of the race. Details are a little fuzzy at the moment with conflicting reports but according to a number of outlets he was hit by a vehicle while riding recon on the course. Reports are that he went to hospital straight away but Sky have told us that he was with the team doctor until recently. As soon as we know more we'll update you."

Sky's twitter says training accident. No updates yet

neris

has Pinault of fdj sorted out his fear of descending yet?

dastardly00

Tony Martin wins by 22 seconds.

neris

good finish. is there a big mountain stage tomorrow?

Darkglasses

neris wrote: »

good finish. is there a big mountain stage tomorrow?

Summit finish up to Verbier

Darkglasses

Very respectable ride so far by Tony Martin, still hanging in with Mollema, Kreuzigerm, Costa and Frank with 2.5km to go

Darkglasses

Awesome ride by Tony Martin, only lost about 10 seconds to Kreuziger and Mollema, finished at the same time as Rui Costa, put time into a lot of others in the top 10

Deignan hung in too, finished 6th

dastardly00

I didn't get to see any of the racing today but chapeau to Tony Martin. I wonder will he be able to hang on tomorrow?! He deserves it. Well done to Deignan, very good result finishing in 6th place considering the company he was in.

Darkglasses

dastardly00 wrote: »

I didn't get to see any of the racing today but chapeau to Tony Martin. I wonder will he be able to hang on tomorrow?! He deserves it. Well done to Deignan, very good result finishing in 6th place considering the company he was in.

I watched all the Eurosport coverage. Tony Martin was really impressive, he was obviously working harder than anyone else in that group but he was able to match Mollema, Kreuziger and Costa. Unless Costa was saving himself for tomorrow, I think he'll be able to hang on for the overall.

Although the final climb is HC, it doesn't look too badly suited to Martin's abilities. Longer is fine, and only gets really steep towards the end.

It's hard to gauge how an early attack would work for or against him. On the one hand, he'd never catch any of the other 3 contenders on a climb. On the other, there are significant flat sections between the climbs, that will really work to Martin's advantage. I'm very excited to see how it plays out tomorrow, it might mean a lot to Martin's career.

Tomorrow's stage

retalivity

missed this yesterday, and have yet to see highlights, but looks like another decent spin by deignan. Pity he sat up on the 2nd (or 3rd?) stage as the way he has been cycling he could easily have finished top 15 at least, especially with wiggins out.