Should Mark Cavendish swallow his pride and retire?

m.r.m.

No I agree. I think it comes down to teams having to choose if they are targeting GC or having a sprinter. They have the financial incentive to target GC. This results in sprinters becoming more and more very expensive (sprinter + his leadout train) luxuries no one wants to afford. Mostly (becoming only) teams not targeting GC seriously run a sprinter in a GT.
In the past good teams could have both GC contenders and sprinters. This is basically no longer possible. The teams need to be much more specific in their rosters to successfully fulfill the objectives.

andyp

I'm not sure that's true. The richest teams can afford a GC contender and a sprinter, i.e. Jumbo-Visma who could field Roglic, Dumoulin and Groenewegen, or Sky or T-Mobile in the past. The less well funded teams can't, so they either have a second tier GT rider, like Guillame Martin, or a second tier sprinter, like Bouhanni. But even then, a team like Arkea-Samsic can turn up at the Tour with a team that includes Quintana, Bouhanni and Barguil.

bobmcstuff

andyp said:

I'm not sure that's true. The richest teams can afford a GC contender and a sprinter, i.e. Jumbo-Visma who could field Roglic, Dumoulin and Groenewegen, or Sky or T-Mobile in the past. The less well funded teams can't, so they either have a second tier GT rider, like Guillame Martin, or a second tier sprinter, like Bouhanni. But even then, a team like Arkea-Samsic can turn up at the Tour with a team that includes Quintana, Bouhanni and Barguil.

They can't, not really, unless they have a sprinter who is comfortable without a leadout train.

A GC contender plus a few (3 say) mountain domestiques, plus a couple of rouleurs for your flatter stages and stage starts to look after the GC contender - you might have space for the sprinter but you aren't going to put another 3 guys in at his sole disposal for his leadout train. And if you're seriously targetting GC, are you really going to risk letting the rouleurs do leadouts on sprint stages? They need to be looking after the GC guy. Sky did it initially but they gave up since.

The less well funded teams go half and half because they can't afford the super domestiques to get their star GC guy through. So they are banking on the GC guy being able to keep up with the big hitter mountain trains and then having a few guys to try and get a sprinter home.

m.r.m.

andyp said:

I'm not sure that's true. The richest teams can afford a GC contender and a sprinter, i.e. Jumbo-Visma who could field Roglic, Dumoulin and Groenewegen, or Sky or T-Mobile in the past. The less well funded teams can't, so they either have a second tier GT rider, like Guillame Martin, or a second tier sprinter, like Bouhanni. But even then, a team like Arkea-Samsic can turn up at the Tour with a team that includes Quintana, Bouhanni and Barguil.

What Bob said!

It isn't just about the financial cost. It's mainly about you not being able to afford to split the team into two parts (sprint train / mountain climbers) against teams that don't. I think it was one of Sky's first big improvements of designing their high priced squad entirely around the mountain train. Others kept sprinters for much longer.
Nowadays you need to focus on one sole objective in order to win. If you don't you are conceding an advantage to those that do.

bobmcstuff

Also, smaller team sizes - when Sky had Cav they were still teams of 9. Bit more leeway there.

Lanterne_Rogue

The recent trend towards removing the flattest stages in order to keep the rest of the race "interesting" also mitigates against taking sprinters to the Tour. There's fewer opportunities for them to win now.

bobmcstuff

And if there are sprint stages after a load of hard mountain stages then you need to take a chaperone for the sprinter to make sure to get them over in the autobus...

DeVlaeminck

Problem is the fewer sprint stages there are the less interesting the sprint battle is so there is less interest in those that remain. When Sagan has green seen up there is even less interest.

Whereas once you had big names of the sport going head to head over a series of sprint stages to establish who is the number 1 we end up with less high profile riders seeing who can bag the odd stage.

brundonbianchi

Yes

ddraver

I, for one, will miss our Sprint heroes....

Plus, sleepy afternoon sprint stages were the perfect accompaniment to actually getting some work done during July -Test Match Special but with even less likelihood of anything interesting happening - followed by 15km of fun for a coffee break!

gsk82

https://youtu.be/2KYRCS8f2gA

The end of this clip is quite sad. On the other hand I aren't sure how different it is to races in the past, it may just be happening more often

pblakeney

gsk82 said:

The end of this clip is quite sad. On the other hand I aren't sure how different it is to races in the past, it may just be happening more often

It may indeed be sad, but that was not a "sprinter's stage".

focuszing723

Personally all I see is a great career from Cav. I also like the fact he completes a Stage /Tour to the end no matter where he's positioned (respect for the event).

If a team want his Name as a result and he still wants to ride, where's the problem?

josame

no tour (gazzetta dello sport)

tailwindhome

Maybe winning lots of sprint stages doesn't bring in the sponsors.

josame

...

pblakeney

tailwindhome said:

Maybe winning lots of sprint stages doesn't bring in the sponsors.

It might. If you win lots of stages.
He doesn’t any more.

salsiccia1

No surprise there at all. It would have been pure folly to take him.

tailwindhome

pblakeney said:

tailwindhome said:

Maybe winning lots of sprint stages doesn't bring in the sponsors.

It might. If you win lots of stages.
He doesn’t any more.

yeah. bit of a vague non-sequitur from me there.

was pondering why we don't see teams going all in for superstar sprinters in general

people may not have actually been discussing that

pblakeney

There has been some good sprinting in recent years.
This is an unusual year with the entrants and routes not really suiting sprinters.
I predicted Cav wouldn’t have started stage 8 of TdF, had he been selected. I imagine most full on sprinters won’t be relishing the route either.

dabber

I just hope what ever he decides works out for him personally. He's given us great entertainment and some fantastic sprints over the years. Controversial, a bit marmite but a great rider.

DeVlaeminck

Could anyone see him riding as a pro next year? He hasn't looked competitive in top level sprints for years, he has never really tried to transition to become more of a classics rider and you suspect it's too late to try that, hard to see what his role in a team would be.

Shame that it seems a virus has robbed him of the last few years of his career but still in the mix in any discussion about the greatest sprinter of all time.

andyrac

DeVlaeminck said:

Could anyone see him riding as a pro next year? He hasn't looked competitive in top level sprints for years, he has never really tried to transition to become more of a classics rider and you suspect it's too late to try that, hard to see what his role in a team would be.

I hoped that when his top end sprinting went he would become a 'classics' type of rider. Either he didn't want to, or couldn't.....

However, he's had a fabulous career, and hopefully he'll be the one to decide when it's over.

kingstongraham

I quite like it when sportsmen don't retire at the top. Shows they actually enjoy it.

DeadCalm

kingstongraham said:

I quite like it when sportsmen don't retire at the top. Shows they actually enjoy it.

He didn't look like he was enjoying the Tour de Wallonie. I actually found it quite hard to watch. He's one of my cycling heroes and, whatever he decides to do, I hope it brings him happiness.

kingstongraham

DeadCalm said:

kingstongraham said:

I quite like it when sportsmen don't retire at the top. Shows they actually enjoy it.

He didn't look like he was enjoying the Tour de Wallonie. I actually found it quite hard to watch. He's one of my cycling heroes and, whatever he decides to do, I hope it brings him happiness.

I'm sure he doesn't enjoy not winning. But the whole training, team, racing etc. He must do.

pblakeney

kingstongraham said:

DeadCalm said:

kingstongraham said:

I quite like it when sportsmen don't retire at the top. Shows they actually enjoy it.

He didn't look like he was enjoying the Tour de Wallonie. I actually found it quite hard to watch. He's one of my cycling heroes and, whatever he decides to do, I hope it brings him happiness.

I'm sure he doesn't enjoy not winning. But the whole training, team, racing etc. He must do.

FTFY.
He did not appear to be enjoying the Wallonie one little bit.

ibr17xvii

https://twitter.com/MarkCavendish/status/1296850428966121477

pblakeney

ibr17xvii said:

https://twitter.com/MarkCavendish/status/1296850428966121477

Good hear it come from the horse's mouth.
Parcours being the main reason comes as no surprise to me.

ddraver

ddraver said:

I, for one, will miss our Sprint heroes....

Now it's been pointed out to me, I'm actually a bit narked off about this.

What is the point in going "All in for Landa"??

Landa isn't going to win dick all yet we have a team that has totally dedicated itself to getting an also ran a top 5ish finish as opposed to going for sprint stages as well...

What's the flipping point..?!?!?!

Anyway....

*grumble grumble*