World Championship - ***SPOILERS***

Ed-tron

frenchfighter wrote:

^Quite possibly.

Underwhelming and anti-climatic sum up this race. A lot of big riders have some explaining for why they did nothing.

I'll agree with that. I'll often find myself explaining to my gf why the course suits some but not others, who has form and who doesn't, who likes inclement weather and who doesn't, or which team has the numbers or is protecting a jersey. And I accept these are often important factors etc. But sometimes... sheesh. Just race?

Hmm didn't explain that very well. Got to dash for dinner

iainf72

With all the gnashing about GB / Froome, did anyone sensible actually have him in their top 20 riders who might win? I certainly didn't.

rick_chasey

iainf72 wrote:

With all the gnashing about GB / Froome, did anyone sensible actually have him in their top 20 riders who might win? I certainly didn't.

No

ms_tree

iainf72 wrote:

With all the gnashing about GB / Froome, did anyone sensible actually have him in their top 20 riders who might win? I certainly didn't.

Me neither! When Boardman and co were waffling about him being a possible podium place I said no chance! Nice to be right!

frenchfighter

I didnt have him down but it is easy to see him matching them on that climb and getting a medal in the scenario we saw today. Which wasnt the scenario I had envisaged.

tailwindhome

DeVlaeminck

iainf72 wrote:

With all the gnashing about GB / Froome, did anyone sensible actually have him in their top 20 riders who might win? I certainly didn't.

Top 20 ? Yes why not, he can climb and he had a team at his disposal, never one of the favourites but top 20 seems fair. When I saw the weather forecast maybe not, his bike handling has never looked top draw.

poppit

mike6 wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

FJS wrote:

8 of the top 10 did the Vuelta. Not the winner though. Make of that what you want

Beat me to it. I was very surprised Costa won without racing the Vuelta...not happened since Plouay. Cav rode only 4 days of the Vuelta when he won yet that was such an easy WC.

Places 2, 3 and 4 today all filled places 2-4 in the Vuelta.

Oh well.....It would be easy if a Brit won it. There is no such thing as an "Easy" WC win, ask the other riders.s :roll:

I think that FF is living on the wrong side of the Channel, seems to hate all things British :?

Yellow Peril

No way with that run in would you have Froome in your top 20. If it had been a 10km climb up to a MTF you might have put a few quid on him.

blazing_saddles

While I understand that there is a natural reluctance to criticise a British team's performance in these parts, I am a bit surprised at the rush to defend the performance.
There's a big difference between Froome featuring in the top 20, (which given the composition of the final 4 isn't, by any means unrealistic) and having the entire team abandon so early in the race.
Yes, it is pointless to ride around when you are distanced.
Question is: Why were they apparently so poorly prepared, to be out of contention so early, in such an important race?

confused@BR

Well I enjoyed that. Ruiz Costa is going to have a hard year ahead. No team is going to let him have the space he enjoyed previously.

Glad that Team GB packed in when they realized that Plan A wasn't going to work. BBC coverage would not have been able to cope with the disappointment.

I didn't appreciate that this was going to be a motor paced race, the behaviour of the team cars was bad enough but the moto's were disgraceful. Glad it made no difference to the medals.

tailwindhome

So.......Lombardy then?

Gilbert?

davidof

Blazing Saddles wrote:

While I understand that there is a natural reluctance to criticise a British team's performance in these parts,

Natural reluctance, let's call a spade a spade. They are CRAP. Rubbish tactics at the Olympics where there were always big doubts about Cav' abilities to climb box hill. I mean, a British team that can't ride in the rain has to be some kind of joke.

rick_chasey

DeVlaeminck wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

With all the gnashing about GB / Froome, did anyone sensible actually have him in their top 20 riders who might win? I certainly didn't.

Top 20 ? Yes why not, he can climb and he had a team at his disposal, never one of the favourites but top 20 seems fair. When I saw the weather forecast maybe not, his bike handling has never looked top draw.

Tom Butcher?

rick_chasey

TailWindHome wrote:

So.......Lombardy then?

Gilbert?

J rod

frenchfighter

confused@BR wrote:

Well I enjoyed that. Ruiz Costa is going to have a hard year ahead. No team is going to let him have the space he enjoyed previously.

Glad that Team GB packed in when they realized that Plan A wasn't going to work. BBC coverage would not have been able to cope with the disappointment.

I didn't appreciate that this was going to be a motor paced race, the behaviour of the team cars was bad enough but the moto's were disgraceful. Glad it made no difference to the medals.

I hope this now means Gilbert can win more than once next year and not have his every move covered.

I agree some of the motos were blatently helping out.

frenchfighter

I wonder how much the crash and chase took out of Nibs. He may have had the power to distance all of them on the climb if he hadnt.

Very courageous to get back up and then proceed to make the race. Would expect nothing less tho from this uber heavyweight.

He really had good form as well - just floating up the climbs.

frenchfighter

Prizes:
7.7k 1st
5.4k 2nd
3.1k 3rd

frenchfighter

First thing tomorrow I will change this avatar to a Nibali one.

mike6

confused@BR wrote:

Well I enjoyed that. Ruiz Costa is going to have a hard year ahead. No team is going to let him have the space he enjoyed previously.

Glad that Team GB packed in when they realized that Plan A wasn't going to work. BBC coverage would not have been able to cope with the disappointment.

I didn't appreciate that this was going to be a motor paced race, the behaviour of the team cars was bad enough but the moto's were disgraceful. Glad it made no difference to the medals.

Agree. It was a shame Nibs crashed but the draughting behind his team car and the push he got while they were, ahem, sorting his back brake were blatant cheating, but as Boardman said, If the commisairs do anything they will have a riot on there hands.
The bikes and the cars gave him a massive amount of assistance. But hey, he is Italian, why not?

Yellow Peril

Tim Farr wrote:

Post the race the interviews with Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome give the impression that they were very much not 'gutted' by having to cry off the event. Who paid for Chris Froome's training camp in Colorado? I hope it wasn't Bitish Cycling.

I'm not that bothered, from a racing perspective, whether the Brits do well I just want to watch great racing between the best in the world whatever their nationality.

However, I'm not stupid enough to presume that I would get the luxury of 7 hours live cycling coverage on the BBC if they didn't expect the Brits to be in the mix.

So a crap performance by GB might ultimately threaten my future live viewing of races such as the worlds so the boys better extract their digits next time!

john1967

Let's face it wiggo and cav were never going to play ball with froom.

stanislav

I didn't see how chinny was the pre race fav,I don't recollect him winning any races on this type of parcours before.
In the vuelta he looked good on the early parts of the shorter climbs and used the race as training for this but the 5 who made the selection proved it was a race for better climbers.

alihisgreat

stanislav wrote:

I didn't see how chinny was the pre race fav,I don't recollect him winning any races on this type of parcours before.
In the vuelta he looked good on the early parts of the shorter climbs and used the race as training for this but the 5 who made the selection proved it was a race for better climbers.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.. no one knew it would be a race for climbers before the race.. so thats why sprinters/TTers who can climb where included in many people's predictions.

and in fairness Cancellara did finish 10th which isn't a bad performance.

stanislav

Hindsight eh I won 500 quid on costa and picked him in ptp.

iainf72

stanislav wrote:

I didn't see how chinny was the pre race fav,I don't recollect him winning any races on this type of parcours before.
In the vuelta he looked good on the early parts of the shorter climbs and used the race as training for this but the 5 who made the selection proved it was a race for better climbers.

You'd put him up there because he's always there in the classics - he can do the long races, he can get over the climbs. Remember when Cuddles won the worlds, Chinny was the fave and did very well on an equally hard course.

But yeah, agreed, it ended up being more a race where people who do well in Lombardy could win.

stanislav

He gave it a good go but this wasn't Flanders

alihisgreat

stanislav wrote:

Hindsight eh I won 500 quid on costa and picked him in ptp.

ok so you had the foresight.. but most people didn't

Crozza

my man-love for Purito grows ever stronger

gutted for him today, so wanted him to take it

iainf72

Blazing Saddles wrote:

There's a big difference between Froome featuring in the top 20, (which given the composition of the final 4 isn't, by any means unrealistic) and having the entire team abandon so early in the race.

Valv.Piti, Purito, Costa and Nibali have all been at the sharp end of single day races on many occasions. The fact they performed isn't really surprising. Froome has never shown anything in a 1 dayer, has he?

If GB had a rider who could've won this race, they'd have performed differently.