“Some teams had strange tactics" - Tim Merlier disappointed at lack of cohesion in chase on stage 5 at Giro d'Italia
CyclingWednesday, 08 May 2024 at 18:26
The sprinters were left fighting for scraps on stage 5 of the 2024 Giro d'Italia instead of battling for the win as Benjamin Thomas took victory from the breakaway, much to stage 3 winner, Tim Merlier's disappointment.
“Some teams had strange tactics," the Soudal - Quick-Step sprinter assesses ruefully of the day in his post-stage interview with his team's official social media pages. "You see what happens when you don't work well together. Then you have a breakaway that will stay in front."
After bunch sprints on the previous two stages, stage 5 had looked a cert to be something similar, especially given most of the climbing took place with over 100km still to go. On that early climb, though, Alpecin-Deceuninck set an infernal pace, dropping most sprinters and catching the early break. In the end, it was the counter-attack breakaway, led by Benjamin Thomas that stayed away until the end.
"It was a strong breakaway but I can't believe they stayed in front because it was pretty, pretty fast. But yeah, they made it so chapeau!" Merlier concludes. "Some teams had the tactic to drop other sprinters but they killed their own team I think. Not a day for the sprinters today, congrats to the breakaway."
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Thought the complaining in that is gone, now that Remco was not in there
Maybe he pays someone in the peleton to do it for him ;-)
Maybe :-)
There is nothing wrong with Alpecin's tactic today. They need to drop the fastest sprinter on the climb in order to win (what is wrong with that?). And the breakaway thing is on all of you guys, you watching each other out and they won. Next time work together, burn together
It’s only my hunch but maybe they were just going for points for KG for the jersey?
Or have they giving some other goal for their time at the Giro. They picked up a bunch at the first sprint, would have done better at the second if the breakaway hadn’t started just before and if the breakaway hadn’t succeeded, KG might have picked up more than he did at the finish. Their original strategy would have got him close to leading the points classification and nobody was counting on this breakaway today, even though I suggested yesterday to Abstractengineer it would be a worthwhile possibility.
What good is dropping the other sprinters 100KM from the finish if you aren't going to keep pulling the rest of the way? And Milan was nowhere near being dropped.
Why don’t you consider THEIR reasons?
Maybe the points were more important to them than the finish?
Kaden isn’t likely to get a stage win but might fancy his chances for the points jersey.
He picked up 16 and Milan who leads only 21, had the winning breakaway formed just 10km later, he’d have picked up more than Milan.
Was responding to original post.