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.
Well, considering what they did in the following stages if they had ended up with the yellow jersey, they'd probably have spent less time pulling and chasing than they did. Scrap the probably, they most certainly would.
Second, why on earth would they be scared of that? You just keep making those wild, insane, assumptions, without justifying them. They had the best and deepest team. An Antunes vs Figueiredo mano a mano with everyone else minutes away, with the stages remaining, would mean a victory for them 99% of the time. Yet you keep insisting they'd be totally horrified at this scenario - which would be fine if you add a freaking explanation on why. Of coruse, the reason you don't it's because it's pure nonsense and there isn't one.
Third, even despite all that, they still wouldn't have chased -
they would have told Antunes to stop pulling and allow Veloso/Mas to quickly closed the gap to Figueiredo. A point you insist on trying to ignore.
Sometimes it's perfectly fine to just say "yeps, I got this wrong".
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.
This is very telling about how you see this stuff.
I couldn't care less about Efapel or Efapel tactics per se.
I don't have any sort of emotional or otherwise connection to these teams or riders, and I'm happy to criticize their tactics when they're actually bad. Heck, W52's tactics on the stage to Bragança, where they spent half of the stage pulling in the breakway and the other half pulling in the peloton was beyond ridicule; not exactly racing tactics, but Efapel lost the race by having an ill prepared rider taking two bottles in the illegal feeding zone, etc
My point goes well beyond tactics: the bizarre criticism of perfectly fine tactics with over-the-top wild-eyed shrieking is just part of the same pattern where a guy suddenly has become a climber by not being dropped in a 6kms/4.7% climb that was soft-pedalled and over half of the peloton went through; the insane claims about wattage being WT level, the constant claims that teammates are chasing each other whenever some loon sees riders with the same jersey in front of different groups on tv without considering the race circumstances, comparing Monte Farinha with Contador's Verbier ascent in the Tour, or that Pogacar wouldn't win the race even though we now have two Gonzales and Neilands showing how even wt neopros can keep up with the pace for most of the race, or a DS being obviously facetious about having a good day after a terrible day is to be taken literally, etc.
As I said, it's a constant stream of nonsense, distortions, fabrications and misreprestations, apparently because, and I'll quote one of the private messages I got on this forum "have a lot invested in the narrative that the VdP is an amazing memeastic race, with out-of-the-world power outputs and unique, whimsical, magical moments and not just another dull conti race".
I mean, do you want another example?
You wrote this:
Nah, GCV is just chilling on the back of the bunch for a bit to try to preserve his own GC, lmao
This never happened. It's simply a fabrication, either you're aware of it or not.
The dude clearly imploded after putting a brutal shift for his teammate. He somehow managed to hang on to the back of the very small peloton for his dear life - actually distanced a few dozen meters - until the end of the climb; once they were in flat terrain, he actually managed to make his way to the front of the peloton, put in another shift for a few more kms and then literally stopped pedaling. He lost over 7 minutes in that stage. The guy who was supposedly faking weakness to keep his 2nd place in the GC.
The man died on the road trying to keep his teammate's jersey safe and yet your claim is that he was "chilling" to "preserve his own GC".
But I suppose the idea that the race is full of hilarious, picaresque, episodes like racers feigning weakness to keep their GC instead of just doing their job gives you more trepidation and attention (cue a long ramble on how GCV wasn't faking that stage but he or a teammate or someone else altogether did it back in 2007 or something so it's only fair to claim he was doing it this year)?
I'm not defending Efapel tactics or whatever you need to tell yourself to justify your fabrications; I'm just calling out the nonsense I see here.
Go on, tell me how they masterfully played their cards right in 2013.
Here's how this has gone.
Libertine's initial claim: Efapel tactics on stage 3 were an epic fail
Reality: Nope, they were perfectly fine, they got the stage, they kept their two riders in contention, it'd be daft to remove Mauricio out of competition for the sake of a virtually hopeless Antunes vs Figueiredo duel
Libertine: Yeah, but they chased themselves
Reality: Nope, it was merely an acceleration on the approach to the uphill finish in order to launch their puncheur
Libertine: Yeah, okay, but how about 2017, they chased themselves, they almost cost their breakaway rider the victory
Reality: Nope, they went to the front of the peloton for 2/3 kms in a fast decent to obviously slow down the peloton
Libertine: How about all those years they had Rui Sousa in the team and could have won Voltas if not for horrible tactics?
Reality: Nope, in every single one of those years Rui Sousa was their only credible contender, the one other plausible contender was 2013 when they had Broco
Libertine: Okay, so what about 2013!??!
Well, I could point out that there was no chance whatsoever they were winning in 2013, especially if they had gone all in with Broco, considering he took MINUTES from the Quinta da Lixa guys in the final time-trial and wasn't even close to the podium time wise.
Quickly checking: Marque put 3:07 minutes on Broco in the final TT. Broco was 16th; Rui Sousa was 3rd and lost 1:28 to Marque. And supposedly they should have betted on Broco because Sousa was.... too weak in the final TT?
Now what?
Anything from the Carlos Pinho days?