ruben wrote:
Boring flanders, good final 30k though.
Although I really dislike Terpstra, I can't join the haters today on his tactics. I think he did the best possible. Not riding sooner would've caused him to finish even worse. Attacking would just mean Kristoff countering easily, it doesn't work with a 2 man group when the other guy has already proven to be stronger/as strong as you (Paterberg). Terpstra just had the bad luck that the strongest man in the race reacted to his attack. Regardless of tactics 2nd was the best possible result for him today.
This 100% and I like Terpstra
The people bashing Terpstra are fucking clueless
All attacking does at the point all of you wanted him to is give Kristoff an easier win.
Guido Mukk wrote:
ruben is correct once more. Kristoff last years power show..as top 3 sprinter at dead flat stages. Classics ace..amazing rider.
How BMC missed that talent? Now he just needs veteran Paolini to beat strong classic teams.
The sky is the limit for Kristoff right now he is such a complete sprinter. Already 2 monuments in his palmares while a guy like sagan can't even do anything. He can't even use his strength to his advantages.
Lol Sagan is 4th win zero team. He can do lots of things. Go away with that garbage.
Guido Mukk wrote:
ruben is correct once more. Kristoff last years power show..as top 3 sprinter at dead flat stages. Classics ace..amazing rider.
How BMC missed that talent? Now he just needs veteran Paolini to beat strong classic teams.
The sky is the limit for Kristoff right now he is such a complete sprinter. Already 2 monuments in his palmares while a guy like sagan can't even do anything. He can't even use his strength to his advantages.
Lol Sagan is 4th win zero team. He can do lots of things. Go away with that garbage.
How dare you call the almighty Breschel "zero"
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Sagan surely wasn't that bad today, but after his quick rise a few years ago, I thought that he will dominate those classics. Now I just hope that Vanmarcke can at least win P-R. He deserves it.(Stybar would be a pick, too)
Paul23 wrote:
Sagan surely wasn't that bad today, but after his quick rise a few years ago, I thought that he will dominate those classics. Now I just hope that Vanmarcke can at least win P-R. He deserves it.(Stybar would be a pick, too)
There's no chance that Stybar would have a chance at P-R considering that the leader is Terpstra which is always in the pack in those big classics. Unless Terpstra got an early crash I don't think Stybby got a chance.
Guido Mukk wrote:
ruben is correct once more. Kristoff last years power show..as top 3 sprinter at dead flat stages. Classics ace..amazing rider.
How BMC missed that talent? Now he just needs veteran Paolini to beat strong classic teams.
The sky is the limit for Kristoff right now he is such a complete sprinter. Already 2 monuments in his palmares while a guy like sagan can't even do anything. He can't even use his strength to his advantages.
Lol Sagan is 4th win zero team. He can do lots of things. Go away with that garbage.
Tell me what sagan did of impressive this year ?
Nothing he only collect top 5 and no big win. A cyclist like kristoff use his strength to his advantage and he doesn't make big mistakes like sagan. I really thought that peter sagan moving to tinkoff would do something but there's no monument yet for him.
Guido Mukk wrote:
ruben is correct once more. Kristoff last years power show..as top 3 sprinter at dead flat stages. Classics ace..amazing rider.
How BMC missed that talent? Now he just needs veteran Paolini to beat strong classic teams.
The sky is the limit for Kristoff right now he is such a complete sprinter. Already 2 monuments in his palmares while a guy like sagan can't even do anything. He can't even use his strength to his advantages.
Lol Sagan is 4th win zero team. He can do lots of things. Go away with that garbage.
Tell me what sagan did of impressive this year ?
Nothing he only collect top 5 and no big win. A cyclist like kristoff use his strength to his advantage and he doesn't make big mistakes like sagan. I really thought that peter sagan moving to tinkoff would do something but there's no monument yet for him.
Kristoff is a beast and I would never say anything to discredit what he has done but come on if Sagan at least had someone like Paolini he would be in much better shape.
What he has done with absolutely zero help from his team is pretty damn good.
Please tell me what mistakes Sagan has made... His move to Tinkoff has reduced his help from something to zero. Add in the fact that everything he does is marked by every team in the peloton and I see nothing to tell me he is not still one of the most talented riders of all time.
Guido Mukk wrote:
ruben is correct once more. Kristoff last years power show..as top 3 sprinter at dead flat stages. Classics ace..amazing rider.
How BMC missed that talent? Now he just needs veteran Paolini to beat strong classic teams.
The sky is the limit for Kristoff right now he is such a complete sprinter. Already 2 monuments in his palmares while a guy like sagan can't even do anything. He can't even use his strength to his advantages.
Lol Sagan is 4th win zero team. He can do lots of things. Go away with that garbage.
Tell me what sagan did of impressive this year ?
Nothing he only collect top 5 and no big win. A cyclist like kristoff use his strength to his advantage and he doesn't make big mistakes like sagan. I really thought that peter sagan moving to tinkoff would do something but there's no monument yet for him.
Kristoff is a beast and I would never say anything to discredit what he has done but come on if Sagan at least had someone like Paolini he would be in much better shape.
What he has done with absolutely zero help from his team is pretty damn good.
Please tell me what mistakes Sagan has made... His move to Tinkoff has reduced his help from something to zero. Add in the fact that everything he does is marked by every team in the peloton and I see nothing to tell me he is not still one of the most talented riders of all time.
Paolini got zero help if I remembered and he won gand wevelgem. I agree that Sagan is marked by everyone in the peloton but that's how it show how good of a rider you are. I'm really thinking that all those wins that sagan got in the past was because nobody knew what he was capable of and since then he doesn't have good results. It's even worse than last year when he got only 7 wins. He might be talented but talent alone doesn't make you an excellent rider. Look at Edvald Boasson Hagen, he was very talented but he never won a monument like sagan but that is mainly because he was at team sky and the team was not for him.
Kristoff is 27 and he started to show bigger promises when he was like 24-25. By that point of his career, Sagan already won like 50 stages and had several top5s at monuments ,always with completely useless team, riding last 50-100kms alone. Not even speaking about two (by that time, now three) green jerseys at Tour de France, which is feat Kristoff can only dream about so far.
If this is deserved to be called cant do anything, you are deserved to be called cant pull a sensible thing out of your head.
It is never easy to switch teams and so far, the switch to Tinkoff seems bad for Sagan, because he is again without teammates for key moments, but tim will tell. Everybody can have darker moments of form in his career and if 4th at De Ronde,MSR and several other top10s mean bad times, i would say this guy is still pretty awesome.
Nobody here denies that Kristoff is a beast, but i cant help myself to see him as the classics and sprinting Froome, who transformed himself from nobody to absolute killer in three years, with help of...ehm...Katusha.
Btw. Kristoff will soon have same problems that maybe stopped Sagan from bigger classics success a two years or so back - he will be marked by absolutely everyone and nobody will pull for him even for a second. We will see how he handles that, because that is the most difficult position you can get into...
Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 06-04-2015 07:12
Whilst it is a bit extreme to see say Sagan is done is it possible the guy has found a limit? Before in 2013 it felt there was no limit to the guys potential. He was awesome that year and was unlucky at MSR and just met a motor engine at De Ronde.
Yes he is only 25, but actually since E3 last year I have not seen anything that impressive from Sagan. Okay for any normal rider you cannot complain about countless top 10's and the green jersey. In fact since Strade Bianchi 2014 where Kwiatek dropped him in the finale, something is not quite there for super Sagan. I am regularly seeing this Sagan late flop often.
At least there was sign of encouragement again though for Sagan fans at De Ronde when he followed GVA, of course he offered little after Paterburg but still moving clear of others such as Stybar, Boom, Thomas and Degenkolb still tells he can do it.
Kristoff meanwhile has shown nice improvement through 2013, 2014 and 2015. Talk of him training on climbing is a bit extreme though - this guy is sprinter cum cobbled guy in Boonan mold no more. Paris Roubaix is good target for him next, not this year probably but in the next couple of years for sure.
I would agree that he has found the limit in dominating fashion, in which he was able to win two or three years ago. I see several factors coming into play.
First there is fresh new breed of climbing sprinters, which makes Sagan much less unique type of the rider then he was back in 2012 f.e.
Sagan rocketed into position that was empty after great champions like Freire or Zabel ended their carrers. But now guys like Degenkolb, GVA or Kristoff are there to challenge him and beat him. Still none of these will probably pull Sagan like 150kms long attack in Tour mountain stage.
I also see that Peter is maybe not so hungry and crazy after the wins like he was. He lost several "won" races in the past with bad tactics or by going too early for the win and failing in the end, outsmarted. Now he is trying to ride more with tactics in his mind, but that probably costed him the part of his killer instinct. But he gets more experienced with every monument and can hopefully use that to his advantage in the future.
With all that said, is he doing really bad in monuments this year? 4th in San Remo and De Ronde is not what Kristoff is having, but still it is much better monument campaign for Sagan than last year (10th at MSR and 16th at De Ronde - but with E3 win). He is still far from cobbled specialist, but was awesome last year at Roubaix with agressive riding, so i am looking forward to what can he do this year.
Maybe he is really too all around rider to excell in something bar consistency. Guys like Terpstra, Cancellara or Vanmarcke are better at cobbles and guys like Degenkolb, Greipel or Kittel are faster sprinters. Kristoff is better in both now.
But again, that is what i like, to see him challenging specialist with his versatility. He was unlucky and not smart so many times, that he must have some lucky monument moment waiting for him in the future. I can hope. Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 06-04-2015 08:54
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
Who let this clown in to throw bullshit around?
Kristoff is 27 and he started to show bigger promises when he was like 24-25. By that point of his career, Sagan already won like 50 stages and had several top5s at monuments ,always with completely useless team, riding last 50-100kms alone. Not even speaking about two (by that time, now three) green jerseys at Tour de France, which is feat Kristoff can only dream about so far.
If this is deserved to be called cant do anything, you are deserved to be called cant pull a sensible thing out of your head.
It is never easy to switch teams and so far, the switch to Tinkoff seems bad for Sagan, because he is again without teammates for key moments, but tim will tell. Everybody can have darker moments of form in his career and if 4th at De Ronde,MSR and several other top10s mean bad times, i would say this guy is still pretty awesome.
Nobody here denies that Kristoff is a beast, but i cant help myself to see him as the classics and sprinting Froome, who transformed himself from nobody to absolute killer in three years, with help of...ehm...Katusha.
Btw. Kristoff will soon have same problems that maybe stopped Sagan from bigger classics success a two years or so back - he will be marked by absolutely everyone and nobody will pull for him even for a second. We will see how he handles that, because that is the most difficult position you can get into...
Kristoff has never tried to take the green jersey, he barely took a point in the intermediate sprints last year but still finished second. They will be handing out less points in intermediete sprints in the Tour this year and Kristoff already said he will try to take the green jersey. And you make it sounds like Kristoff had a great team behind him for years, in the last years Tour Katusha had half the team around Rodriguez and the other around Kristoff still Porsev and Paolini were used to try to catch the breakaway before the climbs for Rodriguez while Sagan had his whole team for displosal and got zero wins.
That would be great to see Kristoff riding for green. thatvis spoiling Sagan ever green project. Kristoff can take climbs..not as good as Sagan but he will becallright. With sprint Kittel is different league ...behind that it is open race
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
Who let this clown in to throw bullshit around?
Kristoff is 27 and he started to show bigger promises when he was like 24-25. By that point of his career, Sagan already won like 50 stages and had several top5s at monuments ,always with completely useless team, riding last 50-100kms alone. Not even speaking about two (by that time, now three) green jerseys at Tour de France, which is feat Kristoff can only dream about so far.
If this is deserved to be called cant do anything, you are deserved to be called cant pull a sensible thing out of your head.
It is never easy to switch teams and so far, the switch to Tinkoff seems bad for Sagan, because he is again without teammates for key moments, but tim will tell. Everybody can have darker moments of form in his career and if 4th at De Ronde,MSR and several other top10s mean bad times, i would say this guy is still pretty awesome.
Nobody here denies that Kristoff is a beast, but i cant help myself to see him as the classics and sprinting Froome, who transformed himself from nobody to absolute killer in three years, with help of...ehm...Katusha.
Btw. Kristoff will soon have same problems that maybe stopped Sagan from bigger classics success a two years or so back - he will be marked by absolutely everyone and nobody will pull for him even for a second. We will see how he handles that, because that is the most difficult position you can get into...
Kristoff has never tried to take the green jersey, he barely took a point in the intermediate sprints last year but still finished second. They will be handing out less points in intermediete sprints in the Tour this year and Kristoff already said he will try to take the green jersey. And you make it sounds like Kristoff had a great team behind him for years, in the last years Tour Katusha had half the team around Rodriguez and the other around Kristoff still Porsev and Paolini were used to try to catch the breakaway before the climbs for Rodriguez while Sagan had his whole team for displosal and got zero wins.
Yeah, he finished second, by 150 points. Good that he was not trying then, because he is norwegian God, Hushovd the Second that would overcome Sagan by another 300 by Champs.
Nope, nobody had a slightest chance against Peter with old rules because of his consistency and that is all what green jersey is about. So Kristoff could try his best in the past, but he had no chance anyway, which makes your argument invalid. Now they decide it is boring and for pure sprinters only and Kittel fans are crying with joy. Now they are making new anti-Sagan rule, so anybody else can have a realistic chance.
At least it will make the competition interesting and battles more intense, looking forward to that.
Anyway, i hope you have seen that i said Kristoff is both better cobbler and sprinter now compared to Sagan and that he is a deserved dominator this year (while i have some doubts about Katusha). I refered to the posts about Sagan doing nothing ,so i am not sure why are you jumping so high, i was not attacking Kristoff and my references about Sagan being without teammates was to cobbled classics, not Tour where he had whole team (shite,but still) to support him and still did not win a stage. Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 07-04-2015 06:59
So I avoided all media that could possibly spoil it for a day to be able to watch it without knowing how it happened. I sat through all 3 hours and 50 minutes of broadcast time and I can't help but feel a little cheated.
This is my favourite race on the calendar, and consistently one of the best races. But this time it was only the last 20 or so kilometres that were even remotely enjoyable. I think the problem was a lack of big riders who could blow the race apart with very few of the favourites here being good enough to explode away from everyone else (like Boonen) or to sustain an attack from 40km out (like Cancellara). Add in the fact that a lot of the top favourites would probably back themselves to at least podium in a reduced bunch sprint and it was always going to be a little boring.
IMO you can't fault Terpstra, he raced this the best way that he possibly could. He did very little work in the last 5km and then tried to burst away in the last 300m. It was pretty clear that he was too cooked to attack for the entire final kilometre and thus would have lost to Kristoff. This was probably his best bet - try to catch Kristoff off guard and hope that he could beat him in a drag race. It was always going to be a tough ask for him to win this one once it came down to those two, and even if he had've sat up to wait for others there were just going to be more guys there who could beat him in a sprint.
BMC are the guys I feel could have done something better. They had 4 riders in that sizable selection at one point (including some great classics domestiques) and could have used them to tear the race apart and then have GVA attack away. He looked really strong today and I feel that with better tactics he could have won it.
Either way this was a truly forgettable edition. Hopefully Roubaix will be better, as I feel that most of the big rouleurs left are much better on just the pave without the added climbs.
Shonak wrote:
Uh, he spectulacted to win a sprint against someone who had gone 1-1-1-3 in De Panne this week, won MSR last year and had already 8 wins this season. The problem is, He didn't even attack Kristoff once. Compare that to last year with the various moves and counter-moves. He betted on a sprint against Kristoff and that's the wrong decision in any possible scenario. Ergo, tactical fail no matter the outcome. At least try.
Well If you choosing between win or nothing. After you have noticed that your legs are empty ..that you can barely follow sprinter on uphill section.
Trepstra alone would have been chased down by van Avermaet. QS did only possible tactic what they had to do..in current situation. Nothing wrong there
