Colombian World Champion for 2013?

hammerite
hammerite Posts: 3,408
edited July 2013 in Pro race
Given the somewhat lumpy course, their strength in depth and their form, it's hard to look further than a Colombian winning. Can they race as a team? Or are there too many individual stars?

Lap - http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/ ... led/267738
Full profile - http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/ ... led/267741

Comments

  • Turfle
    Turfle Posts: 3,762
    Quintana, Henao, Uran are well used to sacrificing their chances.

    They should be hugely dangerous. Henao and Betancur are proper punchy, Uran has a knack of being in the right place at the right time - and is targeting the race, Duarte can climb very well and sprint very well. Quintana? Not a course I'd expect him to do great on.

    For me, Nibali and Valverde will be the ones to beat.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    2 problems.

    1) he's 23. 260km one dayer at 23 is a lot to ask.


    2) he'll be pretty tired after the Tour - how much does he have in the tank to build up again to the worlds?
    _
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    And that's before you look at his tactics. ..
    _
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,241
    I said a month or so back that at the Worlds the Colombians will be as easy to control as a primary school class after a Sunny Delight drinking contest.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • welshmessenger
    welshmessenger Posts: 298
    How many in their team?

    Must be approaching 9 given their results this year.
  • andrew_s
    andrew_s Posts: 2,511
    Colombia are currently ranked 3rd, so 9 riders is nailed on as far as that goes.
    The trouble is that all their points have been scored by just the 4 riders, and as I remember you can't have more riders than points scorers. So, just a team of 4, so far.
  • mfin
    mfin Posts: 6,729
    RichN95 wrote:
    I said a month or so back that at the Worlds the Colombians will be as easy to control as a primary school class after a Sunny Delight drinking contest.

    That's brilliant :):)
  • hammerite
    hammerite Posts: 3,408
    andrew_s wrote:
    Colombia are currently ranked 3rd, so 9 riders is nailed on as far as that goes.
    The trouble is that all their points have been scored by just the 4 riders, and as I remember you can't have more riders than points scorers. So, just a team of 4, so far.

    It's not a straight forward as that......
    The leading 10 nations on the 2013 UCI World Tour.

    Nations with fewer than 9 classified riders in the UCI World Tour will be able to register:
    As many riders as they have classified
    Additional riders, up to a minimum of 6

    And then

    Additional riders, up to the maximum of 9, due to qualification based upon their respective UCI Continental Circuit
    Any places not allocated to the top 10 nations will be reallocated to the nations from the 11th rank of the UCI World Tour, with one supplementary place allocated by nation

    Colombia have riders at the top of the Asia and American tours and no doubt lots of scorers in each of those.

Categories