With the first 9 stages coming without a break, Stage 8 has the boys tired and resting their legs. The peloton is especially tired knowing day 9, the final stage before the first rest day, has some fun hills. Evaluating their effort levels today, it’s clear the juice is not worth the squeeze as quoted by former American cyclist, and now NBC reporter, Christian Vande Velde.
Liam Slock of Lotto Intermarché led this race 179km of 180km’s. In heartbreaking fashion, the peloton overtook him with one goal in mind. Each team yearning to send their sprinter to the line first.
With the final right hand turn, every team raised things up a notch. With teams scratching to send their men to the front, Alpecin-Premier Tech set up their point man Jasper Philipsen with nothing but clean air.
Instead of taking advantage of the clean air, it was for at least this year once again, proven that it is better to be fast than to have a great lead out. With a couple scrappy sprinters like Tim Merlier and Biniam Girmay acting as free agents in today’s leadout, it showed the good sprinters pace themselves from the back. They stole the perfect slipstreams to pass by Jasper Philipsen and Olav Kooij, who were perfectly set up for the win.
Usually, sprinters pop onto the scene and disappear as quickly as they came. Tim Merlier however, is 33 years old, and only getting better. Is he an anomaly, or proof that developing talent pays off?
