Le Tour 2017

[jyl]

Okay Tour. But much less interesting than it could have been.

The sprints were predetermined after Cav and Sagan departed. Matthews was a pleasure to watch and it was nice to see Demare get his first TdF stage but no one was competition for Kittel.

The GC was close on paper, but with the final TT in Marseille and Porte out, Froome was never in great danger. He never really had to attack and at least two of the promising attacks on him were shut down by the "respect for the yellow jersey" rule which wasn't even a "rule" until recent decades. Suppose Aru had pressed on when Froome had his mechanical, the situation might have been different in later stages.

The race was basically animated by Barguil, Bardet and Matthews. The yellow jersey didn't win a single stage and didn't really boss anything but the two TTs. Froome was the strongest rider with the strongest team but zzzzz to watch.