Did Liquidas screw up the finish? (Vuelta)
Mike Jacoubowsky
Nibali... he's 16 seconds out of red, 1 second off second. The latter is
irrelevant (who cares, 2nd is no better than 5th) but Liquigas could
have delivered at least 8 seconds to Nibali.
The whole thing about saving the team from embarrassment were Lastras
(Movistar) to win when there were 4 Liquigas riders present is
questionable, since they didn't even ensure that Nibali got at least the
3rd place 8-second bonus.
I would have thought the appropriate tactic would have been to sacrifice
Agnoli on the front, Nibali behind him, and then Sagan/Lastras or
Lastras/Sagan. When the back pair goes, Nibali hooks on and everyone
passes Agnoli. But for all I know maybe that's what happened and Nibali
simply had nothing left in the tank. The video quality wasn't good
enough to really tell what went on (hard to pick out the players; one
green & white jersey looked just like any other).
--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com
Victor Kan
>. But for all I know maybe that's what happened and Nibali
> simply had nothing left in the tank. The video quality wasn't good
> enough to really tell what went on (hard to pick out the players; one
> green & white jersey looked just like any other).
From what I could see in the helicopter shot of the finish I had
assumed it was Nibali in third and was quite surprised when the
commentators said Nibali finished out of the bonuses in fourth.
The more I think about it and re-watch, Agnoli screwed up a bit at the
end.
In the final K, I think the Universal Sports commentators said it was
Nibali and Sagan getting away from the other three, but it was
probably Capecchi and Nibali. But the others caught up and in the
final meters, the order was:
Capecchi
Nibali
Lastras
Agnoli
Sagan
with Capecchi fading fast and no time for the other LQ guys to help
out Nibali.
Then as four, Nibali is fading on the right (but not far enough over
to the right to pinch off Lastras) and it is:
Nibali
Agnoli
Sagan - Lastras about even
Agnoli leads out Sagan, on theleft but looks behind and sees Lastras
coming around to Nibali's right.
Sagan comes out from behind Agnoli and takes off on the left, Lastras
continues up the right. Nibali is actually still ahead of Agnoli at
this point.
Once Sagan comes around him, Agnoli should have sat up or even put on
the brakes since obviously no one was behind him. But instead, he
remains powering on out of the saddle for a few beats as if he's
trying to get a placing himself and gets half a bike length ahead of
Nibali. Then he probably realizes he's hosing the time bonus for his
leader and gets back on the saddle, but it's too late.
I guess we can chalk it up to the heat of the race and brief
inattention to the team's goals and the race situation.
So it seems that the team wanted Nibali to maybe get away with
Capecchi to get maximum bonus time, with Sagan hanging back to pick up
a sprint win if Lastras pulls it back together, which he did.