How good is Chris Froome?
Comments
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The OP is :- How good is Chris Froome? but you fail to say what for.
What do you mean ? so my answer is, not very good, yet
A rider that wins the Tour de France or maybe something else you know about down in African.
It's a bloody insult to compare him with Laurent Fignon who won many other races including 2 Milan-San Remo races with only a couple of domestic's. Laurent Fignon was a far better alround rider and only technology beat him for a third TDF win.
You all know the last rider to be nursed through the mountains in an armchair and his obsession to have 7 wins.
When he lost them he still has other big events on his palmares.Organiser, National Championship 50 mile Time Trial 19720 -
Come on deejay, you're not dumb. Comparing him to Fignon isn't an insult. You know that cycling isn't like the 80s anymore. The talent pool is wider and deeper than the 80s. More specialization. The two eras don't bear comparisons.deejay wrote:The OP is :- How good is Chris Froome? but you fail to say what for.
What do you mean ? so my answer is, not very good, yet
A rider that wins the Tour de France or maybe something else you know about down in African.
It's a bloody insult to compare him with Laurent Fignon who won many other races including 2 Milan-San Remo races with only a couple of domestic's. Laurent Fignon was a far better alround rider and only technology beat him for a third TDF win.Twitter: @RichN950 -
deejay wrote:The OP is :- How good is Chris Froome? but you fail to say what for.
What do you mean ? so my answer is, not very good, yet
A rider that wins the Tour de France or maybe something else you know about down in African.
It's a bloody insult to compare him with Laurent Fignon who won many other races including 2 Milan-San Remo races with only a couple of domestic's. Laurent Fignon was a far better alround rider and only technology beat him for a third TDF win.
You all know the last rider to be nursed through the mountains in an armchair and his obsession to have 7 wins.
When he lost them he still has other big events on his palmares.
Hang on a minute - the OP asked 'how does he rank amongst the pantheon of Grand Tour winners', so I don't think you should be so offended. Froome has won 3 GTs, Fignon won 3 GTs. They've both had 'could haves' and 'should haves' in GTs so it's not that bad a comparison. Yes, Fignon was by far the better all-round rider, and a brilliant attacking cyclist, but the OP was asking about Grand Tours so it's not an unreasonable question. And RichN95's point about modern-day specialisation is absolutely pertinent.It's only a bit of sport, Mun. Relax and enjoy the racing.0 -
If that was the case, isn't it rather likely he ingested tapeworm eggs on purpose in order to facilitate weight loss, as that was an established tactic for some in specific professions (like models)?Captain Fagor wrote:Didn't Fignon have a few bad years through health complications which ended when he shat the end of a tapeworm out?PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20230 -
When people start comparing riders from vastly different eras, I'm always reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2To-pKMSg
I also remember when the Welsh rugby team were winning Grand Slams in the mid 2000s, pundits were comparing them with the great teams of the 70s. Lots of sincere talk, mostly back the old guys. It took one of those 70s players to point out that the modern player was a full time professional and superior in every way and the modern team would crush them.Twitter: @RichN950 -
professeur wrote:Milton50 wrote:professeur wrote:Milton50 wrote:A 3 time Tour winner. Stats aren't everything so how does he rank amongst the pantheon of Grand Tour winners?
Better than Fignon? On a par with Indurain?
Discuss.
I think he's overtaken Fignon now but he's nowhere near Indurain. The latter did the Giro-Tour double in consecutive years so I don't think he will ever overtake Miguel.
What I was getting at with that argument is that Indurain won all of his Grand Tours by smashing everyone in long TTs and then hanging on in the mountains. Would Froome get beat by 3 minutes in a flat time trial?
So Indurain ended up with fantastic palmares but if you were looking at ability versus ability, based solely on your judgement, I would say there is not much to choose between the two. Perhaps Indurain shades it in terms of longevity and consistency.
I'd have to take a look at the results from back then but I'm pretty sure Indurain was smashing everyone in the time trials: LeMond, Fignon, Rominger... He was also clinging on to some great climbers, though he didn't win MTFs like Froome. On balance, I think he'd have the edge over Froome.
If Froome wins Olympic TT gold and the hour record I'll change my mind
It's also a misconception that Indurain 'hung on' in the mountains, just because he seldom won a MTF. In 94, for instance, he blew everyone away on the first MTF except Luc le Blanc, with even Pantani dropped by him. Likewise in 95, he rode everyone off his wheel, with only Zulle hanging on from a lone breakaway.
He wasn't a pure climber by any means but he wasn't bad either.0 -
Fignon's problems in 85 and 86 were down to a knee injury.M.R.M. wrote:
If that was the case, isn't it rather likely he ingested tapeworm eggs on purpose in order to facilitate weight loss, as that was an established tactic for some in specific professions (like models)?Captain Fagor wrote:Didn't Fignon have a few bad years through health complications which ended when he shat the end of a tapeworm out?Twitter: @RichN950 -
My theory on Froome not being as strong as he has been in other years is mainly born out of the fact that he was never head & shoulders better than anyone on an uphill, and where he mainly put time into his rivals was in the TT, where the margins were roughly as expected.
So whereas before Froome was both the best TTer of GCers and the best final mountain climber, I really don't think that was the case this year.
The crosswinds & Peyresourde descent were mere show pieces.
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On the topic of Froome & endearing himself to the crowd (or not), I do think more & more than the Ventoux was a shambles, and Chris ultimately didn't benefit from it either.
Until that event, all riders in cycling, and especially the Tour have been at the mercy of fortune and misfortune. That was part of the charm of the Tour. The agony, the chaos, the unfairness of it all. Ocana was denied by terrible conditions. Merckx was punched in the gut by a spectator in '74. Van Impe, out on his own, was struck by a television car! Guerini had to make do with getting intimate with a fan and his long zoom camera lens whilst soloing to victory. Millar & Phillipe Bouvatier were sent the wrong way thus they both lost the mountain stage win. Flecha & Hoogerland were punted off by a TV car into barbed wire. Riders running over dogs. Riders falling off because of bad luck with the road surface. Untimely punctures. etc etc.
Chris was doing all the right things during that stage to endear him to the fans. He was struck by terrible misfortune in the worst of circumstances, as a result of the same baying crowd that hissed and threw urine on him the year before. His desperation to win and the desperation of his situation was there for all to see as he ran up the mountain. Without a bike! Even the serene Chris Froome, with all his fancy kit, separate washing machines and endless management talk of 'marginal gains' was undone by cruel, cruel, indiscriminate fate. No-one is invincible. (Even Lance got his comeuppance eventually, even after his outrageous dalliances with luck. His scything through shrubbery to avoid Beloki who'd met chance head on in the form of melted tarmac wouldn't save him, and nor would that highly charged, toothpaste thick, testosterone filled blood coursing through his veins, even if it got him out of that Luz Ardiden crash, where he WON the stage, for Christ sake)
But then the commissars, egged on by sky decided to take luck and fate into their own hands and change the results so they didn't resemble what we saw. Sky was bullied by chance, dobbed him in, and turned up to the podium, grinning smugly, knowing they'd got away with it.
No wonder the crowds booed. That's not what the Tour is about. You don't beat fortune. You submit to its arbitrary and merciless ways. You're not bigger than the Tour, and the Tour isn't bigger than luck and chance.
In the end, Froome didn't need the time to win. He'd have looked far more the better sport had he taken it on the chin.
If he did need the time, then a lot of fans would have put their own asterix by his win. 'Won by the jury'.0 -
RichN95 wrote:When people start comparing riders from vastly different eras, I'm always reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2To-pKMSg
I also remember when the Welsh rugby team were winning Grand Slams in the mid 2000s, pundits were comparing them with the great teams of the 70s. Lots of sincere talk, mostly back the old guys. It took one of those 70s players to point out that the modern player was a full time professional and superior in every way and the modern team would crush them.
This is the thing of it.
Like it or not, Chris Froome currently represents the point to which the sport, and its athletes, have evolved to: it's dialectics.
If you transplanted Merckx in his prime (with his best team), into the 2016 Tour, I have no doubt that this year's Sky Tour team would have dismantled him. That's not the same thing as saying that Froome is fundamentally a better athlete than Merckx - just that Froome is clearly an exceptional exponent who has developed through perhaps the most leading edge system specialising in delivering victory at the Tour (which is different every year - something else that doesn't get discussed much in all the pro/anti Sky thing: ASO devise the route in accordance to what happened/didn't happen the year before - again, dialectics).
But as these arguments roll around, I think of my exasperated grandad who said "I don't care about your statistics and facts: I knew for certain, Summers were hotter when I was a boy..."0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:
On the topic of Froome & endearing himself to the crowd (or not), I do think more & more than the Ventoux was a shambles, and Chris ultimately didn't benefit from it either.
Until that event, all riders in cycling, and especially the Tour have been at the mercy of fortune and misfortune. That was part of the charm of the Tour. The agony, the chaos, the unfairness of it all. Ocana was denied by terrible conditions. Merckx was punched in the gut by a spectator in '74. Van Impe, out on his own, was struck by a television car! Guerini had to make do with getting intimate with a fan and his long zoom camera lens whilst soloing to victory. Millar & Phillipe Bouvatier were sent the wrong way thus they both lost the mountain stage win. Flecha & Hoogerland were punted off by a TV car into barbed wire. Riders running over dogs. Riders falling off because of bad luck with the road surface. Untimely punctures. etc etc.
Chris was doing all the right things during that stage to endear him to the fans. He was struck by terrible misfortune in the worst of circumstances, as a result of the same baying crowd that hissed and threw urine on him the year before. His desperation to win and the desperation of his situation was there for all to see as he ran up the mountain. Without a bike! Even the serene Chris Froome, with all his fancy kit, separate washing machines and endless management talk of 'marginal gains' was undone by cruel, cruel, indiscriminate fate. No-one is invincible. (Even Lance got his comeuppance eventually, even after his outrageous dalliances with luck. His scything through shrubbery to avoid Beloki who'd met chance head on in the form of melted tarmac wouldn't save him, and nor would that highly charged, toothpaste thick, testosterone filled blood coursing through his veins, even if it got him out of that Luz Ardiden crash, where he WON the stage, for Christ sake)
But then the commissars, egged on by sky decided to take luck and fate into their own hands and change the results so they didn't resemble what we saw. Sky was bullied by fate, dobbed him in, and turned up to the podium, grinning smugly, knowing they'd got away with it.
No wonder the crowds booed. That's not what the Tour is about. You don't beat fortune. You submit to its arbitrary and merciless ways. You're not bigger than the Tour, and the Tour isn't bigger than luck and chance.
In the end, Froome didn't need the time to win. He'd have looked far more the better sport had he taken it on the chin.
If he did need the time, then a lot of fans would have put their own asterix by his win. 'Won by the jury'.
Oh look, Rick can read L'Equipe. He's passing off the flowery prose of Philippe Brunel as his own.
Well here's the thing. Brunel is a certain type of sports journalist - one that has never done any sport himself. He doesn't understand it. He just views it as a muse for his literary delusions. Some sort of manifestation of the human condition. It's bullcrap.
If you play sport and you get screwed over my the referees/umpires, you are livid. If you gain from their incompetence, you quietly delight in it. Every time you lose you blame them. Sometimes even when you win. But you never ever see decisions that go against you as an opportunity to impress some college arts student.
What Brunel resents is that Froome and Sky just quietly go about the sports business of winning. It's an Anglo story of the boy from nowhere becoming the success. He needs a French story of existential angst and ultimate failure. Like many a L'Equipe journalist, he's a literary wannabe who thinks that sport exists for his benefit.
(For the record, these are my actual opinions. I've haven't plagiarised them to look smart. I actually am smart)Twitter: @RichN950 -
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Whatever the ins and outs of L'Equipe and whether or not Rich has read it, I can't help thinking it would have been better to just let the Ventoux result stand - one less stone for people to throw.
Would have been horrible for Richie though.0 -
Still "winning" - this time in the Aalst crit 0 -
Ah ok. I'm being accused of passing off a L'eqiupe article as my own?
:roll: OK Rich.
Glad you think my French is that good! I was going more for Wilfred de Jong's thoughts, given I can understand his language but sure.
Didn't realise it was a p!ssing contest. Just thought I'd add a little colour.
That's why you punctured my efforts re my Cancellara post too, presumably?0 -
Well here's a link to a translation of the L'Equipe article: http://julesark.tumblr.com/Rick Chasey wrote:Ah ok. I'm being accused of passing off a L'eqiupe article as my own?
:roll: OK Rich.
Glad you think my French is that good! I was going more for Wilfred de Jong's thoughts, given I can understand his language but sure.
Didn't realise it was a p!ssing contest. Just thought I'd add a little colour.
That's why you punctured my efforts re my Cancellara post too, presumably?
Note the exact same references to Merckx, Van Impe and Guerini. I'll let others decide.
Now try to stop you have some greater understanding of cycling. You do it all the time. It's not only crap but it's not even your own.
Try and feel something truthful to yourself, not some affectation.Twitter: @RichN950 -
Rick Chasey wrote:But then commissars, egged on by sky decided to take luck and fate into their own hands and change the results so they didn't resemble what we saw. Sky was bullied by chance, dobbed him in, and turned up to the podium, grinning smugly, knowing they'd got away with it.
No wonder the crowds booed. That's not what the Tour is about. You don't beat fortune. You submit to its arbitrary and merciless ways. You're not bigger than the Tour, and the Tour isn't bigger than luck and chance.
In the end, Froome didn't need the time to win. He'd have looked far more the better sport had he taken it on the chin.
If he did need the time, then a lot of fans would have put their own asterix by his win. 'Won by the jury'.
Did Sky bully them into it? And if it were, say, Quintana that was in Froome's position, do you not think Unzue would have protested vehemently?
I can understand why the decision made by the commissaires was badly received by the press and fans, but you surely can't blame Froome and Sky for asking the question over such a ludicrous incident.It's only a bit of sport, Mun. Relax and enjoy the racing.0 -
RichN95 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Ah ok. I'm being accused of passing off a L'eqiupe article as my own?
Note the exact same references to Merckx, Van Impe and Guerini. I'll let others decide.
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Is it just coincedence that both Journo and Poster got the year wrong when EM was punched ?
It was 75 not 74.0 -
Plagiarised or not, it's over-romanticised guff IMO
Race organisers have to respond to the issues that arise at the time and it's not true to suggest or imply that stages haven't been neutralised or this kind of action taken in response to unfortunate no-fault-of-the-racers incidents in the past. Crashes or mechanicals are part of the game, being physically prevented from riding your bike due to the action of others isn't
It didn't make any difference to the result anyway. Although perhaps it would have been good to see Froome lose time as a result, provided for consistency's sake Quintana got DQd for the Moto tow. At least we'd have had someone more deserving on the podium in Paris0 -
He has been head and shoulders better than people uphill though, look how he won the tours the other times, put it to bed on the first mountain pretty much?
The sport is different now to what it was though, and to really be in with a shot at the tour these days you need to have a decent time trial in you, pure climbers are useless when you have big strong teams riding down breaks at will, and then battering you the TT.Blog on my first and now second season of proper riding/racing - www.firstseasonracing.com0 -
Just because you're a whiney little gobshite, doesn't mean everyone else is. Some of us were brought up to see the virtue in stoically meeting and attempting to overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.RichN95 wrote:If you play sport and you get screwed over my the referees/umpires, you are livid. If you gain from their incompetence, you quietly delight in it. Every time you lose you blame them. Sometimes even when you win. But you never ever see decisions that go against you as an opportunity to impress some college arts student.
The rest of your xenophobic and deluded rant doesn't even warrant a response.0 -
What's xenophobic? Just p1ss off you bellendDeadCalm wrote:
Just because you're a whiney little gobshite, doesn't mean everyone else is. Some of us were brought up to see the virtue in stoically meeting and attempting to overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.RichN95 wrote:If you play sport and you get screwed over my the referees/umpires, you are livid. If you gain from their incompetence, you quietly delight in it. Every time you lose you blame them. Sometimes even when you win. But you never ever see decisions that go against you as an opportunity to impress some college arts student.
The rest of your xenophobic and deluded rant doesn't even warrant a response.Twitter: @RichN950 -
The french journo is probably right in that Froome would have gained some public sympathy had he accepted the time loss but I'm not sure he should have been expected to do so with good grace. I was initially of the mind that the results should have stood but pretty soon changed my mind to agreeing with the final outcome - there are good arguments on both sides - but expecting Froome to just accept it because that is some tradition of the Tour isn't one of them.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0
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bobmcstuff wrote:Whatever the ins and outs of L'Equipe and whether or not Rich has read it, I can't help thinking it would have been better to just let the Ventoux result stand - one less stone for people to throw.
Would have been horrible for Richie though.
I'm not sure they could have allowed that. It would have been an effective greenlight from ASO and the UCI commissaires for roadside interference. I'm not sure it was 'Sky's' interference (I love how everyone conveniently forgets that BMC were also present in that meeting as it destroys the narrative) with the Jury that swung the decision it was ASO and the UCI trying to salvage the integrity of the sport.Correlation is not causation.0 -
Gosh it's suddenly come over like the Republican National Convention.Correlation is not causation.0
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Salsiccia1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:But then commissars, egged on by sky decided to take luck and fate into their own hands and change the results so they didn't resemble what we saw. Sky was bullied by chance, dobbed him in, and turned up to the podium, grinning smugly, knowing they'd got away with it.
No wonder the crowds booed. That's not what the Tour is about. You don't beat fortune. You submit to its arbitrary and merciless ways. You're not bigger than the Tour, and the Tour isn't bigger than luck and chance.
In the end, Froome didn't need the time to win. He'd have looked far more the better sport had he taken it on the chin.
If he did need the time, then a lot of fans would have put their own asterix by his win. 'Won by the jury'.
Did Sky bully them into it? And if it were, say, Quintana that was in Froome's position, do you not think Unzue would have protested vehemently?
I can understand why the decision made by the commissaires was badly received by the press and fans, but you surely can't blame Froome and Sky for asking the question over such a ludicrous incident.
But I do think that Brailsford in particular pushes it by trying to ensure he is around race juries or Commies as they deliberate over a decision. He knows he can try to influence via his presence whilst they discuss. He has previous for this on road and on the track. For example in London 4 years ago he tried to do this when the Commies were looking at the Pendleton-Varnish change, and they had to tell him to shove off (and ended up disqualifying Pendleton and Varnish)
(FTR AtC, this comment of mine isn''t about trying to fit things to a narrative)0
