Deals vs Doping

Yellow Peril

dougzz wrote:

Why would a guy that's one back to back Lombardia's amongst many other things want such a small race so badly?

Just to keep the Palmares ticking over. No-one remembers second place. He's not short of cash and probably isn't in it to keep hjimself off the breadline. To guys like Gilbert being top of the podium is everything.

If you've won a couple of major Tours/classics why dope?

Edit: the comment immediately above is not a reference to Gilbert just a rhetorical question to show that some people just need to win whatever whether they need it or not.

pb21

dougzz wrote:

Why would a guy that's one back to back Lombardia's amongst many other things want such a small race so badly?

This may have something to do with it...

RichN95.

Yellow Peril wrote:

If you've won a couple of major Tours/classics why dope?

Because you won them by doping, and the only way you can win again is by doping?

Gilbert's won races without paying for them before, so he can do it again.

Yellow Peril

RichN95 wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

If you've won a couple of major Tours/classics why dope?

Because you won them by doping, and the only way you can win again is by doping?

Gilbert's won races without paying for them before, so he can do it again.

But the point I'm challenging is that Gilbert wouldn't buy a small race because he's won big races. He has lots of money and presumably doesn't need to race at all so the attraction must be to be top of the podium with an ever expanding palmares. Similarly riders who have doped, won big time, made their money and got away with it are still prepared to dope in small races because they are in love with winning.

I think Gilbert is a fantastic rider, I'm sure he doesn't fancy the idea or need to buy races. But I'm also sure he fancies the idea of second place even less.

dougzz

Yellow Peril wrote:

But the point I'm challenging is that Gilbert wouldn't buy a small race because he's won big races. He has lots of money and presumably doesn't need to race at all so the attraction must be to be top of the podium with an ever expanding palmares. Similarly riders who have doped, won big time, made their money and got away with it are still prepared to dope in small races because they are in love with winning.

I think Gilbert is a fantastic rider, I'm sure he doesn't fancy the idea or need to buy races. But I'm also sure he fancies the idea of second place even less.

But it equates to Ryan Giggs trying to buy a Conference Winners medal, no?

It still makes no sense to me. If he gifted it to a lesser rider for a future favour yes, but him wanting it doesn't stack up to me.

Yellow Peril

dougzz wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

But the point I'm challenging is that Gilbert wouldn't buy a small race because he's won big races. He has lots of money and presumably doesn't need to race at all so the attraction must be to be top of the podium with an ever expanding palmares. Similarly riders who have doped, won big time, made their money and got away with it are still prepared to dope in small races because they are in love with winning.

I think Gilbert is a fantastic rider, I'm sure he doesn't fancy the idea or need to buy races. But I'm also sure he fancies the idea of second place even less.

But it equates to Ryan Giggs trying to buy a Conference Winners medal, no?

It still makes no sense to me. If he gifted it to a lesser rider for a future favour yes, but him wanting it doesn't stack up to me.

I see your point. Perhaps he was using up an old favour Leukemans owed him or he gave Leukemans the choice of win or cash and Leukemans thought he'd treat the team with the extra prize money. I think the logical conclusion is that neither fancied unnecessary time in the red zone with the Amstel Gold coming up.

jerry3571

I think favours are abound in all races as well as spats (Garmin and HTC).
I remember a moment in the Vuelta where Alex Zulle needed a hand
as he was having trouble in the mountains and two riders from some obscure Team were up for pulling him along and Zulle survived for another day.
These moments, when funny things are going on, are when you feel as though you're not sure what is going on and some odd team works for apparently is no reason at all.
This confusion could be mixed up with other internal squabbles as with a Team gettting a hard time from the manager who insisted that any of thier riders had to be the winning break and then the Team missed out so leading to a load of thier riders being told to go to the front as a form of punishment.

I think Robert Millar worked for Roche senior when Roche went on to win the Giro. Millar felt bad for Roche as the Italians were ganging up on him in the same way the Spanish had ruined his own chances at the Vuelta previously.
This is what is nice about this game; it's all (Duffield saying) wheels within wheels.

I also couldn't understand that when Ullrich chased Vinos attacks when they were on the same Team at the Tour de France. The reason was later said that Ullrich didn't like Vino; I thought Ullrich was just a bit dull in the head so it all kind of makes sense now.

-Jerry

rick_chasey

jerry3571 wrote:

I also couldn't understand that when Ullrich chased Vinos attacks when they were on the same Team at the Tour de France. The reason was later said that Ullrich didn't like Vino; I thought Ullrich was just a bit dull in the head so it all kind of makes sense now.

-Jerry

I think that was more pay-back for not adhearing to team orders.

Yellow Peril

Just took a look at the clip of the 1976 Worlds on the Flandria website. It shows the last 1km with Moser weaving from one side of the road to the other to avoid a working over by Maertens.

Obviously I'll genuflect to more knowledgeable opinion on the forum but that was definitely two guys going genuinely head to head! Great stuff.

jerry3571

Deals made in races can also happen between Team Managers and then instruction passed on to the rider; we see the riders talking but we don't see what the Managers are up to so we only see part of the conversation.

-Jerry

Bronzie

Yellow Peril wrote:

Just took a look at the clip of the 1976 Worlds on the Flandria website. It shows the last 1km with Moser weaving from one side of the road to the other to avoid a working over by Maertens

Maerten's autobiography is a great insight into the deals that got done back in his days.........a cracking read to boot