Il Lombardia 2015 - **SPOILERS**

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  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 9,108
    [url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19720628#p19720628]Pinno[/url] wrote:
    [url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19716553#p19716553]Blazing Saddles[/url] wrote:
    Valverde gives another master class in wheel sucking his way to failure.

    Valverde: 675 UCI points and world No.1 at 35 and you call that 'failure'? I call that working to one's limitations very shrewdly and if it takes a bit of wheel sucking, then it's up to riders around him to drop him or make it difficult.

    1st LBL, 1st FW and 2nd Amstel Gold in 1 week this year. Nuff said.

    3 monuments isn't failure but could he or should he have won more ? It's one of those you could argue either way arguably someone that can climb with pretty much anyone and outsprint anyone that can climb as well as him should have won more. If you take the monuments plus the worlds he's won 3 but he's got a shed load of podium places (quick tally off google maybe 13) and without checking I reckon a lot of them saw one rider get away while Valverde acted as an anchor on any chase.
    [Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 52,490
    I remember when Sean Kelly topped the inaugural world rankings for it's first 7 years consecutively. (Correct me if I am wrong). No one seemed to blink an eye at the fact, well, not really. In all sports, being World No.1 is high esteem indeed, yet in cycling, wins seem to be far more significant in the cycling world's eye than being high in the rankings.
    seanoconn - gruagach craic!
  • ocdupalais
    ocdupalais Posts: 4,317
    [url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19720914#p19720914]Pinno[/url] wrote:
    I remember when Sean Kelly topped the inaugural world rankings for it's first 7 years consecutively. (Correct me if I am wrong). No one seemed to blink an eye at the fact, well, not really. In all sports, being World No.1 is high esteem indeed, yet in cycling, wins seem to be far more significant in the cycling world's eye than being high in the rankings.

    Kelly and Valverde not a bad comparison in regard to World ranking - and both suffer(ed) from competing against better GT riders. From one end of the season to the other, you'd put K or V on the podium for virtually any race they did of 1-7 days. But they could win every bloody classic on the calendar and the World would still only really be interested in who won the Tour.
    Being called "World's No.1 ranked rider" is a small consolation for that.

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