2017 Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, March 20-26, WT

[Jagartrott]

So, latest version of this farce: the jury based their decision on an outdated rule book. They didn't even know there was a new one since this year.

Professionalism at its best.

 

[kingjr]

Re:

So, latest version of this farce: the jury based their decision on an outdated rule book. They didn't even know there was a new one since this year.

Professionalism at its best.

It's cycling, what do you expect? It's particularly funny at post tour crits, when they mess up the lap-count, the results, riders being lapped, bunch of *** oafs everywhere you look.

 

[MatParker117]

Can ASO just take this race over completely?

 

[Taxus4a]

Contador inmolation will be at Coll de Purrera or at the end of Musara.
Even if he take some seconds tomorrow or if he is the stronger in the hard climb of the queen stage and take some seconds..he will need about one minute still to win and that is only possible with a good strategy for very long in that 6th stage...If the difference is less than 10 second for the last stage, it is possible to try again...
Trek did a very good TTT, 4th is an excellent result, but with so long TTT, it was clear SKY or Movistar has a better team.
I think Thomas is the SKy leader...Froome is not peaking now as Contador..(Valverde is different, ha can be always almost peaking), with Froome at his best will be an interesting race trying to recover that time. Anyway I hope he is well and with that team they will try something...it would be possible to join interests with Contador? We will see...It would be interesting.

 

[MatParker117]

Apparently Sky are going to fire people up La Molina and see what happens.

 

[Vasilis]

Re:

So, latest version of this farce: the jury based their decision on an outdated rule book. They didn't even know there was a new one since this year.

Professionalism at its best.

But after this last meeting, that doesn't change their ruling? Weird...

 

[Poursuivant]

Re:

Apparently Sky are going to fire people up La Molina and see what happens.

Let's hope they of Trek or anyone else for that matter don't wait until the final climb.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

This reminds me of something Dan Martin pointed out. 50th on GC earns as many WT points as 3rd on a stage with the new system. Way to promote aggressive racing.

While I don't disagree with the content of what Dan Martin is saying ... the fact that he admits he's only just finding about this now kind of implies he (and other riders) never gave much of a care anyways. You'd have to know about it for it to have an effect on you. :lol:

Perhaps it does affect the DS's decisions though.

Dan Martin rides for Quickstep. Of course he doesn't care about WT points, it's not like it makes any difference to his team or his personal employability how many he gets. But he's entirely correct. To any team or rider for whom such points matter, they are a disincentive to risk taking and an invitation to conservatism.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

I think the moaning is only justified if the next 5 stages are crap. You guys react way too quickly.

I will admit that it is not a great route, but to write off the rest of the race before it has even happened is not really a good plan.

Lots of people wrote off the final stage in Paris Nice for instance. And the stage in which Tom Dumoulin cracked in the Vuelta. And I guess some people (including me) wouldn't have anticipated Fuente De.

I still hope for a couple of stages to be raced entertainingly for the stage victory. It's not impossible that something exciting could happen in GC, but we are getting towards "and then a giant spider trapped Valverde in her web and everyone on Movistar lost two minutes desperately sawing him free" levels of likelihood.

Good post. I agree we could still see some battles for stage victories but there's simply no terrain to make up close to or more than a minute on Valverde, especially considering the bonus seconds he can still grab.

A minute? BMC is just at 2 seconds, they have 4 guys who could attack Valverde, Sky has 3, maybe even 4 with Nieve. They need to strike tomorrow already, and from far out. Movistar is strong, but it's not TDF Sky team, everything is still open. Even Trek could play Mollema or Pantano card. As far as Contador concerns, well he could try on Lo Port right from the bottom, like Quintana did in Valenciana. He should be the best climber in this race, it's worth a try. Valverde is in pole position, but it's far from over

Yes, I for one am really looking forward to an epic contest between Valverde and Ben Hermans over a series of uphill sprints and an MTF. A true clash of the titans.

 

[ferryman]

Re:

Apparently Sky are going to fire people up La Molina and see what happens.

Given the firepower they have with them, this makes perfect sense. I really hope it happens, it will make for great racing with BMC, Movistar, Trek and the Quickie's (for the Martin stage win) hitting it hard behind. Could be fun

 

[Escarabajo]

I saw the infraction by Jose Joaquin Rojas and I can tell you that I have seen worse. TBH I thought that wasn't much. But if it is illegal you have to enforce the rules. I guess this year they are trying harder than previous ones for obvious criticism.

 

[HelloDolly]

Re:

The moaning in this thread is funny. When we saw the route we knew this would happen. It might not be to everyones liking, especially a certain segment on this forum, but thats just how the route is. It might open up for some other scenarios and lets remember, the race as it was before wasn't exactly riveting racing either with a couple of shallow MTFs and nothing else.

Give it a chance. Maybe this will make for better racing, who knows.

People on here moaned moaned about the Paris Nice route and that turned out to be exciting and unpredictable race

Bet this race will offer up some great racing too

In fact most people on here just look for reasons to moan

 

[Ricco']

I went to the official website to see the classifications and the jury of this race must be the most incompetent that I have ever seen.

In the team classification, they decided to count 3 times the result of this stage (for team time trials, usually the result of the stage is the result of the team classification). The result? For instance BMC is at 6 seconds of the front when they should be at 2 seconds, Sky is at 2'12'' when they should be at 46'' and so on. Caja Rural is at 13'48'' when no team lost that much time. I remember that yesterday all times except Funvic arrived with the same time.

I don't know what this people is doing, really.

I just checked the regulation of the race and the fault is on the organizers who decided to multiply the result of the stage by 3 for the team classifications. So, in practical terms, for that specific competition, we have 9 stages, 3 of which are TTT.

This organizers deserve to have this race demoted to 2.2 or lower.

 

[GraftPunk]

Re: Re:

New Jury meeting

I honestly can't tell if you are joking or not, my caffeine has worn off.

He wasn't joking, there was a meeting between the jury and Movistar and BMC, but it seems they maintained the sanction - 3' for Rojas, 2' for Amador and 1' for Oliveira.

Sounds legit Cycling wonders why it lacks credibility....?

 

[Jancouver]

Re: Re:

The moaning in this thread is funny. When we saw the route we knew this would happen. It might not be to everyones liking, especially a certain segment on this forum, but thats just how the route is. It might open up for some other scenarios and lets remember, the race as it was before wasn't exactly riveting racing either with a couple of shallow MTFs and nothing else.

Give it a chance. Maybe this will make for better racing, who knows.

People on here moaned moaned about the Paris Nice route and that turned out to be exciting and unpredictable race

Bet this race will offer up some great racing too

In fact most people on here just look for reasons to moan

Isn't funny how cycling fans are so quick to predict how the race will play out? And best part of it is that most of them are wrong nine out of ten times :lol:

This stage was lot more exciting then some boring sprint stage and gave the race a completely different flavor.

Personally, I'm quite excited about the upcoming stages. It should be a great racing. I hope ...

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

The moaning in this thread is funny. When we saw the route we knew this would happen. It might not be to everyones liking, especially a certain segment on this forum, but thats just how the route is. It might open up for some other scenarios and lets remember, the race as it was before wasn't exactly riveting racing either with a couple of shallow MTFs and nothing else.

Give it a chance. Maybe this will make for better racing, who knows.

People on here moaned moaned about the Paris Nice route and that turned out to be exciting and unpredictable race

Bet this race will offer up some great racing too

In fact most people on here just look for reasons to moan

The majority of people were excited about the PN route.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Re:

I went to the official website to see the classifications and the jury of this race must be the most incompetent that I have ever seen.

In the team classification, they decided to count 3 times the result of this stage (for team time trials, usually the result of the stage is the result of the team classification). The result? For instance BMC is at 6 seconds of the front when they should be at 2 seconds, Sky is at 2'12'' when they should be at 46'' and so on. Caja Rural is at 13'48'' when no team lost that much time. I remember that yesterday all times except Funvic arrived with the same time.

I don't know what this people is doing, really.

I just checked the regulation of the race and the fault is on the organizers who decided to multiply the result of the stage by 3 for the team classifications. So, in practical terms, for that specific competition, we have 9 stages, 3 of which are TTT.

This organizers deserve to have this race demoted to 2.2 or lower.

They have indeed used a multiple of three on the gap between teams, but your analysis is quite wrong. In doing this they are simply being consistent with the near-ubiquitous rule of team classifications: take the time of the first three finishers of the team in each stage.

Most races only take the team time (once) for team time trials, and very rarely specify in the race regulations that this is what they will do: the organisers of this race are simply unusual in applying the principles of the teams category to every stage. If any team really considered the team classification in this event a major objective it might be an issue, but I very much doubt that BMC will lodge any objection if they lose that category by 3 seconds.

 

[carolina]

Re:

So, latest version of this farce: the jury based their decision on an outdated rule book. They didn't even know there was a new one since this year.

Professionalism at its best.

Then it's a really old rule book. Every rider of Cervelo Test Team was penalized with 1 minute in 2010.

 

[Asero831]

1 minute penalty

 

[Ricco']

Re: Re:

I went to the official website to see the classifications and the jury of this race must be the most incompetent that I have ever seen.

In the team classification, they decided to count 3 times the result of this stage (for team time trials, usually the result of the stage is the result of the team classification). The result? For instance BMC is at 6 seconds of the front when they should be at 2 seconds, Sky is at 2'12'' when they should be at 46'' and so on. Caja Rural is at 13'48'' when no team lost that much time. I remember that yesterday all times except Funvic arrived with the same time.

I don't know what this people is doing, really.

I just checked the regulation of the race and the fault is on the organizers who decided to multiply the result of the stage by 3 for the team classifications. So, in practical terms, for that specific competition, we have 9 stages, 3 of which are TTT.

This organizers deserve to have this race demoted to 2.2 or lower.

They have indeed used a multiple of three on the gap between teams, but your analysis is quite wrong. In doing this they are simply being consistent with the near-ubiquitous rule of team classifications: take the time of the first three finishers of the team in each stage.

Most races only take the team time (once) for team time trials, and very rarely specify in the race regulations that this is what they will do: the organisers of this race are simply unusual in applying the principles of the teams category to every stage. If any team really considered the team classification in this event a major objective it might be an issue, but I very much doubt that BMC will lodge any objection if they lose that category by 3 seconds.

The other stages aren't a team effort by definition, a TTT on the other hand is. It's the team effort that produces the final result so I find only fair to have the result of the stage as the team classification of the stage. There's no logic in aggravating the differences between the team efforts. Yesterday, the difference on the effort of team Movistar to the effort of team Caja Rural was of 4'34'', not of 13'42''.

Btw, I see now in PCS that all of the Movistar riders were penalized, Hermans is the leader.

 

[pablopaul]

BMC Racing Team‏Verified account @BMCProTeam 21m

.@UCI_cycling has confirmed that @BMCProTeam are now the winners of #VoltaCatalunya TTT + @hermansben has the leader's jersey.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Finally.

 

[Netserk]

What a farce. If the commissaires knew the rules, I'm sure they would have done nothing yesterday. Not that I mind Valverde losing a minute, but this is just too ridiculous (and it could just as well have happened to someone else).

edit: It's not ridiculous that they finally managed to sanction as according to the rules, but the way it all happened, and that I think they wouldn't have done anything yesterday about this if the knew it'd end up like this.

 

[LaFlorecita]

! UCI fail
Edit: what Netserk wrote, my thoughts exactly. OTOH it might have gotten out of hand in other TTTs if they had decided to do nothing

 

[rune1107]

Now we got ourselves a race!