Phillipsen relegated to last for pushing Van Aert into the barrier. Girmay now 2nd and his green lead larger, Gaviria podiums.
I re-watched the sprint.
https://youtu.be/pzss8j2Yc9E? Looks like a deserved relegation, Phillipsen had plenty of room to go straight but closed the door on Van Aert who was a threat to come around him. I guess he didn’t see Gronewegen overhauling him off to the left, because squeezing out Van Aert wasn’t what he’d needed to be doing. There is grumbling that Phillipsen’s big move to the left chasing Cav’s draft contributed to Pedersen’s bad crash on stage 5, which I don’t think, and a budding revival of the “Jasper Disaster” moniker.
TT tomorrow. Could be a big GC day.
Yeah, the flat sprint stages are snoozy until the end, but maybe the GC riders need the rest to really light up the mountain stages? I wonder if there is a way to design the flat stages to encourage strong breakaways, increase the chance of echelons, something to spice them up.