Recent content by hayneplane

That feels like the logical answer if Pogacar holds his level until 2028 and beyond. If Pogacar skips 2028 to focus 100% on Olympics then that could see Ayuso/Remco/Del Toro sneak one. We may though be looking further ahead to Benjamin Noval who is still a junior this year.

Ayuso currently has the best flat TT of every GC candidate outside of Remco and this can carry him to a lot of 1 week stage race success. Hopefully facing Jonas in Paris-Nice will add to the climbing data ahead of the Tour.

Do you have any data from the glowing like molten lava golden age of the mythical Volta Portugal.

They should have known my CQ manager team needed Garofoli to be the leader 😆

Yet I have so far managed to be 16/16 of the Tiberi teams although I did manage 2nd in the highest movers rankings this week as many of my bigger names started their season.

PN is the kind of race where riding an aggressive multi pronged leadership tactic can pay off.

Was that the year they did a double loop of Prato Di Tivo in Tirreno which would certainly help explain lower absolute ascent times.

There was also Vlasov, Almeida and Felix Gall. I think that’s pretty good for a single edition of an age group race.

That sounds fine in the abstract until you analyse what the results were in the relevant year of 2019 in the Giro Next Gen and L’Avenir. Only Einer Rubio (2nd in Giro next gen) of the top 15 finishers in either race has multiple grabs tour top ten GC finishes on their palmares and only Rubio...

I had a very strong UAE tour but dragged down by the same 4 underperforming riders you mentioned.

Never heard of him until you posted this but that is a pretty cool story in this age of junior super talents.

According to PCS he is starting his season at Kuurne on Sunday but that is his only listed race so information is surprisingly sparse for such a hotly touted young rider.

It would be a lot easier to accept the litany of excuses/explanations if he had also flunked the ITT and lost to Tarling. As it is it looks like they have managed to emphasise what he is already very good at whilst neglecting the things he needs to be a consistent top 5 Grand Tour finisher...

That route profile is hilarious. Makes it look like a super tough medium mountain stage in a Giro or Tour not a classics race that could end in a 60 man group sprint.

Not sure he could have done anything anyway as he looked like he was on the verge of getting dropped by Tarling for several minutes.