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Team Sky wins the France Tour with Geraint Thomas thanks to the unity of his team. Doubts still accompany cycling, but the services are explainable. At the peak of the Epo-doping, as in L'Alpe d'Huez, the climbs were treated much faster.
Geraint Thomas (left) battles with his team-mate Christopher Froome for the Tour de France victory (Image: Marco Bertorello / EPA)
Jakob Fuglsang throws the bases of a new wave of accusations The Dane wanted to go to the Tour de France for a podium, but he came Sunday only to the twelfth place in Paris.After a stage Pyrenean, he leaves his frustration It's surprising to see how much Geraint Thomas rolls, says Fuglsang, once again losing time to wear the yellow jersey.Mostly because Thomas had never been ranked in a three-week tour among the top ten.
According to Fuglsang, the level in the mountains was scary. "On some stages, I got closer to my personal best," said captain Astana's team. "And yet, I was not good enough to keep me at the best level water. "The Spanish Mikel Landa of the Movistar team told him that he had had a similar experience: he too had personal bests and was still hanged.
Fuglsang Of course, he did not want to accuse anyone, but of course it was useless: radical critics and, above all, the dominant Sky team took his comments to confirm that once again the more doping had been involved in the overall victory of Welshman Thomas. In France, Sky's crew can be booed, but critics in Britain's homeland are at least as ruthless. With cynical acuity they draw on forums and social networks on Thomas and especially on his predecessors Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins
Pantani remains the record holder
The fact that cycling still has a doping problem in 2018 can be excluded. But one thing is clear: the numbers contradict Fuglsang and Landa. The 2018 Tour de France was an intense race that required all drivers because of the road. But key positions have not been completed at record speed.
Tour de France – Impressions of the 105th Tour in Paris
The Italian Marco Pantani mastered the legendary 21 hairpin bends Alpe's hair-dyed hair Huez 1995 in 36:40 minutes. His disc looks like a memorial reminiscent of the epic doping Epo. Thomas needed 41:15 minutes for his 13.8-kilometer win at L'Alpe d'Huez; from Pantanis Parforceritt he was in the world. The Welshman was also more than three minutes slower than Lance Armstrong in 2001. However, only his teammate Froome and the Frenchman Romain Bardet and the Dutchman Tom Dumoulin could follow him.
In the Pyrenees, the only stage of 65 kilometers crossed the Col de Peyresourde and the Col de Val Louron-Azet on the Col du Portet. Some climbers there provided the show hoped by the organizers and attacked immediately after the starting weapon. They drove quite quickly on the Peyresourde to blow the ground in the first kilometers – but not as fast as some predecessors of previous years. This, even if they approached the pass without any prejudice. Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe was the highest point after 26:35 minutes. In 2003, the Spanish Iban Mayo and the Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov defeated the Peyresourde in 25:20 minutes. Today, Vinokourov is the team manager of the Kazakh Astana team, for which Fuglsang rolls. He may have slightly smiled at the complaints of his captain
. Doping can occur in different ways. Despite the acquittal in his salbutamol procedure, Froome will still have to live with doubts. His ascent was too steep once. However, the speeds traveled in the mountains in 2018 can hardly be used as an argument.
Sky's collective strength was once again the key to success this year. "If five or six riders from the same team even set the pace in difficult climbs, this will be intimidating for all the other teams," says Dan Lorang, coach of the German Bora team. The mental advantage is obvious: if the captain of another team does not drive next to his competitor, but next to his third or fourth assistant, he must feel demoralized.
Only one achievement emerges in the analysis of the tour. from a pro who does not drive for Sky. The driver Movistar Nairo Quintana managed the Col du Portet in the stage victory in 49:37 minutes so fast that he reached a power of 6.1 watts per kilo, according to experts. With this value, Quintana approaches the best climbers of previous eras. The coach of Bora Lorang sees no reason to doubt Quintana. "The value is high, but feasible," he says. Especially since Quintana came out all day and could not keep the level for three weeks. Quintana lives in altitude and is especially prepared for such an offensive.
It would be remiss to ignore progress in training and planning. Movistar's team tactics may not always be transparent from the outside, but the Quintana and Landa team are scrupulously precise in managing their pros. Each driver collects four million data points from each driver during the tour. The watt value, the speed and the rate are stored every second and compared to external factors such as temperature. Whoever compares the performance of Quintana to those of drivers who have already ridden in a straight line should take into account: The Tour de France has become a Big Data project for Movistar
Anarchy has passed
D & Other teams have evolved in recent years Years of great analytical progress have made, for example, the Bora team. Their coach Lorang repeatedly asks his pros at training camps for performance tests in which he determines maximum lung volume and lactate production rate. According to the development of the two variables, Lorang individually adjusts the length of the intervals to be covered. This has nothing to do with the old anarchy of cycling when riders in training for no reason and no reason have rolled the passes.
Despite all the planning, the Tour de France remains unpredictable. The overall Boras driver, the Polish Rafal Majka, suffered for days after a crash. According to Lorang, he was temporarily at 80 to 90 watts of his best performance. Fractions of one second can destroy the most meticulous preparation. Also Quintana came to the case.
Sky professional Thomas was lucky on his way: He was the only one of all the favorites spared from accidents and major breakdowns. But his performance was not surprising. Thomas won the long distance Paris-Nice 2016 ahead of Alberto Contador and Richie Porte, the Tour des Alpes 2017 before Thibaut Pinot and Domenico Pozzovivo and, a few weeks ago, the Critérium du Dauphiné ahead of Adam Yates and Romain Bardet. The 32-year-old athlete leads for the team that claims to be even more innovative than the competition. Whether it's true is an open question. But in light of the initial performance, Thomas's victory looks like the next logical step.
