Worst team at the Giro?

afx237vi

Is it me or have some teams at the Giro really, really sucked this year? I know there are always a few teams at every grand tour that don't perform well (such is the nature of sport), but I reckon you could have run this Giro with 6 or 7 teams maximum and no-one would have noticed any different.

Fuji - Best placed man on GC, Iker Camano in 38th. Best place on a stage, Vigano, 6th on stage 10.

Saxo Bank - WTF? When did CSC ever have a team this bad? 20th overall with Bak, who also had a couple of 4th places in stages.

Xacobeo - Have they really done enough to justify their selection over Flaminia? 24th overall with Vorganov

Milram - 29th overall with Rohregger, couple of nothing breakaways.

The French teams always suck. That's to be expected. AG2R have Valjavec in 9th overall though, even if he never climbs with the big boys. Bouygues... well they have Voeckler, which is something.

And Garmin? Their highest placed riders is Bradley Wiggins. 73rd. Seventy-freakin-third! Although, to be fair, Farrar has been sort of up there in the sprints.

GroupOfOne MkII

Sexy Bonk were incredibly bad in the TTT (by their standards anyway) and came past me in tatters. Think they finished with four or five and then ones and twos, with the last guy being caught by Katusha. Not good. Pretty sure Katusha will be disappointed with their Giro too.

Fuji have been a waste of space, while at least Xacobeo did attack on a couple of stages early on, so really not much worse than Voeckler & co.

Milram I'd forgotten were in the Giro. Are you sure they are? Without Farrar Garmin's Giro would be awful, though Wiggins could save it tomorrow. Strange to see Millar pull out with an ideal TT to come, though he has gone a bit Mick Rogers on the TT front. Plus he had a Nocturne to ride

How about Quick Step? Suppose Seeldraeyers has sort of saved their race. If you can call finishing one rider in the top 50 saved. Caisse d'Epargne haven't had much to write home about either, but I suppose have slipped Arroyo onto the edge of the top 10.

redbicycle

the ones that stand out for me are Saxo and Garmin... I mean, the other teams are not that much of a surprise sucky-performance wise. Saxo's lack of firepower is a complete mystery - they're not even aggressive outside of McCartney and Bak on one stage a few days ago. Not at all like Riis to field a team of this sort. Garmin...? Well, despite their good guy/clean guy image (which I wholeheartedly respect) they need to start doing something! CVV crashes out (fair enough), Farrar quits (ala Cav), Millar quits (???) - the other guys are basically using this as a training ride apparently. Zabriskie and Danielson in particular may as well have stayed home!!!

What of Astana...? Pretty disappointing tour - Leipheimer not bad, but clearly not up to the task - no stage wins by the team at all. Good show by Popo but the guy they clearly miss is Horner - he was the only one who seemed to animate the race on the team.

sing_for_absolution

redbicycle wrote:

Saxo's lack of firepower is a complete mystery - they're not even aggressive outside of McCartney and Bak on one stage a few days ago. Not at all like Riis to field a team of this sort.

In light of everything that has blighted Mr Riis and cycling for the past few years, is it really a surprise?

Noodley

It might be a sign of a cleaner peloton?


:twisted:

AndyRubio

I assumed that Saxo have been phoning it in because they're focusing on the Tour. If they wanted to get anything from the Giro they'd've entered a decent team?

victorponf

Fuji for me

Xacobeo had 2 huge problems before Giro (15 days before)

Garc'ia Dapena and specially Mosquera chashes. You never know but sure Mosquera would be top ten, at minimun, in this Giro

csp

Had it not been for Gilbert's win yesterday, I honestly wouldn't have known whether Silence Lotto had a team in the Giro. Even with all the extra attention the Giro had this year, I think it is still a race mainly for the Italians.

aurelio_-_banned

afx237vi wrote:

Is it me or have some teams at the Giro really, really sucked this year?...The French teams always suck. That's to be expected... And Garmin? Their highest placed riders is Bradley Wiggins. 73rd.

Do you think that there might be some correlation between which teams 'suck' and which teams are trying to do the race clean? If so to say they 'suck' is totally unfair as these are the sort of teams that actually deserve our admiration. As Wiggins himself said of the Tour:

I spent a lot of time in the group finishing an hour down most days and that's where the heroes are for me. Guys like Geriant Thomas, 21 years old - for the last two weeks I've watched him drag himself through the Alps and the Pyrenees on nothing but bread and water - for me - they are the real heroes of the Tour de France - not the guys on the million Euro contracts who are being done for blood transfusions and things like that.

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/si ... script.asp

iainf72

aurelio wrote:

Do you think that there might be some correlation between which teams 'suck' and which teams are trying to do the race clean? If so to say they 'suck' is totally unfair as these are the sort of teams that actually deserve our admiration. As Wiggins himself said of the Tour:

No. The French teams don't have much interest in the Giro and as Guimard said recently, race stupidly. When you get a strong guy who uses his head even the French teams can turn in a good result (see Moncoutié in the Vuelta last year)

Tommy V. is a smart racer and nearly got a result because of it yesterday

Columbia are doing all the right things and have a brace of stage wins.

Sitting around going "oh well, I won't be able to keep up so I'll just talk about a 2 speed peloton and hang out at the back" doesn't help anyone.

Have you read this?

Quite Frankly

Milram for me.

If their riders aren't riding clean then you'd have to say it would point to the rampant and widespread use of PED''s in the Peleton.

What are the best examples of individual riders or even teams who have been caught doping and yet weren't producing good results at the time?

I'm thinking maybe Sinkewitz although he did put in some credible performances. Who else?

Philip S

Hey, Garmin are doing a good job for their sponsors. Every time there's a shot of the back of the peloton, you get a really clear shot of Dave Zabriskie sitting at the back, thus guaranteeing them maximum exposure (although at this rate the prime sponsor logo space will be the back of the shorts, rather than the jersey).

Kléber

This was a thought I had too, that a few teams bagged most of the results and many others seemed totally absent. Usually in the Tour there's one or two teams that have a quiet three weeks but the Giro, well you need to scan the results to actually realise they are there.

In addition to the names mentioned, Lotto were invisible until Gilbert popped up.

moray_gub

Kléber wrote:

This was a thought I had too, that a few teams bagged most of the results and many others seemed totally absent. Usually in the Tour there's one or two teams that have a quiet three weeks but the Giro, well you need to scan the results to actually realise they are there.

In addition to the names mentioned, Lotto were invisible until Gilbert popped up.

The thought had crossed my mind yesterday why were Lotto on the front with what was it 40 or so to go , id forgotten Gilbert was in the race hadnt heard him mentioned at all.

Quite Frankly

Spare a thought for Evgeny Sokolov from BBox Bouygues Telecom. As good as five hours down in last place with a gap of 25 minutes to the next placed rider.

mididoctors

fuji... by a mile did nothing

shouldn't have been in the race

Xacobeo while poor got in a few breaks

garmin mixed up a bit ok no results but they came and played in the first week or so..then just faded

wiggins was very unlucky today.. targetted stage he should have won if sprick had stayed on his bike (crashed a few times this giro?)

as AndyRubio says a few should have done better teams never took it seriously.. which is a bit poor on the races centenary

CasinoKing

I didnt even realise some of those teams were in the race!! To be fair, Garmin did just aim for the TTT.. and we know what happened there..

Cumulonimbus

As far as Garmin go, their aims were IMO

Team time trial (came second)
Farrar for the sprints (was in the mix but couldnt beat Cav and Petacchi)
Vandevelde for the overall (he crashed early on so didnt play a role)
Final TT (Wiggins came second)
Breakaway (they did have men in a few breakaways but Pate in 3rd was their best)

So not the worst set of results but a lot of action in the first week which always seems a long time ago to me by the end... Surprised that someone like Zabriskie didnt try for the last TT, had thought about having a shot in the dark and going for him in the PTP thinking he had been taking it easy

volvine

Caisse d'Epargne very dissapointing for one of the bigger teams never saw them pulling as a team at the front once (perhaps they did but missed it due to eurosport changing scheduales) :evil: .

blazing_saddles

Surely, all of the teams mentioned were favourites for this title, before the race?
Other than Garmin failing to take the TTT, none of them had more than the vague hope of a stage win.

I would have thought that the worst team at the Giro should be the team with the greatest ambitions, who achieved the least.
In which case.......

How about a Maillot Merde awarded to the rider who was the biggest Giro flop?

Kléber

It all shows the folly of the Pro Tour as cooked by Chef McQuaid. His idea was that in return for guaranteed entry into some events, teams had to commit to ride the other rounds. This meant you had teams who just didn't want to be in race excluding some home-nation teams. Even this year it was clear several teams were using the race to test some young riders in a Grand Tour. One such rider to watch is Arnold Jeannesson, the Caisse d'Epargne rider who was up there on some of the hillier stages.

mididoctors2

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Surely, all of the teams mentioned were favourites for this title, before the race?
Other than Garmin failing to take the TTT, none of them had more than the vague hope of a stage win.

I would have thought that the worst team at the Giro should be the team with the greatest ambitions, who achieved the least.
In which case.......

How about a Maillot Merde awarded to the rider who was the biggest Giro flop?

Levi

drenkrom

Saxo. Just go look at the results sheet for the TTT and look for Klostergaard...

Keep looking....

I swear he's in there...

Go on, you're almost there...

Theeeeeeeere he is, 5:56 down, a full 5 minutes behind his teammates (on a time of 22:40 or something). Whatever team starts out that way is in for a loooong race and can't possibly argue they brought along the best team for the job.

Voigt got in a good break, but that's like congratulating the sun for coming up.

Gazzaputt

Milram riders did get in a few breaks.

Fuji I forgot were in it until mentioned here.

For me the worst were Garmin. To only go for the Team TT and short individual TT is poor.

redddraggon

Gazzaputt wrote:

For me the worst were Garmin. To only go for the Team TT and short individual TT is poor.

Not entirely True, Farrar was placed well on a number of stages, and if things had gone his way (say Ale-jet and Cav crashing) he could have got a stage.

nolf

I understand why sexybank didn't field a great team, they wanted to preserve people for the tour and not risk crashing them, Jens just wanted the time off his family me thinks.

Realising this though they should have been much more attacky though. Why bother sending a team just to ride around in the peloton. Send them on the attack everyday!
Worst comes to the worst they fail miserably, and every break gets caught, but it's not like they did anything else.