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One reason for the lack of world class XCO racers in England is that British cycling spends much more money on the development of track cyclists as it offers them a much better return on investment in terms of medals at the Olympics. Something like 12 out of the 22 cycling events at the Olympics take place on the track.

I doubt whether the GC contenders like fact that there are bonus seconds available for sprints along the route. For them it is probably just one more thing to stress about as if there is not enough to stress about during the 3 weeks. For the fans it is of course great entertainment.

During the years he dominated he also never had to deal with ridiculously talented riders such as MvdP and Tommy P. I doubt whether Tommy P will continue for much longer with XCO after the Olympics as Team Ineos will probably get much more value for their money by "forcing" him to focus on road.

I saw the article. Nice to see them giving some publicity to cycling. They even had an article on Ryan Gibbons' win yesterday.

As far as the sprinters are concerned Caleb is in a class of his own in this race. Would love to see him up against Sam Bennett.

Yes indeed. He was lucky in the sense that none of the 3 riders who followed Bernal was really prepared ( or able) to take a proper turn in front and also that Jonathan Castroviejo got a flat at a time that he was still driving the chasing group with the main contenders. Mader deserves the win though, he is a very good rider who also showed a lot of promise during his stint with NTT.

Ganna spent more time changing jerseys for the podium presentation than he spent on the road today. It was a masterclass though.

No, I do not have anything to contradict what you posted, you are probably spot on. I read about a week ago on the bikeperfect website that Pidcock reckoned his starting position in Albstadt would be 90 or something and that he is aiming for a top 16 so that he can start the short track next week. He perhaps just gave a rough indication at the time without doing calculations.

Nope. He will start near the back of the field tomorrow and will have to finish within the top 16 in order to qualify for the short course next weekend.

Well done to G... This is the best form he has been in at this stage of a season for quite a while. Imo he is the only rider (of those who will do the 2021 TdF) who has a realistic chance to beat the Slovenians. Not a bad ride by the "domestique" Richie Porte either. A top 20 for Louis.. That is probably as good as it is going to get for him for the rest of his career.

It is only G who could do that. How on earth he ever managed to stay upright for 3 weeks to win a Tour de France remains a mystery. If he is not injured and can stay upright tomorrow he should win this one fairly easily.

Tomorrow should be a thriller. Lets hope the weather allows them to do the full stage as planned. My money is on Sepp Kuss to be in yellow after tomorrow. Richie P as an outsider.

He only needs 34 more professional wins to catch up to Cavendish ... must first get past Valverde though before he can go after Mark

Rohan D absolutely smoked the field today... a 9 seconds gap between the winner the second placed rider on a 4km course like today's is quite incredible.

Pidcock is quickly becoming one of my favourite riders.. his attacking style of racing is joy to watch.

Philipsen is very much a thoroughbred race pony who has beaten many top sprinters in the world (including Bennett and Ackermann) during the last few weeks. I would say someone who can beat him twice in a row in a fair sprint must be pretty decent.

That oke (Jasper Philipson) is no slouch and he put many more riders than only Sam Bennett "in their places". Nearly all the top sprinters in the world started the race so it was a brilliant result for him.

Nobody can ever accuse him of being a quitter.

Very humble guy, nearly seems to be too nice a person to be a sprinter

Yeah, he looked in splendid form today I thought it was going to be his day but he stuffed it up at the end though by drifting to the back of the group and then got boxed in ( like you said) Fantastic race to watch.

Nobody really put them under pressure during the race. Only Movistar tried, the other teams were pretty non existent. Adam Yates hardly broke a sweat after stage 3. Not taking anything away from them, it was an excellent team performance.

Another very good ride by Kamna. He is a very good rider... flies perhaps a bit under the radar with so many good new riders around these days.

Today and especially tomorrow should be very good with a few teams who have multiple cards to play. Sadly it seems as if Chris Froome's road to recovery is going very slow or even standing still while Louis Meintjes seems to be back to square 1 after his relative better performances of late. And while all of this continue Mark Cavendish will pull the leaders jersey on his shoulders at stage 2 of the Coppi e Bartali

Nice to see Rohan smashing this one... it's been a while. Great ride by Stefan too- a ninth position in such a quality field is a performance to be proud of.

Yeah, JA is a class act who often often shows very good sportsmanship as well as graciousness in defeat.