More importantly, on what planet is it 'unheard of' for the yellow jersey to lead out a teammate?
On Planet Earth my fellow boardian.
Its just unheard and unseen before that a yellow uses his team to catch a breakaway which is so far down that it would take a 2 hours just for him to get in top 100.
So having the greatest sprinter of all time and the World Champion and that team i supposed to not give him a chance as a reward for said champions sacrifice of defending his own Tour jersey title?
I remember T-mobile doing it before. The only reason it doesnt happen is because it is almost impossible to have both a Green and Yellow contender on the same TDF squad nowdays
More importantly, on what planet is it 'unheard of' for the yellow jersey to lead out a teammate?
On Planet Earth my fellow boardian.
Its just unheard and unseen before that a yellow uses his team to catch a breakaway which is so far down that it would take a 2 hours just for him to get in top 100.
It happens all the time actually, if a team-mate of the race favourite gets in a successful break and gets 1st in the overall f.e.
So no.
AS for chasing down the break, why cant the Yellow chase them down? They've got the right to if they feel its dangerous or conflicts with their goals, so maybe a stage win or not allowing a rider to get time and get back into the race.
Sky had 2 goals last year, Yellow and Green. They got yellow, couldn't get Green but Cav was kinda upset and Wiggo wanted to make it up to him with a leadout on the biggest sprint stage of the year.
Edited by valverde321 on 12-07-2013 23:38
I doubt there will be vengeance. Valverde himself said in a post race interview that he understood Belkin and was not mad. He was only pissed at Europcar.
There were claims that the Dutch team may have been motivated by the memory of the 2011 Tour of Switzerland, when Movistar accelerated away from Mollema when he had a flat tyre, but Valverde chose instead to turn his anger towards the French team Europcar.
"I can understand why Belkin sped off because they were already out at the front but I can't understand what Europcar did," he said.
TheManxMissile wrote:
So having the greatest sprinter of all time and the World Champion and that team i supposed to not give him a chance as a reward for said champions sacrifice of defending his own Tour jersey title?
I remember T-mobile doing it before. The only reason it doesnt happen is because it is almost impossible to have both a Green and Yellow contender on the same TDF squad nowdays
Again its not a written rule in the ASO book of Tour De france
Its all about Sportsmanship, why do you think that Contador had help from another teams rider in last years Vuelta? a guy who had no reason what so ever to help out but did anyways and helped Contador win the Vuelta. Because the year before he had gotten a stage from Contador in the Giro.
So how do you think other teams react when the team who have the yellow jersey also goes for the green, stage wins on flat and so on?
And its not impossible for a team to have riders who can go for all the jerseys, its just not something teams do to each other, because good will is important in a sport like this.
DubbelDekker wrote:
I doubt there will be vengeance. Valverde himself said in a post race interview that he understood Belkin and was not mad. He was only pissed at Europcar.
There were claims that the Dutch team may have been motivated by the memory of the 2011 Tour of Switzerland, when Movistar accelerated away from Mollema when he had a flat tyre, but Valverde chose instead to turn his anger towards the French team Europcar.
"I can understand why Belkin sped off because they were already out at the front but I can't understand what Europcar did," he said.
"I don't know who they have high up in the GC."
Thats not what my local media reports, Valverde has said that payback is on its way to teams like Belkin and Europcar and that they just have to see that their race is a bit harder now.....
DubbelDekker wrote:
I doubt there will be vengeance. Valverde himself said in a post race interview that he understood Belkin and was not mad. He was only pissed at Europcar.
There were claims that the Dutch team may have been motivated by the memory of the 2011 Tour of Switzerland, when Movistar accelerated away from Mollema when he had a flat tyre, but Valverde chose instead to turn his anger towards the French team Europcar.
"I can understand why Belkin sped off because they were already out at the front but I can't understand what Europcar did," he said.
"I don't know who they have high up in the GC."
Thats not what my local media reports, Valverde has said that payback is on its way to teams like Belkin and Europcar and that they just have to see that their race is a bit harder now.....
I dont think it can be said clearer than that.
Hmm, strange..
Here's a video of that interview. https://nos.nl/vid...-niet.html It's Spanish with Dutch subtitles.
Can a Spaniard tell us what he says about Belkin please? Then I can check whether it's maybe a wrong translation from Dutch TV.
Edited by DubbelDekker on 12-07-2013 23:51
DubbelDekker wrote:
I doubt there will be vengeance. Valverde himself said in a post race interview that he understood Belkin and was not mad. He was only pissed at Europcar.
There were claims that the Dutch team may have been motivated by the memory of the 2011 Tour of Switzerland, when Movistar accelerated away from Mollema when he had a flat tyre, but Valverde chose instead to turn his anger towards the French team Europcar.
"I can understand why Belkin sped off because they were already out at the front but I can't understand what Europcar did," he said.
"I don't know who they have high up in the GC."
Thats not what my local media reports, Valverde has said that payback is on its way to teams like Belkin and Europcar and that they just have to see that their race is a bit harder now.....
I dont think it can be said clearer than that.
Hmm, strange..
Here's a video of that interview. https://nos.nl/vid...-niet.html It's Spanish with Dutch subtitles.
Can a Spaniard tell us what he says about Belkin please? Then I can check whether it's maybe a wrong translation from Dutch TV.
Jacdk wrote:
Again its not a written rule in the ASO book of Tour De france
Its all about Sportsmanship, why do you think that Contador had help from another teams rider in last years Vuelta? a guy who had no reason what so ever to help out but did anyways and helped Contador win the Vuelta. Because the year before he had gotten a stage from Contador in the Giro.
So how do you think other teams react when the team who have the yellow jersey also goes for the green, stage wins on flat and so on?
And its not impossible for a team to have riders who can go for all the jerseys, its just not something teams do to each other, because good will is important in a sport like this.
So a team should not ride to help their own rider, because it would be unfair to the other teams?
So a rider helped Contador? Woopty fucking do, what does that have to do with Sky? Contador let him take the stage in the Giro yes i know, and then they returned the favor, that is good. So if Belkin didn;t ride Valverde would give them 2nd in GC or a stage win? WRONG. That was fairly random point to bring up
As i said, Sky in 2012 had the reigning Green Jersey, best sprint of ALL TIME! and current World Champion!!! HOW CAN THEY NOT GIVE HIM A HAND IN THE FINAL DAYS!!! Cavendish sacrificed almost his entire Tour to working for Wiggins and had to free lance all but 2 of the sprint stages. So to repay him for his great work the team, and Wiggins, gave him a chance. I am 1000000000000000000000000% certain no team gave a fucking rats ass that it happened to be the Yellow Jersey working for Cavendish.
If it was Wiggins chasing a break because he didn;t like a rider in it (a la Armstrong) then it would be different. But a team working for their own rider! What possible rule could that break!!!
I never said it was impossible, just that it is extremely hard to balance to two now. You have teams like OPQ, Cannondale, Argos and Lotto gunning solely for the Green (and HTC before) with a Top 4 in the world sprinter, and teams like Sky, Saxobank, Astana, Movistar gunning solely for the Yellow with the best Stage Racers in the world. You cannot split the team and do both 100% anymore, as one of the more focused teams will woop you. Look at Lotto, every year they bring Greipel and VdB and every year walk away with mediocre results considering their talent, while HTC and Sky white wash their respective competitions....
But that is getting way off point here, but you make dumb comments and i will correct you
So a team should not ride to help their own rider, because it would be unfair to the other teams?
So a rider helped Contador? Woopty fucking do, what does that have to do with Sky? Contador let him take the stage in the Giro yes i know, and then they returned the favor, that is good. So if Belkin didn;t ride Valverde would give them 2nd in GC or a stage win? WRONG. That was fairly random point to bring up
As i said, Sky in 2012 had the reigning Green Jersey, best sprint of ALL TIME! and current World Champion!!! HOW CAN THEY NOT GIVE HIM A HAND IN THE FINAL DAYS!!! Cavendish sacrificed almost his entire Tour to working for Wiggins and had to free lance all but 2 of the sprint stages. So to repay him for his great work the team, and Wiggins, gave him a chance. I am 1000000000000000000000000% certain no team gave a fucking rats ass that it happened to be the Yellow Jersey working for Cavendish.
If it was Wiggins chasing a break because he didn;t like a rider in it (a la Armstrong) then it would be different. But a team working for their own rider! What possible rule could that break!!!
I never said it was impossible, just that it is extremely hard to balance to two now. You have teams like OPQ, Cannondale, Argos and Lotto gunning solely for the Green (and HTC before) with a Top 4 in the world sprinter, and teams like Sky, Saxobank, Astana, Movistar gunning solely for the Yellow with the best Stage Racers in the world. You cannot split the team and do both 100% anymore, as one of the more focused teams will woop you. Look at Lotto, every year they bring Greipel and VdB and every year walk away with mediocre results considering their talent, while HTC and Sky white wash their respective competitions....
But that is getting way off point here, but you make dumb comments and i will correct you
A team can do what ever a team wants, again its a unwritten rule, not set in stone on the road to paris.
And you clearly seem to be missing the point here and the only one who keeps coming up with stupid comments is so far you.
Its pretty clear, when you piss on other teams, they will piss back its as simple as that. And its about respect, respect for the other teams and riders.
Try using google and go back and look up that stage and what the media reported, also it wasn´t the first time Wiggins and Sky got on the bad side of other riders.
I know your generation today is growing up with "me me me me me me me me me and then more me" but in cycling there is still honour among the teams.
Like you dont abuse a mechanical fault and if its the yellow you particular dont. You don¨'t win everything even if you could.
alexkr00 wrote:
Which doesn't say anything about payback
Nope not there but in my local media it does.
Movistar-captain started the stage in second place, but ended the day on 16 place after losing almost ten minutes. Now he wants revenge on the team that made sure that he did not come back to the field.
Alejandro Valverde
Movistar Team
Tour de France
Movistar team had until now been running for a great Tour de France. Team had Alejandro Valverde in second place, as well as additional Nairo Quintana and Rui Costa in the top 10 The day ended, however, with a huge loss of time for both Valverde and Costa, who can now look far for classification. The reason was due to an accident in the middle of the stage, just as Quickstep and Belkin teams had been blown field in side winds.
Â
Movistar team struggled afterwards to get the captain back to the field again, but in spite of that, eventually also called Rui Costa left, so did not.
Â
"It was simply bad luck and nothing else. We sat up front and was very aware that we have been running throughout the tour so far. But suddenly there was one who crashed into me at a very important time of, and my rear wheel broke. It could not have been avoided. "
Â
"The whole team stopped and waited for me and we were very close to making contact again, but some teams like Belkin and Europcar jump right pace. How is racing, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, "explained a very disappointed and angry Alejandro Valverde after the stage.
 And the anger was underlined when the talk went on further expectations over. "It was hard to win the race overall before the stage, and it is even more complicated this evening, but we still have Nairo promotion. It may well be that we can not run the yellow jersey, but we can still give the field a pain. Some of the team who helped that I came back today, they might realize that their race is getting tougher. "
Â
Nairo Quintana, who came to the goal along with Chris Froome, is now in eighth place 5:18 min after Sky Captain. Alejandro Valverde and Rui Costa are respectively 16 and 18 site.
Reading your posts, it absolutely not about respect.
It is more like: Don't mess with me, because else I will get you back. Basically it's a system of fear, which is Mafia style. And the strongest always misuse such systems.
Jacdk wrote:
A team can do what ever a team wants, again its a unwritten rule, not set in stone on the road to paris.
And you clearly seem to be missing the point here and the only one who keeps coming up with stupid comments is so far you.
Its pretty clear, when you piss on other teams, they will piss back its as simple as that. And its about respect, respect for the other teams and riders.
Which i almost entirely agree with. Except it was not Sky pissing on other teams. They had the top sprinter, so why can't they work for him on the flat? Surely OPQ should give the other teams a chance and not chase by that logic...
Try using google and go back and look up that stage and what the media reported, also it wasn´t the first time Wiggins and Sky got on the bad side of other riders.
People hate Sky not for their work on the flat, but for their obvious doping and dull ass mountain train. I am well aware of how most people view Sky, but i can remember no bad word said against them working for Cavendish on those few stages. I can also remember other sprinters team contributing to the chase on those stages as well
I know your generation today is growing up with "me me me me me me me me me and then more me" but in cycling there is still honour among the teams.
My generation?I have more respect for "traditional" cycling than most people i've ever met, and that includes the professional cyclists i know!
Don't talk down to me about honor having used that statement. Show some respect and learn not to pigeon hole people based upon a couple of things gathered from across a forum.
Like you dont abuse a mechanical fault and if its the yellow you particular dont. You don¨'t win everything even if you could.
Don;t attack yellow, see the opening post of this thread. But not winning everything i have to disagree with.
This is professional sport, they are contractually obliged to win. If they don't win, they get less sponsor time. Which means less interest from sponsors and they quite, team in trouble, riders out of a job...
So lets talk about Gilbert and Boonen. Both took clean sweeps of the Flanders and Ardennes classics because they and there teams worked for them to get the win. You are saying that they should have let someone else get the win? If that is what you are saying, ok clearly we have very different ideas about what a sport is. If not, then you are being hypocritical and rather bias against Sky.
TheManxMissile wrote:
Which i almost entirely agree with. Except it was not Sky pissing on other teams. They had the top sprinter, so why can't they work for him on the flat? Surely OPQ should give the other teams a chance and not chase by that logic...
Yes, Sky had the top sprinter but its kinda funny that they didn´t do it more than once, if it was something that was kosher, how come they didn´t do that every single flat, you know Cavendish, he wouldn´t have needed more than 2-3 sky guys with him, which would leave plenty of riders to care for Wiggins.
Its very different with QPO now, since they fight fair, just look at how Kittel beat Cavendish yesterday for the stage win, Cavendish is good and QPO is also decent and there are no rules in a sprint among the sprinter teams.
People hate Sky not for their work on the flat, but for their obvious doping and dull ass mountain train. I am well aware of how most people view Sky, but i can remember no bad word said against them working for Cavendish on those few stages. I can also remember other sprinters team contributing to the chase on those stages as well
Hate is such a strong word, but ya people hate teams like Sky who dominate and leaves nothing to chance or luck. and again why do you think that is? yes it might be because they are doping, which is very likely.
My generation?I have more respect for "traditional" cycling than most people i've ever met, and that includes the professional cyclists i know!
Don't talk down to me about honor having used that statement. Show some respect and learn not to pigeon hole people based upon a couple of things gathered from across a forum.
And dont talk down to me, i will respond to you in the same way you respond to me, which is kinda the subject of this thread.
Don;t attack yellow, see the opening post of this thread. But not winning everything i have to disagree with.
This is professional sport, they are contractually obliged to win. If they don't win, they get less sponsor time. Which means less interest from sponsors and they quite, team in trouble, riders out of a job...
So lets talk about Gilbert and Boonen. Both took clean sweeps of the Flanders and Ardennes classics because they and there teams worked for them to get the win. You are saying that they should have let someone else get the win? If that is what you are saying, ok clearly we have very different ideas about what a sport is. If not, then you are being hypocritical and rather bias against Sky.
Now your drifting away from the point, the point is not that hey you cant win every single classic, the point is that in a multiple stage race like TdF or Giro or Vuelta, with the amount of prestige there is involved its not kosher to win everything.
Sky didn't work for Cav on the flats, because the team wanted to be rested for the mountains to annihilate everyone else and work for Brad. Its not because they didn't want to break any unwritten rules I can tell you that.
People dont like Sky because they are boring and suspiciously dominant. They dont race with their gut, but with their power meter and radio in their ear.
As for winning everything there is in the Tour. Why not? Eddy Merckx who is seen as the greatest cyclist ever by some, won the Yellow, Green and Polka Dots in 69. Nothing unsporting about that.
some people are saying they've never seen any unwritten rules in practise but what about last year when Bradley Wiggins' group slowed down when Cadel got 2 or 3 popped tires? would that count as one? i voteddont care either way. i didnt see the stage but obviously you'd want to take advantage of every little thing in a race whether its fair or not.
Edited by mattie524 on 13-07-2013 02:10
mattie524 wrote:
some people are saying they've never seen any unwritten rules in practise but what about last year when Bradley Wiggins' group slowed down when Cadel got 2 or 3 popped tires? would that count as one? i wrote dont care either way. i didnt see the stage but obviously you'd want to take advantage of every little thing in a race whether its fair or not.
pertty sure that was the stage where there was something thrown on the road and the Peloton decided to neutralise it for a while.
mattie524 wrote:
some people are saying they've never seen any unwritten rules in practise but what about last year when Bradley Wiggins' group slowed down when Cadel got 2 or 3 popped tires? would that count as one? i wrote dont care either way. i didnt see the stage but obviously you'd want to take advantage of every little thing in a race whether its fair or not.
pertty sure that was the stage where there was something thrown on the road and the Peloton decided to neutralise it for a while.
that was the tack stage
also, to weigh in on the debate
Europcar (and basically every other team) weren't actually relaying until Valverde was back with the Kittel group (or at least until they'd broken away when O'Grady lead them throguh that town)
I'd be more looking at the organisers here, Valverde flatted (no team support) and the first time check after that was that Kittel was 1min20 down (ie enough to whack team cars in there)
kind of a catch 22, OPQS worked hard to make the split (as shown by Cav's post race interview) and Valverde just got unlucky going through a feedzone (huh, didn't that happen at last year's Paris-Nice, what goes around comes around i guess)
Lachi wrote:
So it is not OK to attack a rider having a mechanical problem.
But it is OK to cheat every day using forbidden or unfair substances or techniques?
This was going to be my point too. We want some gentleman rules in sport full of history of biggest cheating? That would be bigegst hypocrasy ever. This is business people, not some walk in the park.
Of course i would like to see completely fair cycling, but now it is a fantasy only.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
which is kinda the subject of this thread.
i voteddont care either way. i didnt see the stage but obviously you'd want to take advantage of every little thing in a race whether its fair or not.
