Guess I'll open the thread this time.
Sagan and Movistar won the UCI ranking this year, what we can say after Lombardia.
Oh and read somewhere (Cyclingnews?) at Sagan is unsure about competing at the WC because of fatigue.
Kirchen's second account according to Spilak23, 21-07-2016 17:16
I'd love for Sagan not to compete for the lone purpose of UCI not holding the WC such ridiculous places (then it will probably end up being an epic race with echelons from km 0....)
Anyways, I think thats the 4th time Movistar has won that ranking. Pretty amazing considering they don't have all that of a big budget - Ion will also leave now
Sagan really deserves that ranking. Would have felt somewhat vague for Quintana to win after fucking his prep that badly up for the biggest goal, altho he was pretty amazing in La Vuelta, but Sagan has simply been one level above everyone, altho Froome will probably end up winning Velo d'Or
Well, somewhat, in the sense that the owner of then, Daan Luijkx, is setting up a new team, called 'Team Earth'.
Apparently he is looking to attract 4-6 partners who wish to promote ecological sustainability, to build a long term partnership for a team with a 'mission'. There won't be shirt sponsors. Instead, the team's eco-mission is supposed to be the team DNA and mean they are less dependent on an individual sponsor.
Sounds crazy I know, but let's hope the business plan works out!
LOL. Tinkoff criticized Contador really hard in his final interview. He called him limping duck and that he does not like him and that most of the riders in the team dont like him too. He thinks that he is done.
Kalach wrote:
LOL. Tinkoff criticized Contador really hard in his final interview. He called him limping duck and that he does not like him and that most of the riders in the team dont like him too. He thinks that he is done.
Oleg about Contador: “ I don’t like him. Even in the team, most of the riders don’t like him. He ended up having a bad relation with almost everyone, apart from his little Spanish group.
Personally I think Alberto should stop riding because he’s not as strong anymore. I stopped owning the team at the right moment, at the top. He’s a great champion and so should stop now. I think he’s going to be like a limping duck. He’s going to look stupid. At the Vuelta he was dropped by the best four or five riders, next year it will be by the best 20 riders. I don’t think he’s ever going to win another Grand Tour. He should forget about it and quit.
CN: You seem angry with Contador. What happened?
Tinkov: I’m angry because we didn’t win the WorldTour ranking because he either crashed, he was sick or abandoned. He didn’t ride Lombardia and I don’t know if he didn’t ride on purpose but I don’t like it. It’s ****. For the money he earns, that shouldn’t happen. Valverde was sick three days ago but he rode Lombardia and finished top ten. That’s class.
Contador won’t be at the farewell party because I told him: you’re sick, stay at home, you can’t bring a virus to the party and make the other guys sick before the World Championships. I think the party will be better without him anyway because he’s a sad person.
He's right though. Not surprising either. Team was angry with him that he abandoned during TdF. Most felt he should've fought through. He went home to prep Vuelta but wasn't ready.
And also about Lombardia I understand his frustration. Contador has been pulling houdini's from one-day races for couple years now. Always gets sick right before a one-day race he was announced to race.
Kalach wrote:
I think he is exaggerating things when he is mad. And he certainly is because of Team World Tour Rankings and Tour de France
He just says some criticism about his employee (which cost him ton of money) as any other employer could. At least not usual PR bullshit "we are team, we live as one, die as one, i love everybody, we need world peace, bla,bla"
Spilak23 wrote:
He's right though. Not surprising either. Team was angry with him that he abandoned during TdF. Most felt he should've fought through. He went home to prep Vuelta but wasn't ready.
And also about Lombardia I understand his frustration. Contador has been pulling houdini's from one-day races for couple years now. Always gets sick right before a one-day race he was announced to race.
Whaaaat? Contador should have continued to race TdF? With that form? Contador should have retired after stage 2. He rode a whole week with injuries (which made his form shit in Tour and very very under-par in Vuelta) and he couldn't recover in time for the Vuelta coupled with another crash there.
I can understand Olegs frustration about Lombardia though.But then again his shape is probably not good.Though the interview by Oleg wasn't classy.He is blaming Contador for crashing in Tour?LMAO
Contador's attitude for one-day races is bad though.He just gets sick everytime.And I am definitely gonna believe him
At least he rode a few one-day races and got a few decent results so he is not as bad as Froome or Quintana in that aspect.But he is in the pathetic level of those two in the last years.
Edited by Forever the Best on 04-10-2016 15:49
Team Roth disbands huge shocker for me as they did some decent work to build up a good PCT team, and did some nice developement with Pasqualon, Page, Jaun and some other guys...the market for additions would've been good this year, but similar to Stölting they suffered from a sponsor that took back their agreement on financial halp which led to debts with 6 numbers. Shame