Cavendish to quit Sky...
Halfman Halfbiscuit
Posts: 30
...I would say is pretty likely. He's fed up playing second fiddle, you can see it in his whole body language. And he's got a point. Possessed of a supreme talent but he's being underused for this years tour so he must be hacked off. I know, the Olympics is his priority, helping Wiggins too, but it won't get any better next year. If Wiggins wins he'll defend the tour next year to win it and Cav will be second fiddle again. Froome has team leader potential too for 2014,15,16. A sprinter in a GC team? No train to protect him and launch him? I reckon he'll switch teams for next season. If I were an ambitious directeur sportif I would be putting the feelers out to lure Cav.
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Why did he sign for Sky then ?The UCI are Clowns and Fools0
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He plays the "Yes sir,no sir, three bags full sir" role now so he gets to be top dog at the Olympics. He's not stupid. He gets to be part of a history making team in helping sky get the yellow jersey, and in return he gets brads full cooperation during the Olympics (though how exhausted he will be is another matter).
Next year though....I dunno. Didn't he see this coming? Having no train hasn't worked so far, but I'm not sure if that's actually because he has no train, or if his focus is elsewhere. He'll be there next year, maybe not the year after.0 -
All fair points but you are forgetting:
He is on a contract with a huge salary, and has ridden a lot of races this year that are not called the tour de france, in which Team Sky has slowly but surely built an ever improving leadout train. They do work for him and have done all year in every race except this one. It's not like he's been ignored all year.
2 stages in Tour of Qatar.
1st in Kuurne Brussels Kuurne.
3 stages in Giro d'Italia (and in contention for more but taken out by crashes) and 2nd in the red jersey competition by only 1 point.
1st place on GC in Ster-ZLM toer
1 stage in 2012 Tour de France.
But of course this is 'the' race everyone wants to be a big deal in.0 -
FFS! Completely misleading thread title!
Good points by the OP, but Cav is going nowhere. He's on the (gravy) train.0 -
It's one thing to think at the beginning of the season "I'll play second fiddle at the Tour, I won't mind", it's a completely different thing to actually experience it 10 days into the race especially after 3 or 4 years of being your teams top dog. I reckon Sky will be a team for the next 4 years, easy, and they'll be a GC team in the Tour. With Wiggins and now Froome they have a bright future. Where Cav fits into this I do not know.0
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Cav wanted to win the points jersey at the giro this year and I think that was his main focus not retaining the green jersey so I can't see him going anywhere0
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The only difference is that whilst Cavendish being young and brash wants to win everything his team boss Brailsford stated in no uncertain terms that Wiggins focus this year is yellow and Cavendish focus is Olympic road race. I'd sure when Cavendish gets his train of Froome, Wiggins, Stannard, Miller putting him in prime position to sprint home to the gold he'll privately thank Brailsford and realise that the boss has his best interests at heart.0
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Should have gone to Dukla Prague instead. Their away kit is epic.
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plectrum wrote:The only difference is that whilst Cavendish being young and brash wants to win everything his team boss Brailsford stated in no uncertain terms that Wiggins focus this year is yellow and Cavendish focus is Olympic road race. I'd sure when Cavendish gets his train of Froome, Wiggins, Stannard, Miller putting him in prime position to sprint home to the gold he'll privately thank Brailsford and realise that the boss has his best interests at heart.
beautifully put.0 -
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Fair enough, but what happens next year when there is no Olympics? That is my point, Cav might well put up with it knowing that in 3 weeks he'll have a great team to support him in the Olympics, but what about next years tour, or 2013, or 2014? Sky will be a GC team for those years too. If Cav goes to another team they'll lure him with a HTC-Highroad type of set up; 8 guys dedicated to making him win as many stages as possible.0
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Halfman Halfbiscuit wrote:Fair enough, but what happens next year when there is no Olympics? That is my point, Cav might well put up with it knowing that in 3 weeks he'll have a great team to support him in the Olympics, but what about next years tour, or 2013, or 2014? Sky will be a GC team for those years too. If Cav goes to another team they'll lure him with a HTC-Highroad type of set up; 8 guys dedicated to making him win as many stages as possible.
Halfman,
Who knows; Sky will set themselves the goal of yellow and green and perhaps create more history. Let's see, so far I think everyone in track and road cycling is mouth open amazed at what Brailsford and co are doing and hence I have confidence they know exactly what they are doing with Cavendish too and they have set this out in full to him when he was signed.0 -
Also you must take note that Sagan's team is a GC team with Nibali & Greipel's team is a GC team with VdB. Sure perhaps Orica - Greenedge is more set up for Goss at present but they are developing with an eye to Sky anyhow.0
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B3rnieMac wrote:Having no train hasn't worked so far, but I'm not sure if that's actually because he has no train, or if his focus is elsewhere.
In what sense hasn't it worked so far? In the flatter sprinter-friendly stages, he won the first one without a leadout train. Then he was taken out by a crash. Then he had a leadout train, but it delivered him to the front too early so he dropped back down and ended up too far back for the sprint and finished 5th. Then he was held up by a massive crash (or rather his spare wheel was delayed behind a crash that he was in front of) and didn't contest the sprint.0 -
There's a bit of a logjam at Sky that can really only be solved by Wiggins winning yellow, and then deciding he's had enough. Then Froome can ride the Tour alongside Cav with a more balanced team, Porte, Henao, Uran can split the other two GTs between them somehow, and everyone is happy.
If Wiggins again wants to ride GC at the Tour, and again wants 6 or 7 men including Froome and Porte, then keeping everyone happy becomes very tricky indeed.0 -
Telekom did it with Zabel and Ullrich0
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Secteur wrote:Telekom did it with Zabel and Ullrich
Ullrich's best team mate came in a vial and syringe.0 -
Any of you who saw Chasing Legends in the cinema, or more importantly the live interview with Cav after will surely remember what he said there...
He missed racing, the HTC train was so good he only had to 'Race' for 200m, the rest was just following wheels. He said how he missed racing, but it was his job to win sprints, so that's what he did. He went on to talk about his goals, green jersey, worlds, Olympics...and one other that he wouldn't tell anyone...As such it's easy to speculate that it isn't strictly a typical sprinters goal, perhaps Flanders or LBL. Either way surely Sky is the best place for him to achieve the (ongoing?) transformation to win the secret race.0 -
Yeah, well put - Was nt the quote somethign akin to "I'm put on the end of a sprint train to win races to get our sponsor on TV, it's not a f**king hobby, it's not how I rode when I was a kid"
I think he's enjoying it this way much more, at the end of the day it was farcical to expect that he was going to continue winning 5 stages a tour for evermore, eventually that was going to stop regardless of who he was riding for.We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
Yup, finishing the job paid the bills at HTC.0
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ddraver wrote:Looks like he's really hating workign for the team here... :P
I knew he hadn't lost weight.....he is making a fool of the rainbow jersey carrying that weight into a GT...just awful.0 -
Agree Dave, I think people don't give Cav enough credit that he might have more nouce than they would like to think.
I also think we will see a different Cav next year i.e. with weight back on and looking to put more power down; but then again maybe not, who knows. When you read his interviews I think he is enjoying being at Sky and being back full time with Rod. One example is a recent piece on how he commented that he had never really liked training with power (or something like that), until Sky showed it to him in a way he could understand and now realises what he can do with it.
To me Cav 'gets it'. The fact he does not have a Gold in his palmares I believe hurts him inside and that is what he really wants this year... oh and the Champs-Elysee as well0 -
Cav knows what he's doing. He's dominated the tour sprints for 3 years now - but he's missed out on Olympic gold.
He doesnt want to repeat himself- he wants new challenges. If he wasnt 100% set on this he'd not have bothered losing that weight.
This year the Tour is Wiggins' for the taking. Next year could be a completely unsuitable tour in which case Sky would be after the stage wins with only one eye on a possible yellow.0 -
I know that technically he rode for HTC when he won the worlds but the bands was the sky team plus millar - I think Cav knows that he has better chances of winning a wider range of races and doing more as a member of sky rather than a pure sprinter - look at how motivated he was to get the Maglia Ciclamino this year for example
a few years ago he was interviewed by Gabby Logan and he mentioned Paris Roubaix twice without any prompting; I think the classics are something he knows he'll have a better crack at with Sky than he would at a HTC alike
that Dukla kit would look great as a jersey - with 'Sturmey Archer, Campagnolo' sponsorship
"I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, how good is that"
--Jens Voight0 -
I think he'd like a couple more Tour stage wins (which I'm sure he'll get this year and next) and will then want a crack at something different. The reason he has a reputation as a sprinter who needs a train to win is just down to that being how he has taken most of his wins so far. However, he strikes me as someone who can be extremely single minded and focussed as well as loving the sport so if he sets his sights on another Classic win I wouldn't bet against him.0
