**** Tour de France 2017 ****

[ferrisbueller]

mcelliott said:

Sagan putting the squeeze on Cav!

Messy. Sagan has apparently apologised but that doesn't fix Cav up.

[Tigerite]

Sagan DQ from Tour.

[danpalmer1993]

Didn't look like he left cav any room there.

And now Sagan has been disqualified from the tour! Not sure what chance cav has left in this tour though

[ferrisbueller]

Tigerite said:

Sagan DQ from Tour.

Wow.

Looks like Dimension Data pushed hard to get him thrown out.

Green Jersey competition just got interesting.

[spikeyhead]

Very poor riding from Sagan, just headed straight towards the fence at an angle and stuck an elbow out.

Hopefully Cav will be ok to carry on

[Downward]

ferrisbueller said:

Tigerite said:

Sagan DQ from Tour.

Wow.

Looks like Dimension Data pushed hard to get him thrown out.

Green Jersey competition just got interesting.

A real shock. Very dangerous though with where he was positioned. I think they are making a statement here though cause cav has been pretty handy with his elbows in previous sprints. I'm sure he knocked someone off.

[m444ttb]

I'll be interested to see what the various penalties were applied for. The DQ from the tour seems harsh. He did ride across Cav, but I'm far from convinced the flick of the elbow caused the crash. Slow motion can make things appear differently to how they really were, but Cav appears to have contact with Sagan before falling and the elbow doesn't appear to make any contact. The question in my mind is whether Cav going down was his reaction to the elbow coming out, regardless of it touching him (i.e. He sees it coming), or the elbow made no difference to the whole crash.

[Unexpected Item In Bagging Area]

I think the elbow was a reaction to the contact, not the cause of it.

Cab would have thrown his dummies out for a crash like that a few years ago.

[Yipper]

Without Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in the commentary box, the TDF on telly has lost all its sparkle. The new commentary team are terrible. It's completely ruined the TV coverage.

[louiebaby]

If I was a cynic I might say that Le Tour this year was primarily planned for two things:

• Lots of sprints for Cav to get the record.
• Less TT and mountain finishes to give Bardet a chance over Froome.

But I'm not a cynic.

But the Green Jersey competition was changed a little while ago to stop it being the Peter Sagan show. But I'm not saying these are correlated. And I'm not cynical.

Not me.

No.

[Kinky]

I'm intrigued by the alledged post-race punchup between one of the guys from Fortuneo-Oscaro and Richie Porte.

I've heard about it, but can't find anything online; although, if true, not really a surprise considering the headline grabbing Sagan saga.

Also feel sorry for GVK and Demare, who between them on a normal day would have had immense press coverage.

Fingers crossed for Cav, but being honest/realistic I'm not holding out much hope.

[mcelliott]

Big boys come out to play tomorrow.

[Unexpected Item In Bagging Area]

Yipper said:

Without Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in the commentary box, the TDF on telly has lost all its sparkle. The new commentary team are terrible. It's completely ruined the TV coverage.

Really?!? They were dreadful, they just kept on trotting out the same old clichés and missed half of what was going on. IMO Boulting is good as the lead commentator and Millar is excellent at the technical and tactical stuff.

[anonymous-user]

France have two in form sprinters, Cav and Degenkolb go down, injuries TBC, commissaires realise a French green jersey winner is possible, throw out the one man who can challenge them. wkers.

As I saw it, Sagan saw Demare fly past and thought I'll have that wheel not realising Cav was there, at 60kmh Sagan has no time to react or take any mitigation action, elbows came out to steady himself and Cav goes down, common sense disappears...

[Kinky]

Unexpected Item In Bagging Area said:

Yipper said:

Without Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in the commentary box, the TDF on telly has lost all its sparkle. The new commentary team are terrible. It's completely ruined the TV coverage.

Really?!? They were dreadful, they just kept on trotting out the same old clichés and missed half of what was going on. IMO Boulting is good as the lead commentator and Millar is excellent at the technical and tactical stuff.

Totally diagree I think Millar is totally flat and dull

The EuroSport coverage, especially with Sean Kelly is second to none (imho).

But hey, each to their own eh?

[Granfondo]

pablo said:

France have two in form sprinters, Cav and Degenkolb go down, injuries TBC, commissaires realise a French green jersey winner is possible, throw out the one man who can challenge them. wkers.

As I saw it, Sagan saw Demare fly past and thought I'll have that wheel not realising Cav was there, at 60kmh Sagan has no time to react or take any mitigation action, elbows came out to steady himself and Cav goes down, common sense disappears...

Yep,I saw the elbow coming out as him steadying himself also!

Edited by Granfondo on Tuesday 4th July 22:51

[prand]

So both Sagan disqualified and Cav out injured. Two of the riders I like to follow. Big shame....

[Some Gump]

Kinky said:

Unexpected Item In Bagging Area said:

Yipper said:

Without Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in the commentary box, the TDF on telly has lost all its sparkle. The new commentary team are terrible. It's completely ruined the TV coverage.

Really?!? They were dreadful, they just kept on trotting out the same old clichés and missed half of what was going on. IMO Boulting is good as the lead commentator and Millar is excellent at the technical and tactical stuff.

Totally diagree I think Millar is totally flat and dull

The EuroSport coverage, especially with Sean Kelly is second to none (imho).

But hey, each to their own eh?

Each to their own indeed =)
Only bad bit of Eurosport coverage is Sean kelly's voice. His insight is good, but he's just dull / horrid to listen to.

Used to not like Millar at first but he's grown into the role brilliantly.

Oh, and IMO the DQ is purely to create a French green jersey.

[mcelliott]

Kinky said:

Unexpected Item In Bagging Area said:

Yipper said:

Without Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in the commentary box, the TDF on telly has lost all its sparkle. The new commentary team are terrible. It's completely ruined the TV coverage.

Really?!? They were dreadful, they just kept on trotting out the same old clichés and missed half of what was going on. IMO Boulting is good as the lead commentator and Millar is excellent at the technical and tactical stuff.

Totally diagree I think Millar is totally flat and dull

The EuroSport coverage, especially with Sean Kelly is second to none (imho).

But hey, each to their own eh?

I think the combination of Ned and Dave works quite well - Boulting conveys a nice man in the street style whereas Dave is there for the more professional analysis. Good combo. Far better than Liggett and Sherwen - Liggett turned into some deranged mentalist for his love of Armstrong. The bloke completely lost the plot. Kirby and Kelly are both appalling for Eurosport, apparently Sean Kelly is the only man to have nodded during a radio interview.

[Russ35]

Carlton Kirby has recently posted on twitter -

"Seems initial ruling of points deduction & relegation was "upgraded" to expulsion with footage of earlier crash also with Sagan centre stage."