Lance Armstrong on a remarkable day at the Giro; Chris Froome ripping it up and Simon Yates imploding. The swing in form was incredible to witness.
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Disgraced former pro rider Lance Armstrong has said Chris Froome’s attack at the Giro yesterday was the ride of a generation.
“What we witnessed from Chris Froome was probably one of the most monumental rides that we may ever see,” he said on his podcast The Move, below.
“I don’t want to make to too grandiose, but it’s certainly the biggest ride we’ve seen of the last decade.”
Froome’s adverse dope test from last year’s Vuelta, for asthma drug salbutamol, is still unresolved.
Yet while Armstrong corrects himself at one stage in his latest edition of The Move to confirm he was not suggesting Simon Yates’ performances were suspicious, no mention is made of suspicions around Froome.
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Armstrong said everyone, including himself and even Chris Froome, believed Froome’s general classification challenge was over.
??#Giro101
Did Froome stay away? 80 kilometers? Are you kidding me? pic.twitter.com/pSdimGDbPG— LottoNLJumbo Cycling (@LottoJumbo_road) May 25, 2018
Today I did 300 watts average for 6 hours to finish 45 minutes behind the winner.
Hahahahaha.
— Ryan Mullen (@ryanmullen9) May 25, 2018
“I think in his own head he thought the race was over,” said Armstrong, adding his win was an “epic, epic, epic ride”.
He said of Team Sky: “They knew that this was possible. They saw that Simon Yates lost 28 seconds in less than 2km (on Thursday’s stage). Every light just goes off there and says ‘this guy’s in trouble’.
“My sources at Team Sky tell me this wasn’t random, this was planned. Quite frankly I’m really surprised by this.
“I’m also really impressed that the Team Sky director Nicolas Portal, when asked just a few days ago who they were looking to in week three; he didn’t even mention Simon Yates.
“Here’s a guy who has done what he wanted to do in the bike race, he’s completely dominated.
“He has the pink jersey and the director says ‘nah, he can’t survive the third week’. And he was exactly right.
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“I think it was a combination of seeing Simon Yates on the ropes in a big time way (on Thursday).... And they’re in a position; what the fuck they have nothing to lose?
“That type of ambush is what you get to do when you’re three minutes down, or whatever. They had nothing to lose.”
Armstrong added that people in Team Sunweb told him Tom Dumoulin didn’t chose not to follow Froome when he attacked, he was simply unable to.
Armstrong said he had already said publicly Yates was doing too much; going for time bonuses and some of his stage wins were a waste of energy.
“I warned he was too good; not too good in a suspicious sense....,” he said, adding the race wasn’t over for Dumoulin.
Team Sky now had to defend the pink jersey the day after Froome had ridden so hard. And that was not without its challenge.
“If I’m Tom Dumoulin, I’m going to bed thinking ‘it’s only 40 seconds, anything can happen.”
Dumoulin and his team needed to set about taking the fight to Froome, and hopes he cracks like Yates did yesterday.
Armstrong believed had he kept a lid on his aggression he could have won the race. Clearly “the man with the hammer” had come for Yates on Thursday’s stage.
He was empty and lost time then before his implosion yesterday as Team Sky and Froome turned the screw very tight early in the stage.
“With your body, over the course of three weeks, you only get so many of those; the accelerations.
“He was sprinting for time bonuses, sprinting for stage wins. Those are all great, they’re all great.
“But I can point to three or four (efforts by Yates) that didn’t matter. It was bad ass to watch, looked great on TV; but it didn’t matter.
“He didn’t need to do that. So physically, even as a young rider, he has the body to (win a Grand Tour). But those are issues of inexperience of the head.”
Yesterday Froome went on an 80km solo breakaway. While Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) had looked so strong right until Tuesday’s stage 16 TT, he lost time on Thursday’s stage 18.
He still had the race lead after the other general classification men rode away from him on the final climb. But it was clear the 25-year-old British rider was now compromised.
And yesterday he would crack very early, on the Colle delle Finestre, as Froome’s team pushed the pace on the front, very hard.
Then with about 80km remaining he attacked solo and went over Sestrière and onto the Jafferau summit finish.
In the end he would win solo by three minutes from a four-man group. In that quartet were Richard Carapaz (Movistar), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) and Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb).
It fractured in the uphill sprint to the line and 23 seconds would cover Carapaz in 2nd and Dumoulin 5th.
Yates lost a staggering 38:51 and has now slumped from maglia rosa to 18th overall.
Up ahead, the race is now of the two-horse variety; Froome leading the Giro with two stages left by 40 seconds from Dumoulin. Next is Pinot; in 3rd place and way back at 4:17.
Lance Armstrong podcast on Chris Froome
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