Wow, Bobby Julich has harsh words for Sastre

donrhummy

Julich wrote for ESPN about the TDF and I was surprised at how harsh/critical he is of Sastre.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/tdf2008/n ... id=3487302

An excerpt:

I was hoping Sastre would try something on his own to show the team he is strong. But he didn't show me much Monday. However, Sastre is easygoing. His motto always is, "No stress." But, damn, sometimes you need stress and to show emotion. Schleck is more like me in the sense that he knows what he needs from his teammates. Sometimes Sastre doesn't ask for much, and teammates can get impatient under those circumstances. Sometimes in order to win, you have to stress, point to the fence and call your shot. Go for it. Sastre is conservative. Maybe he has to realize that Schleck is the rider who has to be looked after.

Kléber

Easy to say, harder to do. Sastre is one of those diesel riders. He probably knows he could have won the 2006 Tour if he could have accelerated harder when Landis cracked on the climb to La Toussuire but he didn't, probably because he couldn't. I doubt Sastre is riding along thinking, "carumba, my heart rate and power readings are tranquilo I could attack but hey, that would only be stressful, I'll just stay and look at the vista"

donrhummy

Yeah and what's amazing about this is that Julich is publicly criticizing a teammate; a guy he's going to have to ride with later. I wonder if there will be abd blood between them or not.

DaveyL

[Beavis and Butthead mode] Huh huh, he said "bad blood", huh huh... [/Beavis and Butthead mode]

andyp

donrhummy wrote:

Yeah and what's amazing about this is that Julich is publicly criticizing a teammate; a guy he's going to have to ride with later. I wonder if there will be abd blood between them or not.

I always thought the bad blood was between Santiago Perez and Tyler Hamilton. Literally.

humble

Kléber wrote:

Easy to say, harder to do. Sastre is one of those diesel riders. He probably knows he could have won the 2006 Tour if he could have accelerated harder when Landis cracked on the climb to La Toussuire but he didn't, probably because he couldn't. I doubt Sastre is riding along thinking, "carumba, my heart rate and power readings are tranquilo I could attack but hey, that would only be stressful, I'll just stay and look at the vista"

a lot of people think Sastre lost the tour the next day when he let Landis bug off - solo - he surely had the legs that day - rather - lacked foresight

steviedonut

Sastre didnt look particularly tranquillo when he came in on Monday,looked liked he'd put in a fair bit of effort to me

donrhummy

I wonder if the diff. languages of all the riders (and perhaps Sastre's lack of comfort with english) is part of why Julich is left feeling Sastre doesn't communicate/lead enough?

emadden

I get the feeling that Julich is a bit of tosser... I've been watching him at a few races over the last two years and its seems like he doesnt get on much with the other riders. I wonder how much sauce he was on in the past when he managed to make the podium in the tdf

redbicycle

I don't think he said anything that harsh - putting those statements in bold makes it read a bit different doesn't it? If you read it objectively it's not that condemning... The disturbing thing to me is this is coming from a guy who hasn't attacked anything in the past two years! Bobby's a good guy and has had a great career but his time has come me thinks...

rustychisel

mmm, I don't think BJ said anything too harsh, he seems right on the money to me. I don't believe Sastre will EVER win the Tour; I never did.

emadden

Hahaha egg on that dumb face of BJ now

Garry H

rustychisel wrote:

mmm, I don't think BJ said anything too harsh, he seems right on the money to me. I don't believe Sastre will EVER win the Tour; I never did.

:roll:

Sorry, couldn't resist

Interestedcp

donrhummy wrote:

I wonder if the diff. languages of all the riders (and perhaps Sastre's lack of comfort with english) is part of why Julich is left feeling Sastre doesn't communicate/lead enough?

Sastre wrote a column in a Danish newspaper today where he actually talks about this. He says that Riis have had many arguments with him since Riis thinks a leader should be aggressive and able to give clear orders, but as Sastre says, then he just isn't that kind of team captain, he is more of the listening kind.
Sastre is known to be a real nice and soft family man to such an extent that it hurts his career as a pro rider. I also think that it is Riis, not Sastre, that keeps the Schleck brothers loyal to him and the team instead of riding their own chances.
That said, I think Riis really likes him because Sastre is also a unselfish rider who will give everything for the team.

I think however that next year CSC-SB will have to captains: Sastre and Andy, and that Sastre might end up as Andy's domestique.

--
Regards

rustychisel

Garry H wrote:

rustychisel wrote:

mmm, I don't think BJ said anything too harsh, he seems right on the money to me. I don't believe Sastre will EVER win the Tour; I never did.

:roll:

Sorry, couldn't resist

Happy to be proven wrong, sort of...

donrhummy

Interestedcp wrote:

donrhummy wrote:

I wonder if the diff. languages of all the riders (and perhaps Sastre's lack of comfort with english) is part of why Julich is left feeling Sastre doesn't communicate/lead enough?

Sastre wrote a column in a Danish newspaper today where he actually talks about this. He says that Riis have had many arguments with him since Riis thinks a leader should be aggressive and able to give clear orders, but as Sastre says, then he just isn't that kind of team captain, he is more of the listening kind.
Sastre is known to be a real nice and soft family man to such an extent that it hurts his career as a pro rider. I also think that it is Riis, not Sastre, that keeps the Schleck brothers loyal to him and the team instead of riding their own chances.
That said, I think Riis really likes him because Sastre is also a unselfish rider who will give everything for the team.

I think however that next year CSC-SB will have to captains: Sastre and Andy, and that Sastre might end up as Andy's domestique.

--
Regards

Thanks for posting that! Really interesting to hear. I've heard that Riis can be a bit gruff with the riders and almost demand aggressiveness so it's really interesting that he seems to work well with a guy like Sastre who's so laid back.

I agree about next year. It's gonna be like Ullrich and Riis the year after Riis won.