Can Simon Yates win a Grand Tour?
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davidof wrote:In football terms it is like Wales winning the World Cup, England the Euros and Scotland the Africa Cup of Nations... all in the same year.
And no-one in blighty is aware of it.
It has actually been quite well reported on the BBC (obviously it was less important than Everton v West Ham and Wolves v Burnley but that is understandable as they were huge, vitally important football matches between giants of the game).0 -
Pross wrote:davidof wrote:In football terms it is like Wales winning the World Cup, England the Euros and Scotland the Africa Cup of Nations... all in the same year.
And no-one in blighty is aware of it.
It has actually been quite well reported on the BBC (obviously it was less important than Everton v West Ham and Wolves v Burnley but that is understandable as they were huge, vitally important football matches between giants of the game).
It was the lead sports story on Radio 5 Breakfast this morning when I woke up.
Of course, they soon went on to whether someone is better at football than someone else because it's easy and they have loads of football pundits jammed into every cupboard.0 -
I've been banging on for ages that SKY could win all three GTs, but i never saw this coming. I'm not sure if was more or less unlikely.0
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I would like to see him target the tour next year. Although Sky are obviously a dominant team it still really does come down to which rider has the best legs. Mas proved that.
Not saying he has the match of Froome or TD but I would put him closer to their level than anyone else at the moment.0 -
His Giro was more impressive to me. I think he could win the Tour, but the parcours would need to be a Bardet friendly parcours of few ITT km's and shorter steeper ascents.PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20230
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He says he'll never be a superstar but if he wins a Tour and a few other big races alongside over the next few years he's not going to have a choice in that.
If he is going to focus on the Giro next year we have the prospect of Yates and Thomas going head to head - from a British perspective it'll be interesting how the "home" support falls and whether people back one or the other.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be a terbutaline enhanced victory.0
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FocusZing wrote:davidof wrote:In football terms it is like Wales winning the World Cup, England the Euros and Scotland the Africa Cup of Nations... all in the same year.
And no-one in blighty is aware of it.
Yes, but I bet they are celebrating in Andorra and Monaco.
I was riding up to Pico Veleta earlier in the summer and got chatting to a lady who said she was his mother-in-law (or something of that nature). She said he'd just bought a place in the ski resort there. They have a high altitude training facility, so it's quite popular for athletes (I think Dan Martin met his wife there). The resort is at Stelvio levels of altitude, but not quite so cold, so it's understandable.0 -
davidof wrote:In football terms it is like Wales winning the World Cup, England the Euros and Scotland the Africa Cup of Nations... all in the same year.
And no-one in blighty is aware of it.
It was even reported on Radio X, and I was genuinely asked about it at work yesterday by a guy who's just about heard of the Tour de France.
Not sure what part of blighty you're in, but it seems to be blinkered0 -
RichN95 wrote:I'm unsure that he'll win a Tour with Dumoulin being only a year older, Roglic only two and other climbers emerging.
Yes he's going to have to overcome better TTers that's for sure.
What may play in his favour is the nature of modern racing where so often a small group come to the final kms of a mountain top finish together. I could see Yates nicking ~10 seconds and a bonus quite often in those circumstances.
It's nice that it's looking like there'll be a British contender at least once Froome and Thomas are no longer able to compete to win.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
We've seen with the likes of Quintana, and to an extent Chaves, that it can be hard to sustain early promise, so it's perhaps a bit soon to say that any of the young riders will dominate in the way Froome has, and Contador before him. It will be interesting next season to see what Sky do with Bernal. Will it be Thomas (Giro), Froome (Tour) and Bernal (Vuelta)? Can they realistically have a go at all three?0
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It was very noticeable during Yates' TTs at the start and at the end of the Vuelta that there is a lot of room for improvement in technique. He was like a snake, wriggling his head and back from side to side on his bike. Even with improvement he'd probably lose serious time in GTs with long flat TTs but he can minimise losses on the kind of rolling TTs that are fashionable these days. I was impressed by his pacing, so hard to get that right on hilly TTs at the end of three weeks.0
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He's no Quintana when it comes to TTs, but he's no Froome either. I get the impression from the way he learned and reacted to the Giro that he is a thoughtful rider and will work hard to solve weaknesses if he can. He'll be just as aware of the TT deficit he is under in relation to the best of the best GC riders, and he's not going to go the way of so many other good climbers who fail to work on their TTs because they don't like doing them. How far he can eke into the upper echelons of TT ability though remains to be seen.
Was Froome always a class TT rider, or is that something he's developed?2015 Canyon Nerve AL 6.0 (son #1's)
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He's always going to be a rider tha suits the Giro & the Vuelta over the tour...
Which apart from the lack of SPOTY nominations, is no bad thing.
(When this thread was ressurected I remember seeing the OP and thinking of just replying "Yes", unfortunatly I was beaten to the first reply so didnt in the end. Dammit - that would have made up for my "lolz Gee won't ever win the tour" post..
*sigh*) We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
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Do SKY actually have any bad tt riders? yates has certainly worked on it but it will never be his thing like Dumoulin (but then v.few are at that level) but Yates isn't like Aru or Quintana.0
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I was hoping they'd all ride in their W/C bands at the TTTs in the Tour. Would have looked mega as they have most national champs jerseys in the team.0
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amrushton wrote:yates has certainly worked on it but it will never be his thing
You knows this for a fact?0 -
thegreatdivide wrote:amrushton wrote:yates has certainly worked on it but it will never be his thing
You knows this for a fact?
He's 9st 1 and 5'8" so unlikely to generate the kind of power to CdA that the best bigger pro riders can generate.
If you look at the best TTers of recent years they are mostly tall and /or quite heavy for cyclists - Millar, Wiggins, Dumoulin, Cancellara, Froome, Ulrich etc. Of course there is more to it than that but to be the very best you need to have all the elements.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Porte has a pretty good TT doesn't he, he's the same height as Yates.DeVlaeminck wrote:thegreatdivide wrote:amrushton wrote:yates has certainly worked on it but it will never be his thing
You knows this for a fact?
He's 9st 1 and 5'8" so unlikely to generate the kind of power to CdA that the best bigger pro riders can generate.
If you look at the best TTers of recent years they are mostly tall and /or quite heavy for cyclists - Millar, Wiggins, Dumoulin, Cancellara, Froome, Ulrich etc. Of course there is more too it than that but to be the very best you need to have all the elements.
Admittedly not up there with the names you've mentioned above, which I guess is the point...0
