But Fuglsang and Woods always had the rider profile to win these races. Colbrelli went from punchy sprinter to climber (that Tour stage and following Evenepoel in the EC) and top cobbler in like 1 year.
Not saying it's impossible, he's tacticaly really strong and obviously lost some weight, but it's hard to think of another rider who could do this. Hushovd comes to mind but he never climbed that well
Colbrellis has always been one of the best climbing sprinters. Hell even Thor Hushovd climbed well in the 2011 Tour de France when he beat the likes of Moncoutie, Roy and Pineau on the Lourdes stage. A couple of days later he tossed Hesjedal, Perez etc. to victory in Gap.
I agree that the stage to Tignes on paper was far to difficult for him, but he didn't exactly get close to the win either. O'Connor smashed him by more than 5 minutes, and he was almost caught by the elite climbers. Had he finished that stage in 10th no one would have noticed. In the Saint-Gaudens stage he finished with Michael Matthews, Perichon, Bonnamour and Aranburu. Is it significantly more surprising than when Magnus Cort won in Carcassone a couple of years ago, beating the likes of Izagirre, Mollema, Majka and Pozzovivo?
In 2019 Colbrelli won Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli ahead of Valverde, Haig, Gaudu and Martin. I think there are solid evidence of Colbrelli being among the top 5 best climbing sprinters in the world.
Definitely! It's really the combination of both following Evenepoel on a long climb and following Mathieu on the cobbles that gives me a red flag. If he'd done only one of those, I wouldn't question him.
But why is that a thing for Colbrelli who was done well on both terrains in the past? Why not for van der Poel, van Aert, Evenepoel etc? The euros wasn't exactly a mountain races despite having a lot of added altitude. Trentin was 4th. In all honesty I wouldn't have been that surprised to see him also perform well at Paris-Roubaix.
But Fuglsang and Woods always had the rider profile to win these races. Colbrelli went from punchy sprinter to climber (that Tour stage and following Evenepoel in the EC) and top cobbler in like 1 year.
Not saying it's impossible, he's tacticaly really strong and obviously lost some weight, but it's hard to think of another rider who could do this. Hushovd comes to mind but he never climbed that well
Colbrellis has always been one of the best climbing sprinters. Hell even Thor Hushovd climbed well in the 2011 Tour de France when he beat the likes of Moncoutie, Roy and Pineau on the Lourdes stage. A couple of days later he tossed Hesjedal, Perez etc. to victory in Gap.
I agree that the stage to Tignes on paper was far to difficult for him, but he didn't exactly get close to the win either. O'Connor smashed him by more than 5 minutes, and he was almost caught by the elite climbers. Had he finished that stage in 10th no one would have noticed. In the Saint-Gaudens stage he finished with Michael Matthews, Perichon, Bonnamour and Aranburu. Is it significantly more surprising than when Magnus Cort won in Carcassone a couple of years ago, beating the likes of Izagirre, Mollema, Majka and Pozzovivo?
In 2019 Colbrelli won Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli ahead of Valverde, Haig, Gaudu and Martin. I think there are solid evidence of Colbrelli being among the top 5 best climbing sprinters in the world.
Definitely! It's really the combination of both following Evenepoel on a long climb and following Mathieu on the cobbles that gives me a red flag. If he'd done only one of those, I wouldn't question him.
But why is that a thing for Colbrelli who was done well on both terrains in the past? Why not for van der Poel, van Aert, Evenepoel etc? The euros wasn't exactly a mountain races despite having a lot of added altitude. Trentin was 4th. In all honesty I wouldn't have been that surprised to see him also perform well at Paris-Roubaix.
Well, the others all did it from a young age. You could see they would become great all rounders. Colbrelli was just a punchy sprinter for most of his career. Then he started doing cobbles and it was clear he was hard to drop on those hills he liked and could be seen as a top 10 contender. But from a few top 10 spots on the cobbles to winning Roubaix still is a big step.
Same for the climbing, he's a bit like Matthews, very hard to drop on the hills and always a contender for Brabantse Pijl or Amstel Gold Race, but what he did this year was definitely new. No disrespect to GP Bruno Beghelli, but some other recent winners of the race are Conti, Ruffoni, Duque and Nicky Sorensen. Going back even furher there's a lot of pure sprinters, so I'm thinking it's definitely not the most challenging profile.
Well, the others all did it from a young age. You could see they would become great all rounders. Colbrelli was just a punchy sprinter for most of his career. Then he started doing cobbles and it was clear he was hard to drop on those hills he liked and could be seen as a top 10 contender. But from a few top 10 spots on the cobbles to winning Roubaix still is a big step.
Same for the climbing, he's a bit like Matthews, very hard to drop on the hills and always a contender for Brabantse Pijl or Amstel Gold Race, but what he did this year was definitely new. No disrespect to GP Bruno Beghelli, but some other recent winners of the race are Conti, Ruffoni, Duque and Nicky Sorensen. Going back even furher there's a lot of pure sprinters, so I'm thinking it's definitely not the most challenging profile.
In a normal Paris-Roubaix I don't think he would have won though. This was an extraordinary case where luck also played a big (larger than normal) part.
I guess we just see it different. I have always seen the likes of Colbrelli, Sagan, van Avermaet, Degenkolb, Trentin, Cort, Matthews, Mads P. and to a lesser degree Laporte, Garcia Cortina etc. as riders that you can't discount on difficult terrain (whether that being hills, mountains or cobbles), regardless of how many of the big races they have done in the past. They are fast, strong and technically fit riders.
