2018 PRO thread
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BdaGhisallo
- Posts: 3278
- Joined: Wed Mar 17, 2004 1:38 pm
Two monuments in nine years of trying - some domination that. Two out of a possible forty four (with Lombardy still to come this season) isn't that impressive. And it's not as if they haven't been trying hard to win them.
No - your point in that paragraph, as you wrote it, was that other teams are left with crumbs because Sky are targeting the classics. Ask Quickstep, BMC and Movistar what those crumbs taste like
I could get with a salary cap, but it's not the only factor. Take GVA's amazing rde yesterday for instance. GVA has an almost identical individual palmares to Kwiatkowski (despite being 5 years older) and I'd expect that GVA is paid at least as much as MK. GVA is at this Tour for himself, and even if Richie Porte (bookies 2nd favourite) had still been riding today GVA would have been allowed to do his own thing and defend his jersey. MK is at the Tour for one reason only, to ride himself to a standstill on the front of the Froome group on every mountain stage. That discipline makes a difference too, it's not just money.
The other thing is that Sky won't be around forever. Dynasties come and go anyway, especially in cycling. Someone compared it to Premier League football, but those dominant teams are built on literal brick and mortar foundations. Cycling teams don't race in their own massive stadiums in the middle of their fan base, their strengths are intangible and ephemeral by comparison. So if you're looking at changing the way team structures are legislated you need to make sure you're not just trying to break the way Sky works now, but are planning what's best for all teams in the future.
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BdaGhisallo
- Posts: 3278
- Joined: Wed Mar 17, 2004 1:38 pm
Some sage advice here.wingguy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:05 pmNo - your point in that paragraph, as you wrote it, was that other teams are left with crumbs because Sky are targeting the classics. Ask Quickstep, BMC and Movistar what those crumbs taste like
I could get with a salary cap, but it's not the only factor. Take GVA's amazing rde yesterday for instance. GVA has an almost identical individual palmares to Kwiatkowski (despite being 5 years older) and I'd expect that GVA is paid at least as much as MK. GVA is at this Tour for himself, and even if Richie Porte (bookies 2nd favourite) had still been riding today GVA would have been allowed to do his own thing and defend his jersey. MK is at the Tour for one reason only, to ride himself to a standstill on the front of the Froome group on every mountain stage. That discipline makes a difference too, it's not just money.
The other thing is that Sky won't be around forever. Dynasties come and go anyway, especially in cycling. Someone compared it to Premier League football, but those dominant teams are built on literal brick and mortar foundations. Cycling teams don't race in their own massive stadiums in the middle of their fan base, their strengths are intangible and ephemeral by comparison. So if you're looking at changing the way team structures are legislated you need to make sure you're not just trying to break the way Sky works now, but are planning what's best for all teams in the future.
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CrankAddictsRich
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Speaking of Sky dominating..... Quickstep got win #50 for the season yesterday, so there is that.
Listening to the Lance podcast yesterday, Lance picked Kwiato as his patron of the day.... he said, "I love this guy... he knows his job is to get on the front and hammer until the start of that last climb and then when he's done, he drops the anchor an crawls to the finish. He saves as much energy as he can for the next day. Some of these guys roll in a minute after the leaders, but this guy comes in 15 minutes later, not fast at all." I thought it was interesting, given all of the comparisons people have been making between Sky and Postal, to hear him recognize the kind of work that I'm sure he probably appreciated when he was running the show.
Listening to the Lance podcast yesterday, Lance picked Kwiato as his patron of the day.... he said, "I love this guy... he knows his job is to get on the front and hammer until the start of that last climb and then when he's done, he drops the anchor an crawls to the finish. He saves as much energy as he can for the next day. Some of these guys roll in a minute after the leaders, but this guy comes in 15 minutes later, not fast at all." I thought it was interesting, given all of the comparisons people have been making between Sky and Postal, to hear him recognize the kind of work that I'm sure he probably appreciated when he was running the show.
On the same subject, this made me laugh - he acknowledges what we all thought in 2004
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlWYQCpgSPr ... _copy_link
Interesting even Hincapie thought it was a dick move.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlWYQCpgSPr ... _copy_link
Interesting even Hincapie thought it was a dick move.
Quickstep sending half their team up the road at the moment, maybe they really want to try for the mountains jersey for Alaphillipe. Although to be fair it sounds like half the peloton is ahead of the GC group right now. See what shakes out after the first summit 
Also, Sagan showing why no-one else has a farts chance in a hurricane of getting green as long as he stays on the bike until Paris. How on earth does he come so, so close in every bunch sprint and retain the ability to do this whenever he feels like it? Mind boggling.
Also, Sagan showing why no-one else has a farts chance in a hurricane of getting green as long as he stays on the bike until Paris. How on earth does he come so, so close in every bunch sprint and retain the ability to do this whenever he feels like it? Mind boggling.
Sagan is on another level from Hoshovd though. Hushovd's breakaway win over an HC was a one off 'holy crap' kinda performance, from Sagan you expect something like it every year. And although the nature of the intermediates has been massively changed since '09, Hushovd still needed Cav to be relegated from a stage result in order to hold on to Green. Sagan will win the classification by an enormous amount no matter how successful any of the other sprinters are.
And it's not that the other sprinters don't do it because they're crybabies or any other disrespectful nonsense like that, it's because having a top end sprint and then being able to climb with is insanely difficult to balance.
And it's not that the other sprinters don't do it because they're crybabies or any other disrespectful nonsense like that, it's because having a top end sprint and then being able to climb with is insanely difficult to balance.
Valverde really is a beast, glad he is there to animate the race.
I met him in 2009 at Challenge Majorca. A friend of mine had been bad injured in a cycling accident that spring and was in hospital. Valverde agreed to get his phoro taken with a get well soon message for my friend. He is a nice guy.
I met him in 2009 at Challenge Majorca. A friend of mine had been bad injured in a cycling accident that spring and was in hospital. Valverde agreed to get his phoro taken with a get well soon message for my friend. He is a nice guy.
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