Kasper Asgreen Leads Breakaway to Victory!

Kasper Asgreen lead the four-man breakaway all the way to the finish line in today's thrilling Tour de France stage.  The Danish cyclist got his first stage win at the Tour de France.  As fun as it is too see a massive sprint from the peloton, I was rooting hard for the breakaway to beat the peloton.  It almost didn't happen as the peloton was closing fast in the final few meters, as you can see in the screen capture I grabbed.

Our prediction did quite well today, though there was no way we could have predicted that the breakaway would hold throughout the entire stage.

• Stage 18:  4h 06' 48" (actual), 4h 00' 10" (prediction), 06' 38" fast (-2.69% error)

Check out Asgreen's average speed.

• Stage 18:  12.49 m/s (44.95 kph or 27.93 mph)

The pace was slow at the start, but really kicked up as the peloton realized it would have to fight to catch the breakaway.

Sprinters will be happy that they get another chance to shine tomorrow.  Stage 19 is a 172.8-km (107.4-mi) flat stage that begins in the commune of Moirans-en-Montagne, not too far from Switzerland.  They will head north to the finish line in Poligny.  There is a category-4 climb and a category-3 climb, but the flat classification is probably deserved.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 19:  3h 48' 20" (prediction)

I hope our prediction for the final non-ceremonial flat stage does as well as we did on Stages 7 and 11 and not like how we fared on Stages 3 and 4!