Kittel and Katusha terminate contract

Comments

  • dish_dash
    dish_dash Posts: 5,647
    Poor lad! I was wondering yesterday what was up when he pulled out of another race.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Hope he resolves whatever is going on and does what makes him happy.

    Amazing to think it’s not that many years ago we thought we’d have a longish period of him dominating sprints.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • gweeds
    gweeds Posts: 2,613
    It was coming really. Must have been on big money.

    He’s 30 now. I suspect he might be done as a top level sprinter.

    I hope he gets well. Whatever it is.
    Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,695
    It doesnt feel like he's coming back eh?

    Bless him, good luck to you Marcel
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • gweeds
    gweeds Posts: 2,613
    99th in a race he used to win for fun.

    Hard road back from this.
    Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.
  • Dorset_Boy
    Dorset_Boy Posts: 7,556
    Likewise hope he discovers what is wrong and manages to recover from it.
  • prawny
    prawny Posts: 5,440
    A bit worrying for the future of the 'German super team'. What are the chances of Alpecin hanging around much longer now?
    Saracen Tenet 3 - 2015 - Dead - Replaced with a Hack Frame
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  • dish_dash
    dish_dash Posts: 5,647
    prawny wrote:
    A bit worrying for the future of the 'German super team'. What are the chances of Alpecin hanging around much longer now?

    What German super team?
  • prawny
    prawny Posts: 5,440
    Am I behind the times a bit? I thought that was the plan for Katusha long term, the rolling out of the Russians and rolling in of the Germans?

    TBF I've not been keeping up with the movements over the last few months, I didn't notice Tony Martin leaving.
    Saracen Tenet 3 - 2015 - Dead - Replaced with a Hack Frame
    Voodoo Bizango - 2014 - Dead - Hit by a car
    Vitus Sentier VRS - 2017
  • Lanterne_Rogue
    Lanterne_Rogue Posts: 4,332
    iainf72 wrote:
    Hope he resolves whatever is going on and does what makes him happy.

    Amazing to think it’s not that many years ago we thought we’d have a longish period of him dominating sprints.

    There's a story that the famous test pilot Eric "Winkle" Brown used to tell about his record for flying the most carrier landings of any pilot in history. The US military had rather a thing for setting new records, and fancied taking this one for themselves. An ace pilot was selected and ordered to do nothing but take off and land for as long as it took. Apparently he managed to get about halfway before the inevitable nervous collapse.

    I've always felt there was something similar about Kittel in relationship to Cavendish. There was a period of a year or two where he was clearly better than the Cavendish he was racing, and a lot of hype about how he could eclipse him, but it always seemed to me to underestimate quite how staggeringly successful Cavendish had been during his own imperial phase. It just seems to me that Kittel was always being asked - and expected - to chase an impossible target, and I never got the impression he was comfortable with falling short. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully the time away helps him get back to his best, and if not then his palmares are hardly to be sniffed at - he went toe to toe with the best sprinters of his generation (and in the case of Cavendish potentially the greatest pure sprinter of all time) and held his own.
    Twitter: @canocola @thedreadships
  • Alejandrosdog
    Alejandrosdog Posts: 1,975
    I hope this is a positive step to sorting out his challenges.
  • cruff
    cruff Posts: 1,518
    edited May 2019
    Quittel hasn't got his head right - never has really. Can't suffer, and can't understand that, even if you're throwing down 2000 watts in a sprint, sometimes you don't win.

    Hope he gets his head sorted and comes back - in full flow he is absolutely devastating to watch
    Fat chopper. Some racing. Some testing. Some crashing.
    Specialising in Git Daaahns and Cafs. Norvern Munkey/Transplanted Laaandoner.
  • johnnymcg259
    johnnymcg259 Posts: 569
    he was impressive in his day - "better to burn out than just fade away" as someone once said.......?!
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 18,908
    Be cool if he did make a comeback. Hard at 30 thou.
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • timothyw
    timothyw Posts: 2,482
    mididoctors wrote:
    Be cool if he did make a comeback. Hard at 30 thou.
    Reg Harris won the national sprint title at 54....
  • lettingthedaysgoby
    lettingthedaysgoby Posts: 1,732
    Some nice words from Cav today on Twitter.

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