Team Sky ride . . . pants!

skylla

No tA Doctor wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

skylla wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

De Vlaeminck is the worst kind of 'back in my day' retired sportsmen. When he was winning PR and RVV were parochial races with barely a non-Belgian in sight. In the ten years that he and Merckx were winning 80% of the top tens in those races were Belgian. Only two non-Belgians stood on the Roubaix podium.

By contrast, in his years doing the race, Boonen has seen winners from Sweden, Switzerland and Australia and podium from Spain, GB, Norway, Russia, USA as well as the more traditional Italy, France and Holland.

It's much more competitive these days. Some of these old guys are a bit overrated, not least by themselves.

And forgot to add that of course Paris-Roubaix is a -i'm sure you know- French event, not a Belgian one...

Edit: removed Chasey's quote...

And the London Marathon is a British event. It doesn't stop the locals being p1ss poor quality (the used to be lots of great British runners when there weren't any Kenyans)

What about the fact that Belgians were smashing up every other race on the calendar at the time? See my sadly neglected post on page 4....

No, NotADoctor, it wasn't negelected, I thought it very informative - thanks for the hard work! I am taking issue with the comment that "parochial" races weren't as competitive as races are now due to their current multi-national character.

iainf72

Have we done this yet?

http://cyclismas.com/2012/04/brailsford ... -campaign/?

My favourite part is

“Maybe Hoy can teach team management how to feel the sport from the heart. They’ve managed to suck the life out of everything they touch. You could tell by our efforts at Roubaix. When the soul is empty, the legs go through the motions,” stated Flecha.

RichN95.

No tA Doctor wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

skylla wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

De Vlaeminck is the worst kind of 'back in my day' retired sportsmen. When he was winning PR and RVV were parochial races with barely a non-Belgian in sight. In the ten years that he and Merckx were winning 80% of the top tens in those races were Belgian. Only two non-Belgians stood on the Roubaix podium.

By contrast, in his years doing the race, Boonen has seen winners from Sweden, Switzerland and Australia and podium from Spain, GB, Norway, Russia, USA as well as the more traditional Italy, France and Holland.

It's much more competitive these days. Some of these old guys are a bit overrated, not least by

What about the fact that Belgians were smashing up every other race on the calendar at the time? See my sadly neglected post on page 4....

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

skylla wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

De Vlaeminck is the worst kind of 'back in my day' retired sportsmen. When he was winning PR and RVV were parochial races with barely a non-Belgian in sight. In the ten years that he and Merckx were winning 80% of the top tens in those races were Belgian. Only two non-Belgians stood on the Roubaix podium.

By contrast, in his years doing the race, Boonen has seen winners from Sweden, Switzerland and Australia and podium from Spain, GB, Norway, Russia, USA as well as the more traditional Italy, France and Holland.

It's much more competitive these days. Some of these old guys are a bit overrated, not least by

What about the fact that Belgians were smashing up every other race on the calendar at the time? See my sadly neglected post on page 4....

Why Rich, why?

MrTapir

iainf72 wrote:

Have we done this yet?

http://cyclismas.com/2012/04/brailsford ... -campaign/?

My favourite part is

“Maybe Hoy can teach team management how to feel the sport from the heart. They’ve managed to suck the life out of everything they touch. You could tell by our efforts at Roubaix. When the soul is empty, the legs go through the motions,” stated Flecha.

nice. There is a feature about Harold Nelson in the latest Rouleur with a story about him ripping up a load of training schedules and numbers, and saying "Just go out there and kick their ar$es".

RichN95.

No tA Doctor wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

What about the fact that Belgians were smashing up every other race on the calendar at the time? See my sadly neglected post on page 4....

Not neglected. Quite the opposite. It require a more in depth response. The Belgian dominated largely because the Italians weren't particularly strong at the time and the French were more interested in stage racing. There was the occasional Dutchman, but it was really just Belgium and Italy that bothered with one day racing.

Of the podiums of the races you listed + the monuments, here's their demographic:

68-77
Belgium 68.7%
Italy 16.3%
Holland 7.6%
France 4.7%
Other 2.7%

Last ten editions
Belgium 17.8%
Italy 28.6%
Holland 5.2%
France 1.9%
Other 46.5%

Note other. That's 46.5% that really didn't trouble Merckx & RDV. Their opposition was just the Italians, who's share has almost doubled, suggesting greater strength and more willingness to leave Italy. The Belgian's main opposition was going through a bad patch, and that's why they dominated.

It's like Scottish football. If Celtic win all the trophies, it doesn't mean they're a great team, it just means Rangers are crap.

skylla

iainf72 wrote:

Have we done this yet?

http://cyclismas.com/2012/04/brailsford ... -campaign/?

My favourite part is

“Maybe Hoy can teach team management how to feel the sport from the heart. They’ve managed to suck the life out of everything they touch. You could tell by our efforts at Roubaix. When the soul is empty, the legs go through the motions,” stated Flecha.

This is hilarious, and possibly so very very realistic! Well done to the author.

skylla

RichN95 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

What about the fact that Belgians were smashing up every other race on the calendar at the time? See my sadly neglected post on page 4....

Not neglected. Quite the opposite. It require a more in depth response. The Belgian dominated largely because the Italians weren't particularly strong at the time and the French were more interested in stage racing. There was the occasional Dutchman, but it was really just Belgium and Italy that bothered with one day racing.

Of the podiums of the races you listed + the monuments, here's their demographic:

68-77
Belgium 68.7%
Italy 16.3%
Holland 7.6%
France 4.7%
Other 2.7%

Last ten editions
Belgium 17.8%
Italy 28.6%
Holland 5.2%
France 1.9%
Other 46.5%

Note other. That's 46.5% that really didn't trouble Merckx & RDV. Their opposition was just the Italians, who's share has almost doubled, suggesting greater strength and more willingness to leave Italy. The Belgian's main opposition was going through a bad patch, and that's why they dominated.

It's like Scottish football. If Celtic win all the trophies, it doesn't mean they're a great team, it just means Rangers are crap.

Thanks for these numbers, Italian and Belgian dominance through the ages as it seems. Yes, the 46.5% is interesting, but that doesn't mean that there was no honest opposition in the early days. This is just silly statistics. If you make a list of European riders versus non-European riders now and possibly in 50 years time are you going to draw the same conclusion? It just means there is a broader playing field, nothing about its strength. As if the great GB entry into track racing suddenly undoes all that was achieved by other nations that have had teams for donkey years. But that's probably what you want to believe anyway. Finally, comparing this to scottish football, well, where do i start....

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

What about the fact that Belgians were smashing up every other race on the calendar at the time? See my sadly neglected post on page 4....

Not neglected. Quite the opposite. It require a more in depth response. The Belgian dominated largely because the Italians weren't particularly strong at the time and the French were more interested in stage racing. There was the occasional Dutchman, but it was really just Belgium and Italy that bothered with one day racing.

Of the podiums of the races you listed + the monuments, here's their demographic:

68-77
Belgium 68.7%
Italy 16.3%
Holland 7.6%
France 4.7%
Other 2.7%

Last ten editions
Belgium 17.8%
Italy 28.6%
Holland 5.2%
France 1.9%
Other 46.5%

Note other. That's 46.5% that really didn't trouble Merckx & RDV. Their opposition was just the Italians, who's share has almost doubled, suggesting greater strength and more willingness to leave Italy. The Belgian's main opposition was going through a bad patch, and that's why they dominated.

It's like Scottish football. If Celtic win all the trophies, it doesn't mean they're a great team, it just means Rangers are crap.

He does love me after all :oops:

If the French were only into their stage racing then I almost feel sorry for them, given that the Belgians (well mainly Merckx...) stacked up 6 TdFs, 6 Giros and 3 Vueltas in that time. That's exactly half of the GTs in a decade.

They also knocked out a few Paris-Nices, Tour de Suisses, Tirreno-Adriaticos (6 in a row for de Vlaeminck) and the odd Vuelta a Catalyuna and Tour de Romandie.

And Maertens particularly was setting stage win records in GTs (probably didn't make up for never winning a monument...)

4 world championships, shared between 3 riders.

The comparison with Celtic winning championships when Rangers are rubbish is dubious at best, Celtic are a single team, the Belgian riders were often bitter rivals.

I take your point that cycling's demographic has spread immensely since then, particularly with the influx of English speakers and the rise in Spanish cycling. It's difficult to measure the quality of the cycling between then and now (afterwards we can discuss whether football legend X would even get a game for Charlton now). But honestly, which win would give you more pleasure/status - one over Ballan and Pozatto or one over Merckx and Moser?

symo

Finally got around to watching this on the Virgin Box.

First well played Turgot, whilst the three were dicking around in the velodrome he nabbed a surprise podium which after his breakaway was awesome.

Boonen, 'nuff said, amazing, no-one saw it coming and when the group were 30 behind I thought they would have held him there.

Sky, could have on any other day a 1-2; however Boonen was nothing short of a monster on that ride appearing relaxed, whilst everyone else was in the pain room. To have Hayman and Stannard doing long turns instead of working in 20-30 second rotations seemed a bit odd to me. Flecha losing it in the velodrome was incredibly disappointing, only for the way that that group of three dicked around watching each other instead of attacking.

Love the fact that we have a 'UK' superteam, I want them to ride like mentalists though, not sure what tactics would have helped.