Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[TomLPC]

I'm always glad when Old Man Alberto is a few seconds down, not his biggest fan but he might make the next few stages worth watching

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Re: Re:

That seemed like a pretty good tactical move on his part to me.

Yeah. Destroying your teammate's podium options for zero gain is the masterstroke of the century. Silly me.

Given that the teammate had tried to usurp control by taking advantage of a break in the peloton on a flat stage, that teammate was getting the team to work for him, rather than AC, the stronger rider, it made sense for AC to stamp his authority and reclaim leader status of both his team and the race. Having the balls to directly take on Lance - something few had the balls to do - made me an AC fan at the time. Bruyneel and Lance were trying to steal the race from AC and viewed AC as a competitor to Lance, IMO, so you can't simplify it to, "AC attacked a teammate."

 

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

Even if his strategy was bed before he moved to Saxo (which it wasn't), it would be natural for his tactics to improve with experience

And Bjarne's reputation as a tactical genius was well-cemented years before Contador moved to Saxo.

Bjarne's tactical rep is a bit overrated. His one Tour win was a result of Sastre's initiative and drive. Had he listened to Bjarne who was under the thrall of the Schleck's "potential", he'd have sat in on Alpe d'Huez, babysitting brothers in the hope that Frank would put in the time trial of his life to hang on to his gc lead.

 

[Carols]

Bleck again......disappointing. All is not lost just yet, but Nairto looks Strong.

 

[bajbar]

This is a worrying situation. I was positive he is going to get to the finishing line with Nairo. Seing him so far back after the attack of Quintana was a shock. He did hold the gap at least through the last kilometre, but it isn't what I was expecting. Now he is most propably (again!!) going to finish second in the race by a miniature margin, but him getting dropped by Quintana is a big worry... At least he finished in front of Froome, but we all know how Froome can find his form in the Tour... Not happy...

 

[Metabolol]

Alberto is riding well but it's so close between the top guys that his chase after TJ and Porte cost him several seconds on Nairo. Nairo was cool and benefited further up (he would have dropped alberto anyways but it would have been closer).

Alberto still has a shot at winning this race.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Seems like this will be a season with many podiums and very few victories. Hope I'm wrong, but.......

 

[bajbar]

Re:

Seems like this will be a season with many podiums and very few victories. Hope I'm wrong, but.......

He will have to put A LOT of work in during his 40-day "rest" period between Pais Vasco and Dauphine. If Froome was his main rival for the Tour, Contador would have an advantage, since the biggest mountains come late in the race, and there is no early MTF where Froome would get a big advantage. But seeing how Quintana climbs, well, he would need a big buffer before the last week. And with this kind of form, he won't get it. I just don't want another depressing July with him being dropped all over the place

 

[Red Rick]

Don't take those changes in form for granted. I think a great lot of riders were just bad last year, which is why Froome initially and Quintana later on looked so damn impressive.

 

[harryh]

Re:

It's not a disaster, but it shows he isn't as strong as we thought, which does not bode well for the rest of the season.

I think he was stronger than expected. An old champion being dropped by a young Colombian talent is not a shame at all. And hey, he he was capable of dropping king Froome himself about 20 secs in 17 km ascend which is not bad at all, actually it seems that Alberto may be even slightly higher level than in 2013.

 

[buchanan]

Re: Re:

Seems like this will be a season with many podiums and very few victories. Hope I'm wrong, but.......

He will have to put A LOT of work in during his 40-day "rest" period between Pais Vasco and Dauphine. If Froome was his main rival for the Tour, Contador would have an advantage, since the biggest mountains come late in the race, and there is no early MTF where Froome would get a big advantage. But seeing how Quintana climbs, well, he would need a big buffer before the last week. And with this kind of form, he won't get it. I just don't want another depressing July with him being dropped all over the place

I agree with you two. I think that for Contador to be a favourite at the Tour, he needs to be red hot now in these early races. That means winning stages and races. That's what his racing history has shown over the years. Quintana took a fair bit of time out of him relatively easily in a short distance. And Porte was right there again, pipping him to the line. I expect the Tour to be a straight fight between Froome and Quintana. Alberto good for 3rd or 4th.

 

[buchanan]

Re: Re:

It's not a disaster, but it shows he isn't as strong as we thought, which does not bode well for the rest of the season.

I think he was stronger than expected. An old champion being dropped by a young Colombian talent is not a shame at all. And hey, he he was capable of dropping king Froome himself about 20 secs in 17 km ascend which is not bad at all, actually it seems that Alberto may be even slightly higher level than in 2013.

I wouldn't read too much into Froome's form in Catalunya. If anything, he will be satisfied with how he's going. He's on a completely different schedule to Contador and is aiming to build more gradually until July. He has just spent the past few weeks training in South Africa and is race rusty. This is just a race to build form for him.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

It's not a disaster, but it shows he isn't as strong as we thought, which does not bode well for the rest of the season.

I think he was stronger than expected. An old champion being dropped by a young Colombian talent is not a shame at all. And hey, he he was capable of dropping king Froome himself about 20 secs in 17 km ascend which is not bad at all, actually it seems that Alberto may be even slightly higher level than in 2013.

Get out.

 

[harryh]

Re: Re:

It's not a disaster, but it shows he isn't as strong as we thought, which does not bode well for the rest of the season.

I think he was stronger than expected. An old champion being dropped by a young Colombian talent is not a shame at all. And hey, he he was capable of dropping king Froome himself about 20 secs in 17 km ascend which is not bad at all, actually it seems that Alberto may be even slightly higher level than in 2013.

I wouldn't read too much into Froome's form in Catalunya. If anything, he will be satisfied with how he's going. He's on a completely different schedule to Contador and is aiming to build more gradually until July. He has just spent the past few weeks training in South Africa and is race rusty. This is just a race to build form for him.

Good post

 

[Baldinger]

I thought he got a cold after paris-Nice. Could very well be the decisive factor in this case.

 

[dacooley]

it's high time to ask ourselves a question: did anyone expect prior the season that the 2016 tour de france would be won by bertie at the expense of supreme climbing demonstrations the way quintana / froome do at times? i for myself did not. contador is going to win the tour thanks to huge experience, stability and excellent recovery, so what we've been observing today is not a premise to ring the bells. he will be ready come july but if his this year's peak will be enough for the tour win is unknown and we couldn't have been able to state 'sure, 100%, yes' even if he put 1 minute into quintana today, so nothing's lost.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

it's high time to ask ourselves a question: did anyone expect prior the season that the 2016 tour de france would be won by bertie at the expense of supreme climbing demonstrations the way quintana / froome do at times? i for myself did not. contador is going to win the tour thanks to huge experience, stability and excellent recovery, so what we've been observing today is not a premise to ring the bells. he will be ready come july but if his this year's peak will be enough for the tour win is unknown and we couldn't have been able to state 'sure, 100%, yes' even if he put 1 minute into quintana today, so nothing's lost.

I thought he would win it by following Froome uphill and countering. If he loses time uphill, it's going to be extremely difficult. He will need all the luck in the world.

 

[rm7]

Contador had to close down those gaps to TJ by himself, and with such an even level of the topriders, Quintana clearly had a little extra in the tank. Contador has done this plenty times where he wait for somebody else to close gaps and then launch an attack. Quintana just did the same to him today.

But no denying Quintana was a bit stronger than Contador today, but I still think both have room to improve for the Tour. I actually think that Contador would have benefited from a stronger Froome today, because then he wouldn't be the one to close those gaps to TJ and Porte.

Contador looked stronger in the Dauphine 2014 than the spring in 2014, and even better at the Tour. Quintana usually just pop up at some point in the spring where he's good, and then we see him in the 3rd week of the Tour.

We'll wait and see. It'll be the mountains that decide, because isn't the TT in the Tour a hilly one? If so, then i expect Contador and Froome to finish 10-15 apart at most, and Quintana will loose 30 seconds at most.

 

[cellardoor]

For any other rider I would not be at all concerned about today's performance so early in the season, but Contador is someone who historically has either been all guns blazing from the very first race or is kind of average all year chasing podiums. It's not just the fact that Contador got dropped by Quintana but the way it happened, i.e. the elastic snapped as opposed to him just riding his own pace as someone like Porte did. In other words, if the climb had continued he probably would have slipped further and further back while others that rode their own pace would have managed the gap to Quintana better.

We keep making excuses for him but it's starting to feel like we've seen this playbook before.

I hold out a little bit of hope that he might have had a mini-peak for Paris-Nice and is starting to come down off that peak or maybe that the cold he had has affected him. That fact that he said he didn't feel good yesterday lends credence to those two possibilities. I also think that he knew he was on a bit of a bad day as otherwise I think he would have attacked earlier and/or responded to TJ immediately.

Despite the small gap I can't really see him winning this race. The upcoming stages look like they will be for more punchier riders and I wouldn't even be surprised if Dan Martin ends up winning. I don't think he'll have the stomach for another P-N type ambush.

Sorry to be negative, just disappointed by what I saw today. After yesterday I really didn't think he'd get dropped today. I hope I'm reading too much into an early season race.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Contador had to close down those gaps to TJ by himself, and with such an even level of the topriders, Quintana clearly had a little extra in the tank. Contador has done this plenty times where he wait for somebody else to close gaps and then launch an attack. Quintana just did the same to him today.

But no denying Quintana was a bit stronger than Contador today, but I still think both have room to improve for the Tour. I actually think that Contador would have benefited from a stronger Froome today, because then he wouldn't be the one to close those gaps to TJ and Porte.

Contador looked stronger in the Dauphine 2014 than the spring in 2014, and even better at the Tour. Quintana usually just pop up at some point in the spring where he's good, and then we see him in the 3rd week of the Tour.

We'll wait and see. It'll be the mountains that decide, because isn't the TT in the Tour a hilly one? If so, then i expect Contador and Froome to finish 10-15 apart at most, and Quintana will loose 30 seconds at most.

Pretty spot on, apart from the gaps uphill. You can't predict that, cause small gaps tend to get magnified at some point during the Tour. They all tend to have similar build ups, but when gaps are relatively small at this point in the year whilst riders are getting a bit sick now and then, it doesn't say that much.

 

[BlurryVII]

And as usual, when we expect him to deliver on a MTF, he doesn't. Almost not understandable. Race's lost, he will attack last stage as usual and it's gonna be useless.
Now I've heard Quintana prepared very well for this, did a lot of climbing at high altitudes the last few weeks. He's probably more on form at this point. Contador definetely has a lot of room for improvement, he's not on 2014 form.

But regardless of any reason, it's just very disappointing once again.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

And as usual, when we expect him to deliver on a MTF, he doesn't. Almost not understandable. Race's lost, he will attack last stage as usual and it's gonna be useless.
Now I've heard Quintana prepared very well for this, did a lot of climbing at high altitudes the last few weeks. He's probably more on form at this point. Contador definetely has a lot of room for improvement, he's not on 2014 form.

But regardless of any reason, it's just very disappointing once again.

Spot on. So incredibly frustrating.

 

[BlurryVII]

Looks like he's had to respond to quite a few attacks by himself, but it's no excuse, he was looking a bit ragged when closing the gaps. Out of the saddle for the time being and sits as soon as he can to breath. When he's feeling really good, he's constantly out of the saddle.

Pretty sure he was better in Paris Nice, he did no climbing between PN and catalunya and mainly recovered from his cold. Might play a big role.

I remember before the Pais Vasco 2014, he stated that he did a high intensity training during the week break because he looked at the stage 1 and saw it was decisive with that steep climb. He had planned that attack. And looked much much better than he did in Catalunya 14'.

 

[Escarabajo]

To me, he seems to be closing gaps too much on these races that are not that important. Maybe should just focus on not winning everything but putting quality miles on his legs. I know Contador's fans don't agree with me but we should face it. He is not the young race horse that he once was and should take care of his racing miles a bit more. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Matteo.]

Today Quintana was simply stronger.
Now the only positive thing is that it seems to me, Alberto was stronger in PN. Hopefully he'll do a better performance in PV