Santos Tour Down Under *Spoilers*

[rich p]

I just watched the cyclingnews clip of the crit with Phil & Paul mangling the English language. Quite nostalgic!
The sound recognition subtitles are pretty funny with Peter Sagan coming out as Peter Cigar.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

I just watched the cyclingnews clip of the crit with Phil & Paul mangling the English language. Quite nostalgic!
The sound recognition subtitles are pretty funny with Peter Sagan coming out as Peter Cigar.

I watched the finish yesterday - I think the last 5 minutes - and was impressed to hear Phil get all the riders correctly identified in the closing stages, until I remembered that they'll have re-recorded the commentary after the event to make it look like he had a clue and the live commentary would have been a garbled load of old bollocks.

 

[mjr]

I watched the finish yesterday - I think the last 5 minutes - and was impressed to hear Phil get all the riders correctly identified in the closing stages, until I remembered that they'll have re-recorded the commentary after the event to make it look like he had a clue and the live commentary would have been a garbled load of old bollocks.

There were certainly a few "front end of the main field"s, some "young man" with "a promising career in front of him" and prime tourism announcements (with video footage rather more blatently irrelevant than helicopter shots of landmarks) but 9am was a bit too early for me to start the drinking game!

 

[SWSteve]

Waiting to see the stage finish, but boomshakalaka with the punditry result!

 

[mjr]

Caught up. Checked here. Wow it's popular isn't it?

I think today's result is indicative but not enough to be decisive but we'll see.

The short highlights of the women's race were a bad joke. 3 days racing summarised in less time than they give for highlights of one stage of the men's race, then the final stage highlights mentioned weren't shown in today's highlights. Shouldn't UCI make at least decent highlights packages a condition of women's World Tour status?

 

[mjr]

Actually, it's not shown in this listing of races, so I guess Phil was wrong about its status. What a surprise.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4HyZDlA44k

 

[smutchin]

I haven't seen any of either race yet. Is it worth catching up with?

 

[mjr]

I haven't seen any of either race yet. Is it worth catching up with?

Men's Stage 2 highlights final 3km definitely interesting but I wonder if peaking now means someone's going to be no good for the GTs. The classic and stage 1 finales may be interesting if you want to see Sagan trying to become a leadout man.

Women's race it's pretty difficult to say because I've seen so little of it

 

[rich p]

I haven't got round to watching any coverage on Bike Channel yet. Who's doing the commentary? Not the Muppets I hope.

 

[mjr]

Who's doing the commentary? Not the Muppets I hope.

P&P&Robbie McEwan

 

[smutchin]

I wonder if peaking now means someone's going to be no good for the GTs.

I don't think the top pros like Porte necessarily need to be at their absolute peak to win these early season races, since none of their main rivals are at their peak either - in fact, most of his key rivals for the Tour aren't even at the TDU, so it ought to be a relative canter for him.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Nasty weather in Adelaide/South Australia, which I think is where they are. (Now's your opportunity to point and laugh because I'm several thousand miles out or something)

http://www.news.com.au/national/bre...a/news-story/2a9c375ebd0ec67b6973c4f43f47ed22

Adelaide was forecast to have winds of up to 125km/h as thunderstorms moved across the city and the Adelaide Hills along with heavy rain and possible large hailstones.

 

[HF2300]

The Australian sites were warning of that weather for Stage 3, which is one reason why I thought it might be a bit of a lottery and maybe a breakaway day.

Well done to those who hedged their bets on Sagan and Bennett yesterday, and those who picked Bonifazio. That's me tumbling down the standings then!

 

[mjr]

Bike channel being a bit annoying: highlights advertised as 9pm... actually adverts to 9.20 and then they start showing MTB heroes. And now the cicle classic highlights. I think they've deleted the TDU recording in error.

 

[Rustybucket]

Bike channels highlights are poor, wish sky was still covering this!

Missing Feel the rush!