I'm on the side that the organizers did the best they could with the situation. Canceling the entire stage would be patently unfair to those who had expended the energy on this stage to put themselves in the position there were at. Continuing the race under the conditions was obviously infeasible. Stopping the race and re-releasing riders through the obstruction at a later time was logistically impossible. The top of the last climb is the logical place where times are available and where most of the leading riders had all passed this checkpoint, so no contenders gained an advantage by having inside knowledge that the race was ending prematurely.
As to the idea that this has dramatically changed the overall outcome, anything is possible, but I'm skeptical it made much change at all. JA might have clawed back perhaps 20 secs in the descent (if he didn't crash - he was riding at a pace where a crash is probably a one in three probability), but probably would have lost that and much more on the next climb. He's been on the absolute limit defending the jersey for quite some time now hanging on by his fingernails and given that his forte has never been high-altitude climbing, the chances of him milking his slim lead through all three of the final alps stages was always pretty small. I hope he can keep 2nd, but I bet GT gets a couple minutes on him in tomorrow's stage. I could see him dropping to 6th, although the shortened Stage 20 may help him hang on.
Net, net, they did the best they could and I doubt the overall result, at least for the podium, will likely be affected.
- Mark
Last edited by markjenn; 07-26-19 at 08:59 PM.