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79ª Volta a Portugal em Bicicleta (4 a 15 de Agosto de 2017)

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Re: Re:

classicomano said:
Netserk said:
So, does this mean that Antunes will be trapped in the Portuguese scene, or does any WT team dare touch him? One could have hoped that he'd get a chance to have a real pro career, but maybe this will mark him...
I think touching him right now would give you radiation poisoning.
Guys like Gorbunov have been busted just coming close to the August machines. I think today's absolute massacre should put paid to most teams' designs on Amaro. The guy has been a climbing monster since youth for sure, but while he was riding for a team like LA, who have a comparatively decent reputation (this is the former Fercase team, not the Milaneza team that LA Aluminios previously sponsored) there might have been some benefit of the doubt, riding like this with W52 will make pretty much anybody reluctant to take a risk, and understandably so. I mean, we all know Torre is the all important climb of the race, but nevertheless, there was a massacre out there today. Neilands tried gamely, but outnumbered and outmuscled, realistically he had no chance. Balarcón may have looked like he had a potential weakness, and his form that has been so good since April was finally running out, but not a bit of it. Not a bit. That was crazy even by the Volta's high standards of insanity.

This day was probably the end of Gustavo César Veloso though. That was a Melcior Mauri 1992 level downfall of a champion.
 
I checked Neilands' twitter.
It's nothing but Latvian potato jokes. Really. I was so happy thinking that meme had finally died years ago.

Libertine Seguros said:
classicomano said:
Netserk said:
So, does this mean that Antunes will be trapped in the Portuguese scene, or does any WT team dare touch him? One could have hoped that he'd get a chance to have a real pro career, but maybe this will mark him...
I think touching him right now would give you radiation poisoning.
Guys like Gorbunov have been busted just coming close to the August machines. I think today's absolute massacre should put paid to most teams' designs on Amaro. The guy has been a climbing monster since youth for sure, but while he was riding for a team like LA, who have a comparatively decent reputation (this is the former Fercase team, not the Milaneza team that LA Aluminios previously sponsored) there might have been some benefit of the doubt, riding like this with W52 will make pretty much anybody reluctant to take a risk, and understandably so. I mean, we all know Torre is the all important climb of the race, but nevertheless, there was a massacre out there today. Neilands tried gamely, but outnumbered and outmuscled, realistically he had no chance. Balarcón may have looked like he had a potential weakness, and his form that has been so good since April was finally running out, but not a bit of it. Not a bit. That was crazy even by the Volta's high standards of insanity.

This day was probably the end of Gustavo César Veloso though. That was a Melcior Mauri 1992 level downfall of a champion.

Mauri had later successes and even a Tour top 10. GCV isn't coming back from this
 
Re:

GuyIncognito said:
I checked Neilands' twitter.
It's nothing but Latvian potato jokes. Really. I was so happy thinking that meme had finally died years ago.

Libertine Seguros said:
classicomano said:
Netserk said:
So, does this mean that Antunes will be trapped in the Portuguese scene, or does any WT team dare touch him? One could have hoped that he'd get a chance to have a real pro career, but maybe this will mark him...
I think touching him right now would give you radiation poisoning.
Guys like Gorbunov have been busted just coming close to the August machines. I think today's absolute massacre should put paid to most teams' designs on Amaro. The guy has been a climbing monster since youth for sure, but while he was riding for a team like LA, who have a comparatively decent reputation (this is the former Fercase team, not the Milaneza team that LA Aluminios previously sponsored) there might have been some benefit of the doubt, riding like this with W52 will make pretty much anybody reluctant to take a risk, and understandably so. I mean, we all know Torre is the all important climb of the race, but nevertheless, there was a massacre out there today. Neilands tried gamely, but outnumbered and outmuscled, realistically he had no chance. Balarcón may have looked like he had a potential weakness, and his form that has been so good since April was finally running out, but not a bit of it. Not a bit. That was crazy even by the Volta's high standards of insanity.

This day was probably the end of Gustavo César Veloso though. That was a Melcior Mauri 1992 level downfall of a champion.

Mauri had later successes and even a Tour top 10. GCV isn't coming back from this
Yea, but Mauri was 26, César is 37. Mauri was no longer taken seriously as a GT leader but was able to reinvent himself well as a secondary hand. I expect Gustavo to either retire or be forced to do similar, but with his ability in those odd not-quite-sprints not-quite-punchy-finishes that proliferate in the Portuguese calendar still be a useful guy for the domestic calendar and stage wins, but no longer be the GC guy for the Volta, if his ego can take that. He was always a likable rider in the Xaco days but plenty of accounts that suggest he's become something of a diva with Quinta da Lixa.
 
Jul 14, 2015
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Re:

Bye Bye Bicycle said:
Antunes pretty much destroyed the last bit of credibility he had today. Off to the clinic for him.

I was thinking Alarcon is the joker because frankly he's fat, been a terrible pro for 10 years and pretty much *ALL* of his wins are in 2017. Then I checked out Antunes "palmares" and all his wins are in 2017, too..
 
Re: Re:

hazaran said:
Bye Bye Bicycle said:
Antunes pretty much destroyed the last bit of credibility he had today. Off to the clinic for him.

I was thinking Alarcon is the joker because frankly he's fat, been a terrible pro for 10 years and pretty much *ALL* of his wins are in 2017. Then I checked out Antunes "palmares" and all his wins are in 2017, too..
Amaro has some good results as an espoir though. He famously destroyed the Volta do Futuro on a stage over the brutal São Macário climb, and if anything a few of us who noticed him back then have been disappointing it's taken him so long to get to a good level. Look at his junior and espoir results - winning the jersey grand slam at the Junior Volta in 2008, an MTF in the Vuelta a Palencia, and he had some good results in the national calendar in 2015, as well as coming top 10 in the Volta ao Algarve before this year's stage win. The issue is that he's gone from being one of a pack of good climbers while riding for the comparatively well-reputed LA-Antarte (and not winning because of being outnumbered against the most brutal machines) to being part of a monster team himself. He had a LOT of top 10s over the last three years, including the Volta GC three years running. Maybe some of us - myself included - have been less quick to condemn him than we ought to be, but part of that's that he's 26 years old, and compared to ancient fossils like Rui Sousa, Rinaldo Nocentini, Gustavo César Veloso, Alejandro Marque and co., or riders whose improvements are more dramatic and more immediate like Alarcón, that doesn't seem too unreasonable. Again, we're talking by the standards of Portuguese cycling here.

Balarcón is a Pecharromán, a Fischer, a Tiernan-Locke story. Antunes isn't - he's just stuck his head too far over the parapet and now he's made his bed. Compared to Balarcón, Amaro's palmarès looks totally reasonable even if his performances right now don't. There are entire seasons where Balarcón was riding but had literally no results to speak of. When he was punted back to amateurs in 2009 he hardly set the world alight, he got a few wins in 2010 but certainly nothing to compare to, say, Arkaitz Durán's year when he was sent back to the amateur ranks and set about blitzing everybody, only to become about fourth in command at Efapel and be somewhat disappointing. He's the same age as Alarcón. In 2012, 2014 and 2015, Raúl achieved absolutely bupkiss. Even his own team's website describes him as a rouleur helper. That's right, the guy who climbed with Quintana in Asturias.
 
So y'all think that Antunes should join the rest of the pack in the clinic now? There's no chance of the Portugese scene overall being cleaner now (withholding the obvious Alarconartist), thus giving Amaro a chance to shine? Considering the performance of Jesus Krists Superstar Neilands and all....
 
If anybody is getting out of Portugal based on this race it's António Barbio. Certainly if I was in charge of a team in the top two tiers and was told I had to pick somebody up based on their performances in this race he's the first guy on my list.

Amaro just seems too 'in' at W52, and their operation is enough to give fictional team owner me cold feet. It's not like he's got the vibe of Hernâni Brôco at Liberty Seguros, where the team bosses were complaining about him not fitting in.
 
01WGa9.jpg
 
Jun 30, 2014
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Neilands finished 10th on gc, pretty impressive, not just the breakaway yesterday, but all of his results and the 12th place on the MTF.
When will the "Neilands is the new Ugrumov" thread pop up? :D
 
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Re: Re:

BigMac said:
jens_attacks said:
last bike ride for rui sousa :((((

hug me, libertine. :(((

With Cândido and Sousa gona, Libs must be feeling like an oncological patient who's just been told they're cancer-free.
Until then he tunes in to an international race and sees Sagan doing non-molesting things.
 
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I wonder how the result rates in absolute terms. I didn't look too closely at the altitude profile of the course but on a 20k ITT I would expect all of the Tour ITT top 10 to beat the 46.385 km/h set by the stage winner here, plenty of long power stretches, too.
 
Re:

hazaran said:
I wonder how the result rates in absolute terms. I didn't look too closely at the altitude profile of the course but on a 20k ITT I would expect all of the Tour ITT top 10 to beat the 46.385 km/h set by the stage winner here, plenty of long power stretches, too.

TTing is as much about position/drag as it is about power. Really top end WT TTers will likely be much better at that side of the discipline than any of these guys.
 
Re:

hazaran said:
I wonder how the result rates in absolute terms. I didn't look too closely at the altitude profile of the course but on a 20k ITT I would expect all of the Tour ITT top 10 to beat the 46.385 km/h set by the stage winner here, plenty of long power stretches, too.

I think I read on twitter the 2nd half was downhill and some rider even rode a 58x11 which is insane.
That would make the average speed a lot less impressive.
 
Re: Re:

GuyIncognito said:
hazaran said:
I wonder how the result rates in absolute terms. I didn't look too closely at the altitude profile of the course but on a 20k ITT I would expect all of the Tour ITT top 10 to beat the 46.385 km/h set by the stage winner here, plenty of long power stretches, too.

I think I read on twitter the 2nd half was downhill and some rider even rode a 58x11 which is insane.
That would make the average speed a lot less impressive.

Also, that means 1st half was uphill as the start and finish were very close, so it is not that surprising that the average speed was lower compared to last year and last years TT was 40km. But, they will not be close to the top WT riders in a TT. For example, Antunes was 51st on the Algarve TT, where he was going 100%.
 

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