82nd Volta a Portugal em Bicicleta Santander (August 4-15)

[trevim]

Porto exploding the race in Torneiros climb, now this is some cool racing!

Rodrigues, Carvalho, Veloso….all dropped. Less than 10 in peloton

 

[trevim]

Rodrigues and Carvalho back on.

Rodrigues now definitely as domestique, even Brandao looks set to work. Some hierarchy in Porto it seems

 

[Mayomaniac]

Did they manage to drop Reis?

 

[Netserk]

Did they manage to drop Reis?

I think so, given they call it the Marque group.

 

[Bullrun]

The problem interpreted on the board with Efapel's tactics are twofold.

Firstly, that the positive outcome does not necessarily mean that the decision was correct, it depends on other factors.

Yeah, that's why I wrote an entire post with the reasons their tactics were objectively conductive to allow them to accomplish worthy goals instead of just ending it with the "Efapel won" quote.

A few more seconds due to not setting such a pace, or Figueiredo helping Antunes slightly more, and it's W52 who have to expend domestiques rather than Tavira when it comes to controlling the break going forward, rather than letting W52 keep their riders fresh

What? This doesn't even make logical sense. Why on earth would W52 ever chase Antunes/Figueiredo? Over a few seconds? Or whatever time?

There's no way W52 would ever do that; and if they wanted the breakway gap to close, they'd just tell Antunes to stop working and allow Gustavo César and Mas to easily eat up the gap.

The idea that they'd be chasing their own man is wildly bizarre.

As I said, the relationship between what is written here and reality is tenuous at best.

GCV is also tired faster if the gap gets bigger because Fred is working. So there were ways that the outcome could have been better.

GCV ended 7 minutes down. The only difference would be Movistar would start working earlier. I doubt the difference in gap would have been more than a few seconds either way.

Then again, let's keep in mind Figueiredo started working as soon as the team car was able to get close to him.

They have also won while doing similarly counter-intuitive things before, such as Antônio Barbio's win on Monte Assunção in 2016, when they pulled a successful 1-2 punch from the break... then took over on the front and chased their own break in which they had the sole escapee and the best climber in the chase group. Then, Barbio stayed clear so they got the stage, but they caught the chase group, and then their leaders got dropped on the climb. So they won the stage, but it was still a tactical fail.

Yeah, this never happened and, at the very least, it's a gross distortion - once again, a gross overdramatization -of what happened..

I remember that stage well enough I believe.

Minor fact, that stage was in 2017, not 2016.

Doppo, the breakaway had Barbio and another Efapel rider, Del Pino, I think but also Rui Sousa, who was within striking distance of the yellow shirt. That lead to a race situation where W52 kept a high pace on the peloton and the breakaway was never able to built a gap higher than 3 minutes or so - something close to the time Sousa was down on the GC.

It had nothing to do with Efapel chasing. It was W52 due to Rui Sousa being on the breakaway.

Eventually, an attack from Barbio stuck and he got isolated with maybe 20kms or so to go. He was alone in the long descent to Santo Tirso. I don't remember Del Pino attacking after that, and if he did it was pretty minor and immaterial. Barbio built a pretty sizeable gap to the chasers in the descent.

It was only in the fastest part of the descent, already within the last 15 kms, and with Barbio already well in front, that Efapel went to the front of the peloton and they were there for a few minutes, perhaps 3kms or so.

Barbio's victory was already pretty certain by then, but, tellingly, I'm sure the gap remained pretty much the same the entire time Efapel was "chased".

When you have a team "pulling" in front of the peloton, in very fast terrain, but the solo escapee who incidentally rides for that team somehow manages to keep the gap (and Barbio worked with Sousa and Pino throughout the stage so he was far from fresh), it's pretty easy to understand what exactly that team is doing.

Not for you or the rest of the "weird things happen in the Volta all the time, even if we have to make them up" crowd in this thread though.

It looked for a good chunk of yesterday's stage like they were planning on repeating that, since Figueiredo is their best GC option and they were reducing his gains while seeming unlikely to make realistic gains elsewhere (unless we're genuinely feeling Moreira will be a GC candidate after 11 days, which we mostly weren't at day 1).

What good chunk of yesterday's stage [Guarda's stage] are you even talking about?

They made an acceleration when approaching the final climb. That was it. There was no way whatsoever they were going to catch Figueiredo or even get much closer - the race would be accelerated by someone eventually (in fact, Feirense quickly took over).

Seriously, this is utter nonsense.

And obviously that regardless of Moreira's actual chances - no idea how they genuinely feel, personally I'd be extremely surprised if he doesn't implode in any of the remaining climbs- they're happy to sacrifice a few Antunes gains

Once again, if Figureido had given his all and they had arrived with 3 or 4 minutes, the GC would be a two men duel with Antunes possibly with a 30 seconds advantage and a long crono in hand. This woul dhave been a muich worse outcome for them.

Secondly, the history of Efapel's tactical idiocy means that even when something works, they don't get the benefit of the doubt that it was by judgement rather than luck. They have a history of chasing their own moves, of passivity when they need to attack, of prioritising the wrong rider and sacrificing riders in better form, of supporting the chase when it is counterproductive or refusing to commit when they need to help the chase, and so on. Much like Jumbo-Visma or Movistar, who have a history of tactical fails that colour people's interpretation of their attempts to enliven proceedings and mean they aren't seen as sympathetically as they might otherwise be. I mean, take all those stacked lineups from the mid-2010s where they had by far the strongest team in the race, but blew it completely by sacrificing every option for the reanimated corpse of Rui Sousa, who inevitably failed hard in the final TT against the likes of Marque and César Veloso.

I don't understand why is this a second point: it's exactly the same inane point made in the first paragraph - "they showed bad tactics before so we just make up they're showing bad tactics even when they're good".

I don't care if people do the same with other teams, it's just as idiotic. If Rabbobank or Movistar have a good show with good tactics, then they do.

Just like when Nizzolo finally won a giro stage it'd be bizarre for the thread to read "lol there goes Nizollo making another2nd spot".

Also, not really sure who they sacrificed for Rui Sousa in those years. They had some good young riders who were too young to seriously contend for the GC (Joni, Vilela, Fonte, etc) and had Broco when Marque/GCV did the 1-2 for Quinta da Lixa. The team was always strong with guys like Sousa, Nuno Ribeiro, the supercharged Sergio RIbeiro, etc, but I don't think they ever had a better GC than Rui Sousa.

 

[Bullrun]

Libertine put it very eloquently but basically they could be dealing with Amaro Antunes in a 2 man race but instead they kept Marque close by and guys like Rodrigues or Brandao with a long shot too.

Libertine's post is mostly based on the silly thesis that the tactics on that stage were bad because once upon a time they had bad tactics in other stages. Besides that, his claim was that Figueired should have worked more to force W52 to chase, which is pretty insane and completely contradictory, as if W52 decided to chase, then Antunes would simply follow Figueiredo's wheel and they'd arrive with a much reduced margin, if any at all.

That said, I have no idea why you think they'd like to be dealing with Antunes in a 2-men race. I mean, maybe the podium does indeed end Marque-Figueiredo-Antunes, who knows, maybe Antunes is on the verge of collapse, and Marque much stronger than expected but the reasonable view is that their chances are much higher with the current GC situation than having that mano-a-mano until the end. In normal circunstances Antunes will put quite a few seconds in the final TT, so Figueiredo would need to gain loads of time on him while facing the entire W52 squad that would only need to control him.

This chaotic situation is much more conducive for the underdog to achieve success.

Also this should also be viewed in context, they have a long record of doing this sort of thing.
In any case, it’s a general feature of Portuguese teams for years now. From the Volta record winner:

Weiterleitungshinweis

I've already said enough about the silly "record" theory.

And Blanco is sticking up for his guys and taking a dig on the rivals. He makes a good point on how it was easy for W52 to look great tactically when they just had the legs to crush everyone but otherwise it's pretty trivial roasting.

Teams all over the world, at all levels, face those same problems - there are dozens and dozens of cases of tension and underperformance and tactical indecision on the road due to teams having one too many co-leaders and a shortage of selfless domestiques.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yeah, that's why I wrote an entire post with the reasons their tactics were objectively conductive to allow them to accomplish worthy goals instead of just ending it with the "Efapel won" quote.




What? This doesn't even make logical sense. Why on earth would W52 ever chase Antunes/Figueiredo? Over a few seconds? Or whatever time?

If they end up with the camisola amarela, then it is their responsibility to chase in future stages, not Tavira's.

Really, defending Efapel's tactics is the hill you want to die on? Go on, tell me how they masterfully played their cards right in 2013.

 

[Netserk]

Really, defending Efapel's tactics is the hill you want to die on? Go on, tell me how they masterfully played their cards right in 2013.

Isn't that quite unrelated? Irrespective of whatever happened then, the tactics this year were either sound or not.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Isn't that quite unrelated? Irrespective of whatever happened then, the tactics this year were either sound or not.

I actually deleted that sentence as I decided it was both too confrontational considering the first part of the post, and also as you say somewhat irrelevant at this point, although Bullrun seems keen to play defence, so no idea why it's still there. If it had been that you got the quote in before I deleted it it's one thing, but looks like it never disappeared at all.

 

[trevim]

Rodrigues in beast mode

 

[burning]

Marque is somehow hanging on, that is actually impressive climbing by him.

Moreira also looks massive compared to other riders in that group, lol.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

González running out of recovery now, I thought he looked swamped at the end of the last couple of stages but wasn't sure if that was just him being small and inexperienced, but he's blown now.

 

[burning]

Marque is finally dropped, he should lose his jersey

 

[trevim]

Amaro in yellow it looks like. Looking forward to see Efapel trying something tomorrow unless they wait for TT

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Question is if he (edit: Marque) can stay close enough to still be a threat in the ITT across today and tomorrow, I suspect not, but never say never.

Mauri Moreira is way better on paper against the clock than Amaro and Fred, he looks like the favourite now to be totally honest.

 

[trevim]

And Moreira kills them all

 

[burning]

I love the Alarcon-style sprint from Moreira, he has to win Volta at some point in the future, LMAO

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I love the Alarcon-style sprint from Moreira, he has to win Volta at some point in the future, LMAO

If he can pull off that sprint on Farinha à la David Blanco or Gustavo César tomorrow, "some point in the future" is likely to be "on Sunday"...

 

[Mayomaniac]

Figueiredo is always up there with the best climbers, but for someone with such mediocre TT skills he doesn't attack as much as he probably should.
Moreira is looking mighty strong, the new Balarcon/Veloso or the Volta's answer to van Aert.

 

[trevim]

Figueiredo is always up there with the best climbers, but for someone with such mediocre TT skills he doesn't attack as much as he probably should.
Moreira is looking mighty strong, the new Balarcon/Veloso or the Volta's answer to van Aert.

I agree with your take on Figueiredo although today he can be excused because the climb is not so hard and he probably could use all the bullets he can save for Sra da Graça

 

[Mayomaniac]

I agree with your take on Figueiredo although today he can be excused because the climb is not so hard and he probably could use all the bullets he can save for Sra da Graça

Yeah, last year he attacked with over 40kms to go on the Sra da Graça stage, that's the one big attack from him that I can remember.
Someone will probably try a long range attack tomorrow, I can see W52 sending either Brandao or Rodrigues on the attack on the penultimate climb. Efapel should try to send one of their 3 guys with them, but you never know. It would be funny if we end up with Brandao and Carvalho up on the road, yelling at eachother.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Figueiredo is always up there with the best climbers, but for someone with such mediocre TT skills he doesn't attack as much as he probably should.
Moreira is looking mighty strong, the new Balarcon/Veloso or the Volta's answer to van Aert.

Got to be Balarcón, Gustavo César was always a reasonable climber at the PCT level, who just turned thermonuclear with Quinta da Lixa.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Got to be Balarcón, Gustavo César was always a reasonable climber at the PCT level, who just turned thermonuclear with Quinta da Lixa.

Yeah, Balarcon is the Volta's version of Thomas becoming a Tour winner while Veloso is just Froome with clearly better results before his transformation.

 

[tobydawq]

I am quite confused as to why there is no TT today. Didn't they get the memo from Spain, Poland and Denmark that today is the great TT day?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I am quite confused as to why there is no TT today. Didn't they get the memo from Spain, Poland and Denmark that today is the great TT day?

Both this race and especially l'Avenir with two weekend time trials got it totally wrong.