Bigger achievement - Red or Green?

Mac9

Excellent ride from Wiggins yesterday and he sounds pretty confident of holding onto the Red Jersey now.

"The race is ours to lose. I'm feeling good, I felt strong on the climbs, it still hurts of course but everybody else is hurting as well.

"We're another day closer now and tomorrow is another very hard stage. But we'll continue to fight all the way to the end and hopefully that'll be enough to win the red jersey."

But it has got me thinking, what will be a bigger achievement for British cycling? Cavendish's Green in France, or Wiggins winning the Vuelta?

In the mainstream sporting media I don't think Wiggins winning will get the same amount of attention simply because the Tour garners more interest than the Vuelta. But I think from a cycling point of view, it'll be a bigger achievement to win the Vuelta - worthy of the Sports Personality Of The Year award in my opinion.

Sorry if this has already been covered, just wondered what the rest of you thought?

mroli

Red. But a long way to go yet.

Gazzaputt

Winning a grand tour out weighs anything. Red Pink or yellow all are a massive achievement.

RichN95.

Red or Green? Isn't that Ant and Dec's rubbish new gameshow?

It's clearly red for me. Cav winning five stages was a bigger achievement than actually winning green IMO.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95 wrote:

Red or Green? Isn't that Ant and Dec's rubbish new gameshow?

It's clearly red for me. Cav winning five stages was a bigger achievement than actually winning green IMO.

Cav was a bit of a complete sprinting package though. Green, five stages and the hattrick in Paris. That's about as good as it's possible to get for a sprinter. It's cements Cav's reputation as the absolute best sprinter at the moment and ensures his name has to be mentioned in any discussion of all time sprinting greats (acknowledging that sprinting has become more and more specialised over the years).

So while the red/pink/yellow tops the green by some way it's fair to say that Cav's performance this year is worthy of the amount of press it got.

Jez mon

Cav is the best sprinter in the peleton.

Wiggins is not the best GC contender in the peleton.

Having said that, a British rider winning a GT was pretty much unthinkable a few years ago.

Tom Butcher

I was thinking IF Wiggins wins red where will that put him in the list of all time GB (and IOM) roadmen - top three with Cav and Simpson ?

fastercyclist

Red is the best.

Green is winning a race within a race, red is winning the race. I don't want to demean Cav because he is a great champion but I'd rather have a Red than a Green jersey. Cav is still the better rider (relative to their rivals in the same sub-section of the sport they compete in) but red is the bigger prize.

turnerjohn

Reds got to be harder overal as you have to be master of all trades. Not knocking the Manx Man (guys a legend) but he couldn't have done that without the teams support (or any other sprinter for that matter) and sprinters are generally great at climbs !

RowCycle

I'm going to go with Cav and green (although think the number of stages are more impressive than the green jersey)/

Le tour has all the top sprinters and teams, so he won against the best. La Vuelta doesn't have all the top GC contenders.

samb01

In the abstract, red.
In this particular instance, green.

RichN95.

RowCycle wrote:

I'm going to go with Cav and green (although think the number of stages are more impressive than the green jersey)/

Le tour has all the top sprinters and teams, so he won against the best. La Vuelta doesn't have all the top GC contenders.

All the top sprinters weren't fully competing for the green jersey though. The likes of Farrar, Greipel, Petacchi and EBH weren't going for the intermediate sprints.

Anyway, it's a nice question to have. It wasn't too long ago that we were pretending McEwen, Backstedt and Cioni were British.

iainf72

And KOM in the tour beats the points anyway.

seven7faces

Is it treasonous to have a bet on Wiggins to win SPOTY at 100-1 in the off chance he actually wins the thing. Don't want to tempt fate but....

TheStone

For me:

1) Yellow
2) Pink
3) Rainbow
4) Green
5) Red

That's not to take anything away from Brad, but the Tour is a much bigger event in terms of the quality of the field and the public interest.

Anonymous

Yellow
Pink
Red
Rainbow
Green

Really surprised that some people rate Green ahead of Red - I love Cav, but red is winning a GT!

rick_chasey

TheStone wrote:

For me:

1) Yellow
2) Pink
3) Rainbow
4) Green
5) Red

That's not to take anything away from Brad, but the Tour is a much bigger event in terms of the quality of the field and the public interest.

Crazy.

You're putting a points competition ahead of an overal 3 week win? And a one day?

Pfft.

Tour, Giro, Vuelta, and then you can argue about what order you put the one day races in. Points competitions come behind those. Probably in the same GT order.

rick_chasey

iainf72 wrote:

And KOM in the tour beats the points anyway.

Trolling?

4/10.

LangerDan

You could always email Kelly @ Eurosport and ask him - he's got both (ok, it wasn't red when Kelly won it, but thats just being picky)

shinyhelmut

Well obviously Roubaix and Flanders take precedence over any summer race

ozzzyosborn206

roubaix flanders double imo is as impressive as anything else, you need to be a real strongman to win and while your team makes a big difference it makes nowhere as much difference as it does for any of the tours

andrew_s

iainf72 wrote:

And KOM in the tour beats the points anyway.

Not according to the organisers.
If you are leading both competitions, you wear the green jersey.

TheStone

Rick Chasey wrote:

Crazy.

You're putting a points competition ahead of an overal 3 week win? And a one day?

Pfft.

Tour, Giro, Vuelta, and then you can argue about what order you put the one day races in. Points competitions come behind those. Probably in the same GT order.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't think the length of the tour would be a decider. My thinking is that the field in the Vuelta isn't always that strong. Many are just training for the WCs. But the Tour is nearly always strong (Yellow and Green).

Tusher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aouC56MPOE

Pokerface

I think Red is harder to win than Green. Master of all trades vs Master of One. The field each year decides how worthy the Red (or Green) winner of that year is I suppose.

I put a coloured jersey over any one day race (even the World's). You have to perform consistently well for 3 weeks vs one day to win a jersey.

mouth

Red over Green for me I'm afraid.

To win the red or indeed any GT for that matter you must complete the whole race. For the green you can (THEORETICALLY) ride the first 11 or so stages, win all the intermediate and final sprints to gain unassailable points and go home to watch ITV's (other channels are available...) coverage, whereas Brad will still be slogging away listening to race radio.

Having said that, if someone were to win the first 11 stages and the intermediate sprints as well, he'd probably be crowned a hero and a cycling legend for all of time.

It's a bit like trying to say Birmingham City should be lauded over United because they won the Carling Cup.

Jez mon

Mouth wrote:

Red over Green for me I'm afraid.

To win the red or indeed any GT for that matter you must complete the whole race. For the green you can (THEORETICALLY) ride the first 11 or so stages, win all the intermediate and final sprints to gain unassailable points and go home to watch ITV's (other channels are available...) coverage, whereas Brad will still be slogging away listening to race radio.

Having said that, if someone were to win the first 11 stages and the intermediate sprints as well, he'd probably be crowned a hero and a cycling legend for all of time.

It's a bit like trying to say Birmingham City should be lauded over United because they won the Carling Cup.

Wrong

You have to cross the finish line in Paris to win the green or polka dot jerseys.

dulldave

I'd swap them both for having a British rider win breakaway mountain stages. Just saying.

iainf72

dulldave wrote:

I'd swap them both for having a British rider win breakaway mountain stages. Just saying.

This has happened before - The fellow in question also won the KOM jersey

inkyfingers

iainf72 wrote:

dulldave wrote:

I'd swap them both for having a British rider win breakaway mountain stages. Just saying.

This has happened before - The fellow in question also won the KOM jersey

Sorry to be a pedant but it's happened more than once, Barry Hoban was perhaps a more surprising mountain stage winner in the 60s.

Monty Zoncolan

I'd say red. It's a grand tour. Grand. Tour.