Froome on Wiggins and more

tailwindhome

I'm not 100% clear what Froome has supposedly done wrong here.

tailwindhome

http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/robert ... g-man-down

Le Commentateur

TailWindHome wrote:

I'm not 100% clear what Froome has supposedly done wrong here.

Nothing. The media love a story about failure – or rather in this case of being surplus to requirements – as much as one about success.

r0bh

Robert Millar's take: http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/robert ... g-man-down

ddraver

I'm not sure either

*Sky has always gone for Plan A only, the 2012 Tour with Cav (not Froome) was an abomination for them

*I simply do not see why journos would ask questions about a rider not being there past the presentation day presser. Why would they? Moreso as the the journos who happen to make the cycling podcast all agree with this decision 100%

*There WAS ample scope for him to be a super domestique but to be honest I can see why the team leader does nt want him there. There are also much less controversial riders that can do the same job

*I have seen no evidence that Bertie will beat Froome this year at all. When Froome has turned up on form he has dominated everything whilst Bertie has been limited to hail mary break aways that don't get chased down by spanish teams in Spain. Nibs has done nothing all season. Probably his most dangerous competitor won the Giro instead - Michelle should make sure she sends Movistar a good christmas card for that particular gimmie...

*The only reason to take Brad is that he's the british superstar and the tour is in Britain - now that's a hell of a good reason actually - but this is the team (give or take) that denied Sir Chris Hoy a shot at a third Individual Sprint Medal in London too so it's not like they don't have form

MrT

Lots of stuff in the press today.....surprise there!....even with the world cup on its way......Millar talks about burying the news amongst the D-Day commemorations and no doubt Fran will be hoping once Engerrrrland start playing the story becomes a non-starter..for a while
Just a thought here.....re the 2012 Froome incident...do you think he might be a bit worried that this would be repeated by BW in the ITT....if he was playing a super doms role Wiggins wouldn't gain enough time to win but if he won the ITT stage it would make a point.
Personally I'm sure nobody wishes Froome ill.....and he is exciting to watch at times.....on an emotional level though I struggle to identify with him being English....AtC made some interesting points yesterday re nationality etc...Being old enough I just think Zola Budd (yes different circumstances I know) or indeed Greg Rudseski...

LeMond has also nailed his colours to the mast.....

Will G stay upright long enough to play an effective role too aside of Porte?

RichN95.

MrT wrote:

Just a thought here.....re the 2012 Froome incident...do you think he might be a bit worried that this would be repeated by BW in the ITT....if he was playing a super doms role Wiggins wouldn't gain enough time to win but if he won the ITT stage it would make a point.

Surely the only point it would make is that Wiggins is a better time triallist than Froome - something that nobody doubts.

aztecboy

Robert Millar +1

RichN95.

A wide ranging interview with Geraint Thomas here: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/othe ... nt-7227594

(Says he's not leaving Sky as well)

tom3

Wiggins has previously stated that brailsford would always say something along the lines of "whatever you need to get the job done". I have no doubt that froome now gets that treatment and rightly so as team leader, only froomes response had to have been that Bradley needs to be as far away from the tour team as possible.

Froome has engineered this from the very first moment he attacked his leader. That move set everything in motion from there on in. I still believe he would have had a shot at last years tour without defying team orders.

To my knowledge froome is the only sky rider to defy team orders in such an open, arrogant and needless manner.

ocdupalais

All this background information, gossip, spin, biography, autobiography on riders.... Too many versions of the same story: ultimately so unsatisfying.

That's why I'm going back - way back - back to the old school: forming irrational contempt for people based on nothing more than instinct.

Pierre Rolland is an utter bellend. Can't tell you why - he just is.

RichN95.

OCDuPalais wrote:

That's why I'm going back - way back - back to the old school: forming irrational contempt for people based on nothing more than instinct.

Good for you. It's the only true and pure contempt.

I dislike Contador, but it pre-dates the beef and Frenchie. I just don't like the look of his face.

dsoutar

I have cheered Brad on in the past but unusually for me, I'm not sure I agree with Robert Millar this time. I don't believe Sky owe him anything. It's a commercial relationship they have which I'm sure Brad has done very well out of it. There's wasn't a furore last year when after the Giro, Wiggins basically had a 5 month break toodling round Poland and Benelux until the ToB and the WC so it works both ways

RichN95.

dsoutar wrote:

I have cheered Brad on in the past but unusually for me, I'm not sure I agree with Robert Millar this time. I don't believe Sky owe him anything.

I think he's got it wrong too. He's from the old school though, a time when the needs of the sponsor were the priority - far more so than results.

symo

RichN95 wrote:

OCDuPalais wrote:

That's why I'm going back - way back - back to the old school: forming irrational contempt for people based on nothing more than instinct.

Good for you. It's the only true and pure contempt.

I dislike Contador, but it pre-dates the beef and Frenchie. I just don't like the look of his face.

This

which is also why I don't like Froome, he whines and moans and sounds quite spiteful all the time.

Sky seem to be more and more personality free too, Wiggins has been there most public and in terms of column inches; most intelligent signing. Had a good showing at PR and won tour of California. Whereas everytime I read something about Froome (including Neds Fanboy last year) it is yawn, snooze yawn. I imagine that his favourite colour is beige or whatever he is told it is on the day. With Cav and now Wiggins, Sky look meh.

ddraver

RichN95 wrote:

(Says he's not leaving Sky as well)

Well not now Wiggins is leaving

Mark_P

It just disappoints me that Sky are apparently unable to manage their riders. Froome, for whatever reason, is certainly the better all-rounder and would probably win the tour with or without Wiggins, but it closes down the team's options to exclude Wiggins, and ultimately makes for a less interesting tour. If teams like Garmin are able to ride for their strongest rider on GC, why can't Sky?

cal_stewart

Know what you mean ref Bertie's face. He needs the change it

ocdupalais

The rictus grin/gurn he'll be wearing as he attempts to cope with Froome should shift things at least for the next week...

alihisgreat

dsoutar wrote:

I have cheered Brad on in the past but unusually for me, I'm not sure I agree with Robert Millar this time. I don't believe Sky owe him anything. It's a commercial relationship they have which I'm sure Brad has done very well out of it. There's wasn't a furore last year when after the Giro, Wiggins basically had a 5 month break toodling round Poland and Benelux until the ToB and the WC so it works both ways

If its a purely commercial relationship then it makes sense to take Wiggins because that's who the 1.5m people lining the roads want to see right?

No one really cares about Froome because he's just not that likeable..

At the end of the day its about the sponsors and arguably the grand depart in Yorkshire offers far more than winning the tour.

SpokeyDokeyBlog

I don't blame Froome or Wiggins, I see this as firmly something Brailsford & Sky could have sorted 3 years ago. They let things slip & it's resulted is a PR nightmare and one of their strongest riders unable to be brought to the Tour due to previous mismanagement. I explain my thinking in 'The Madness of Sir Dave', link follows.... http://spokeydokeyblog.com/2014/06/07/t ... -sir-dave/

RichN95.

"I just picked the best team, but not necessarily the best players" - Marcello Lippi on how he won the 2006 World Cup

dolan_driver

Robert Millar's assessment on Wiggo not getting a tour berth is spot on. Regardless of all the other factors, given what Brad has achieved over the course of his career, he deserved to start the Tour in England. Whoever made this decision has shown absolutely no respect for Wiggins and Sky have lost out on some serious brand exposure. I guess he'll be off at the end of the year.

DD.

adr82

RichN95 wrote:

"I just picked the best team, but not necessarily the best players" - Marcello Lippi on how he won the 2006 World Cup

Exactly. I don't know why some people can't seem to get their heads around this idea.

If Froome and Wiggins had a better relationship, Wiggins would almost certainly be riding the Tour. They don't, so he isn't.

awavey

Le Commentateur wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Wondering if Froome wanted to delay his autobiography until end of year as he knew he wouldn't have to worry about Wiggins then.

But to delay until then would mean being extremely confident he can win the race next month. To lose would definitely affect sales, so the publisher has opted to get the book out now.

no it has to be out now because Froome's every move for the next how ever many weeks basically till they roll down the Champs Elysee, will be covered in minute detail in the press worldwide, you literally <cliche> cant buy that kind of publicity</cliche> I mean look how much has been written about him in the past day and he hasnt even said anything.

if theyd have waited till the christmas book market, then its up against all the other generic ghostwritten biogs of failed footballers, cricketers, z list celebs and other rubbish that floods the best sellers chart, it wouldnt stand a chance because outside of cycling fans (and he clearly divides opinion even among us), Froome is a complete unknown.

above_the_cows

TailWindHome wrote:

I'm not 100% clear what Froome has supposedly done wrong here.

34 pages and we still don't know. I hoped it would have calmed down a bit by now and people would be discussing Froome opting for a giraffe over Michelle Cound in the 'best kiss' stakes: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/07/chris-froome-interview

And no I don't agree with Robert Millar either he and a great many other people would be goddam awful in a game of strategy and risk... and they say women let emotion cloud their judgment :shock:

Macaloon

A couple of oddities.

- Who'd have thought the fans of Team Marginal Gains were such romantics? A small triumph for the humans in the losing battle against the corporate machines.
- And is anybody defending Brailsford? How can you win the last 2 Tours, be a warm favourite to win the next few, and be ridiculed by just about everybody? Bizarre.

Macaloon

SpokeyDokeyBlog wrote:

I don't blame Froome or Wiggins, I see this as firmly something Brailsford & Sky could have sorted 3 years ago. They let things slip & it's resulted is a PR nightmare and one of their strongest riders unable to be brought to the Tour due to previous mismanagement. I explain my thinking in 'The Madness of Sir Dave', link follows.... http://spokeydokeyblog.com/2014/06/07/t ... -sir-dave/

That's an exceptional read. Ta. This insight in particular: treating rider's more like units of Watts than cyclists.

In order for Sky to progress & keep their sponsors happy, they now need to change tack. Taking the incredible hard-line on removing anybody who had any links to doping is now looking like a bad move, while those staff members had their faults, they removed access to the people who would be able to manage the current situation very well. Those who understand the sport, have ridden in teams where there have been huge ego wars & know how to sort problems. Maybe it’s time to rethink that strategy, to soften it a little & stop the same thing happening over again, rather than removing an entire generation of experience from having an input.

RichN95.

Macaloon wrote:

SpokeyDokeyBlog wrote:

I don't blame Froome or Wiggins, I see this as firmly something Brailsford & Sky could have sorted 3 years ago. They let things slip & it's resulted is a PR nightmare and one of their strongest riders unable to be brought to the Tour due to previous mismanagement. I explain my thinking in 'The Madness of Sir Dave', link follows.... http://spokeydokeyblog.com/2014/06/07/t ... -sir-dave/

That's an exceptional read. Ta. This insight in particular: treating rider's more like units of Watts than cyclists.

In order for Sky to progress & keep their sponsors happy, they now need to change tack. Taking the incredible hard-line on removing anybody who had any links to doping is now looking like a bad move, while those staff members had their faults, they removed access to the people who would be able to manage the current situation very well. Those who understand the sport, have ridden in teams where there have been huge ego wars & know how to sort problems. Maybe it’s time to rethink that strategy, to soften it a little & stop the same thing happening over again, rather than removing an entire generation of experience from having an input.

Nine times out of ten 'ego wars' are solved are sorted out by getting rid of one of the egos.

weadmire

My company WeAdmire designs and fulfills a high proportion of the sales of cycling related t shirts for Cycling Weekly. The first intellectual property we bought were the rights to reproduce Phil O'Connor's image archive on t shirts. (In my view Phil O'Connor is the best of the British pro cycling photographers).

Our offer is self expression for our customers through admiration for the topic of the design on a given shirt. Selling large numbers of shirts through CW allows me to put a number, an admiration quotient if you like, on Wiggins and Froome. Based on shirt sales if Wiggins is 1 Froome would be approximately 0.01. The TdF is a commercial enterprise, it is commercial stupidity for Sky not to have Wiggins in the team.

The rest of it, supposedly picking the "best" nine riders for example, is cobblers even supposing you could say that one of the nine you might pick from the 13 on the "long list" might be better than Wiggins as a domestique for Froome. That detail, one rider to another, cannot be accurately resolved even if you tried to have some allowance for the concept of team harmony. To anyone who tried I would tell them to consider the effect of conflict on creativity in teams. There are any number of cases I could point to, I doubt there are any Froome could quote beyond the one he mentioned in his book. Sky should make the call and tell the people they are paying to stop being stupid.