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Alaphillipe was lucky yesterday. Ineos ran out of riders earlier than expected, as Poels had an off day, and Van Baarle did a longer stint but at a slower pace than they’d have liked. As soon as Bernal went, Alaphillipe was in trouble, but he was fortunate because he only had to hang on for 2 kms and he was close enough at the top to be able to regain the other GC contenders.
andyp
Fox
Bonkers stage. Quintana suddenly finding his very best race legs and Juju's majestic descending. But the funny thing to me is that after everyone heavily questioning Movistar's tactics they suddenly made sense, while Ineos's tactics apparently make no sense at all.
It felt like there was a lot of post-justification from Ineos. "Oh yeah it was about getting us two riders on the podium" but... what it's not just about 2nd and 3rd is it! What are they doing? Do they have a good plan but Thomas and Bernal aren't quite riding to team orders? Why does Thomas keep 'testing his legs' then not really using them, or using them when it's too late? Why did he let Bernal go up the road, then attack? Why did they leave it too late to drop Juju? This two leaders with two stages to go thing isn't really working, is it?!
Does the whole strategy rely on Alaphilippe cracking? Because I'm not sure he's going to, at least as much as they need him to...