Jasper Philipsen Wins Thrilling Sprint!

Today's stage was an interesting study in peloton dynamics.  Getting sprinters ready for the finish was the aim of the game in the final part of the race.  Jasper Philipsen prevailed in the final sprint, which was thrilling!  He had to wait for confirmation as race organizers took about 20 minutes to figure out if Philipsen would be penalized for a slight bump on Wout van Aert.  Check out the finish.

Now we come to the comparison between our prediction and reality.  I discovered this morning that my model was using the terrain data for the old 187.4-km stage, not the modified 193.5-km stage.  The additional 6.1 km was due to too much road furniture on the original route.  I won't put a new prediction here because I don't want to brush over the mistake I made yesterday.  I'll compare with the prediction I originally made.

• Stage 03:  4h 43' 15" (actual), 4h 19' 06" (prediction), 24' 09" fast (-8.53% error)

That is obviously a terrible result!  I wish I had the correct terrain data before I wrote yesterday's blog post.  Oh well, I'll have to chalk this one up to a goof!  Below is Philipsen's average speed.

• Stage 03:  11.39 m/s (40.99 kph or 25.47 mph)

What a bizarre stage!  The above speed is quite a bit slower than Tour de France organizers guessed with their time schedules.

Tomorrow's fourth stage begins in the southwest French commune of Dax and takes riders 181.8 km (113.0 mi) mostly east to the commune of Nogaro.  The flat stage will allow sprinters to shine again before the next two grueling mountain stages.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 04:  4h 06' 01" (prediction)

After today's disaster, I hope we can get back on track tomorrow.  With such a flat stage, speeds might be higher than my model predicts.  Sprinters might go all-out with the mountains coming up!