Steve
you mean, like hincapie ... buwhahahahaha
Given the teams they brought, Astana and BMC needed to work together on
stage 11 to prevent themselves from falling so far back. Even with a
strong team, Basso and Nibali had their hands full making up the deficit.
Stage 11 was a huge mistake for both. I'll bet Vino smashes his empty
Snow Queen bottles against the hotel room wall every night. But CFE is
still in contention. If he can channel that angry little bitch inside
of him tomorrow he may have a chance...
-DA74
I think the 'how well Cadel did' crowd seems to ignore the bad days in
the mountains where he lost time on his own and wouldn't have kept up
if you chained Nibali to him. His appearance in the Giro had the
signal advantage that when he wasn't near the front producing, you had
to catch him in the shots of Nibali, Basso, Sastre or Vinnie. Italian
TV seemed to not have much interest in Cadel except when he was at the
front or in the front group.
I know he never looks like he's having fun - sort of the anti-Basso.
But there were plenty of shots of a guy having more than one bad day.
Cadel wasn't going to win the Giro this year, no matter what team was
around him to pull him up the hills. I'll concede that he may have
made fourth.
And Scarponi has to be kept off camera at the end of the climbs. What
is with this guy and the spittle reaction?
Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
there's a suggestion that cadal is suffering from something perhaps
medical from the guys at universal- "he knows what it is and will talk
about it in verona" is "it" cancer ?
PMT.
I don't really consider myself an Evans fan and have never been a fan
of the what if syndrome but it does seem like a real team might have
been able to control the break on stage 11. Who know how much
difference, if any, having teammates there would have helped him on
the mountain stages. BTW he did lose time on some stages but also
placed second beating Basso on the uphill TT and yesterdays most
difficult stage.
Steve G
>I don't really consider myself an Evans fan and have never been a fan
>of the what if syndrome but it does seem like a real team might have
>been able to control the break on stage 11. Who know how much
>difference, if any, having teammates there would have helped him on
>the mountain stages. BTW he did lose time on some stages but also
>placed second beating Basso on the uphill TT and yesterdays most
>difficult stage.
My take is completely different. If everyone's complete A team showed
up with their A game on, I don't think Basso would be leading the Giro
and I don't think anyone that is at the Giro would be within four
places of their current position. The most consistent rider, the one
that looks the least under strain IMO, has been Nibali, who has ridden
easily with the leaders at the Giro. At the last Tour, Nibali often
rode with the leaders, but on the crunch days was out of his league
and that includes Lance. The Giro HAS been interesting and a top notch
field could possibly made it into one for the years, but instead, we
have the has-been gang and the GC almost-weres competing in the space
left by the absences of the betters.
Just my opinion, but you can't hand Cadel a better team without
possibly looking at a bunch of hungrier faces riding in the pack.
Wait a minute.
The question to ask isn't how well he might have done with better
support than he had any right to expect. The question is whether
he had the support he's earned through past results.
I argue he did. One of the things that happens when you consistently
under perform is you lose strong team support. Hell, maybe CFE did
as well as he did because he was far enough behind that there
wasn't any pressure to choke on.
The guy that should come out of this expecting better team support
is David Arroyo. Or Richie Porte.
Fred Flintstein
What Cadel wants is irrelevant. What he has chosen is at hand.
Seriously, Cadel could have signed with any number of teams, and had
control over how the team supported him. As the star player on the team,
you could give up a few base $$$ in favor of being allowed to hand-pick
your supporting cast and go for pay that rewards results in Grand Tours.
It's all in the contract he signed. Whining about the team BMC brought
to the tour would be ridiculous, because, one way or another, Cadel
chose it.
It's really unfortunate, because it appears that, if he got all his
cards lined up right, this could be a breakout year for the guy. But
it's his responsibility to choose the team, consider the terms of the
contract, make sure he's compatible with the DS etc.
It's a total package, something that Lance understood very well.
Whatever dark secrets there might be to Lance, his winning was helped
tremendously by having a team built around him, in every possible way.
Any great rider, including Cadel, would benefit greatly from that.
--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com
> The question to ask isn't how well he might have done with better
> support than he had any right to expect. The question is whether
> he had the support he's earned through past results.
>
> I argue he did. One of the things that happens when you consistently
> under perform is you lose strong team support. Hell, maybe CFE did
> as well as he did because he was far enough behind that there
> wasn't any pressure to choke on.
Having given it further thought, I agree with you to a great extent. I think the
one thing that is different is that I believe that BMC's GT aspirations as a whole
(meaning not just the Giro squad) are built around CFE. I think the team is a bit
like Lefevre's teams, with much greater focus on single day events. But CFE chose to
go with them, (assumedly) assuming they'd have a group of riders to work with him in
the GTs. So in that case, it *is* down to him to work with management to get riders
that could support him. Maybe he didn't have that input or chose badly. If he signed
with BMC knowing who they had to support him and was doubtful, then he cut his own
throat. I'm not sure which scenario is worse.
The "maybe CFE did as well as he did because he was far enough behind that
there wasn't any pressure to choke on" idea has a lot of merit.
Bad form responding to my own email, but Cadel not only claimed to have
been ill from Stage 11-on, but also seemed to say the right things about
his team mates. My response may have been a bit harsh.