Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[Cance > TheRest]

Looked okay to me. The fact that he was beaten by Sammy confirms that the way the climb was ridden, it was more about the punch than being the best climber

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Think he was fine. It was too steep for him and the real climbers to make a difference without risking to blow up.

To be fair, when he does a sprint like that in the end, it usually means that he's in quite good shape. Otherwise he blow up in the middle of the acceleration and get overtaken by several riders.

Agree on all points, when I saw Samu come round the corner first I thought "here we go again.." and expected him to have been blown back and passed by many other riders but phew, that wasn't the case Of course, if he was in monster shape, he could have won here, but this is about what I expected. I just would have liked to see Pinot and Quintana further back.

 

[Matteo.]

Re: Re:

If he doesn't lose anymore time, he can still win the overall if he does a good TT.

Watch out for Pinot in the TT, also Quintana, Kelderman and Costa but especially Pinot.

Pinot? If he really beat Alberto in a hilly ITT i will stop with cycling

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

At first I thought he was just refusing to close gaps after he closed the first one and they all just sat on him. But he drifted back later and let's face it never made an attack. This isn't a sharp Berto . He said he rested between Catalunya and PV because the season was already tiring. His age is catching up to him .

Not this **** again

LOL well he isn't getting any younger and isn't recovering as well! Sorry if that upsets you.....

 

[lenric]

Re:

Think he was fine. It was too steep for him and the real climbers to make a difference without risking to blow up.

To be fair, when he does a sprint like that in the end, it usually means that he's in quite good shape. Otherwise he blow up in the middle of the acceleration and get overtaken by several riders.

In Catalunya it wasn't steep enough. Today was too steep. So, you think Contador is a nicho climber? Such as Apple. Very handsome, very nice way of riding, very expensive, but only suited for 5% of the climbs? Very *** boring excuse.

He's not in good form. Period. We don't know if he can't be better than this or not, but a top Contador would smoke everyone today.

 

[Jspear]

I agree on Pinot...he's definitely one of the bigger threats.

 

[yespatterns]

He's doing just fine, not sure what the hand-wringing is about. Stage 5 and 6 are still to come and they could both be major game changers in their own way.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

LOL well he isn't getting any younger and isn't recovering as well! Sorry if that upsets you.....

What upsets me is people hyping him up into high heaven and then when he can't live up to those stratospheric expectations, they conclude he is done!! Just annoying

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

LOL well he isn't getting any younger and isn't recovering as well! Sorry if that upsets you.....

What upsets me is people hyping him up into high heaven and then when he can't live up to those stratospheric expectations, they conclude he is done!! Just annoying

I never hype so don't take it out on me!

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

In Catalunya it wasn't steep enough. Today was too steep. So, you think Contador is a nicho climber? Such as Apple. Very handsome, very nice way of riding, very expensive, but only suited for 5% of the climbs? Very **** boring excuse.

He's not in good form. Period. We don't know if he can't be better than this or not, but a top Contador would smoke everyone today.

He is superb on gradients between 6-7 and 10% (which is the majority of GT climbs ) Above he is still strong and stronger than several of his rivals, but there will be riders better on this gradient, unless he is in mythical shape.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

I never hype so don't take it out on me!

Well then what did you expect... he lost a few seconds to Henao, big deal. Geez

 

[rm7]

Re: Re:

Think he was fine. It was too steep for him and the real climbers to make a difference without risking to blow up.

To be fair, when he does a sprint like that in the end, it usually means that he's in quite good shape. Otherwise he blow up in the middle of the acceleration and get overtaken by several riders.

In Catalunya it wasn't steep enough. Today was too steep. So, you think Contador is a nicho climber? Such as Apple. Very handsome, very nice way of riding, very expensive, but only suited for 5% of the climbs? Very **** boring excuse.

He's not in good form. Period. We don't know if he can't be better than this or not, but a top Contador would smoke everyone today.

Catalunya? You mean the Paris-Nice stage with that soft 5 % climb?

Even in his best days he didn't won these type of finishes all the time. He's just a normal type of climber as LaFlo says. I think he's best at 7-10 %. At 5-6 % a lot of riders can match him, and that's always been the case.

Remember T-A 2014? The stage where he rode from 30-35 km out and dropped Quintana. There was a very brutal and steep climb at the end like this, and one of the breakaway guys almost caught him again.

On the other hand - he was the best of the "GC guys" anyways, so he can't be that bad. If Quintana could've attacked, he would've done so. Nobody had the legs to do anything without risking to loose it all.

 

[TI-Raleigh]

Contador is doing fine. Is he the top favorite for the Tour? No. But he is a serious contender in every race and virtually every GC stage. He still has a good chance to win GC here; it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen.

 

[bajbar]

He should start winning. Something. Anything. For the confidence and for the fans. He never seems to be going for the stage. Always assesing his form and looking at the rivals and counting seconds and collecting bonuses... The only stage this year he actually went for the stage was Malhao, when he was to far back in GC. And he won it. Easily. In 2014 he was going for the stages more, but GC wins came with it (T-A stage 4 comes to mind, where he could have taken some time, but he wanted to win the stage). This year he is just looking around nad waiting and following everyone ... You do that in the Tour, not in the one week stage races (but he still seems to like the pointless attacks that clearly cannot drop anyone important - like yesterday).

I understand the overall is more important to him and to be fair he does everything he can to win it, like in Paris Nice. But it would be nice if he could win a stage or two, even if he doesn't win the overall...

And for the team, I have no words... Kreuziger at least would be supposed to be with the top guys on that climb. Yet, he was nowhere to be seen

 

[Taxus4a]

Re: Re:

Sean Yates says they did a recon of tomorrow's finish, and they will try to win.

And then in the same article Alberto says he knows nothing about the climb, just that it will be hard and that he will have to be careful not to lose any precious seconds

And he didnt lie, it is exactly what he did, and just lose time with one of the main rivals, and put to the others.

Rain is not bad for him, but os better for other riders.If he compared with Quintana or Froome is better, but with Nibali, Pinot, Rui Costa, is worse...

It was finally a quite explosive half Km, that is good for Purito and Henao, and just Henao put time on him, so for him is ok, attacking strong from the botton and maybe Quintan aor Pinot beat you.

Anyway, a confident Contador will reply Rui Costa attack and win the stage. He has good senations, but he is at the level of the rest, no better.

 

[Jelantik]

so what happen today? My live stream suddenly just dead. And the last thing I read, Landa won with Contador 11 seconds back. Is he just sand bagging and playing waiting game? Did he look good at all during the climb?

 

[Matteo.]

Re: Re:

Sean Yates says they did a recon of tomorrow's finish, and they will try to win.

And then in the same article Alberto says he knows nothing about the climb, just that it will be hard and that he will have to be careful not to lose any precious seconds

And he didnt lie, it is exactly what he did, and just lose time with one of the main rivals, and put to the others.

Rain is not bad for him, but os better for other riders.If he compared with Quintana or Froome is better, but with Nibali, Pinot, Rui Costa, is worse...

It was finally a quite explosive half Km, that is good for Purito and Henao, and just Henao put time on him, so for him is ok, attacking strong from the botton and maybe Quintan aor Pinot beat you.

Anyway, a confident Contador will reply Rui Costa attack and win the stage. He has good senations, but he is at the level of the rest, no better.

I agree well said

 

[buchanan]

If this was 2014, Alberto would have been the winner by about 10-15 seconds today I'm guessing. He doesn't have the same reserves of strength that he could call on in 2014.

 

[dacooley]

cmon ladies and gentlemen, that is just a PREP race. any kind of excuses and explanations are entirely valid at least until arcalis

 

[BlurryVII]

Re: Re:

Think he was fine. It was too steep for him and the real climbers to make a difference without risking to blow up.

To be fair, when he does a sprint like that in the end, it usually means that he's in quite good shape. Otherwise he blow up in the middle of the acceleration and get overtaken by several riders.

He's not in good form. Period. We don't know if he can't be better than this or not, but a top Contador would smoke everyone today.

Yep, don't know why people are talking about steep or not steep or too short or whatever. Just look at PV 2014, 1st stage, not any further.
If he was feeling good, no way he would've let Landa and Kelder go. He was sat on his saddle half the climb spinning it .

He doesn't know what he is doing, just look at his form since Malhao or more precisely Paris Nice, it's going down every race because he keeps *** resting. Like in 2013, like before the Tour 15', he priviliged resting and laziness.
Which has led to 2 things, not only that now he's miles behind his 2014 form where he was sprinting it up on a similar climb on a huge gear out of the saddle but he has gained weight. I don't think he would've done much worse than today in 2013 to be fair. We're starting to go there now.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Like in 2013, like before the Tour 15', he priviliged resting and laziness.

 

[BlurryVII]

It's over for Pais Vasco, he'll put on attacks on Arrate and Landa and a few others are gonna suck his wheel easily. That's exactly what's gonna happen. That's PV out the window today, his form is not good enough to make a difference in the TT either.

I can't believe he's not training hard, he's not 25 years old anymore, he can't show up and win races after resting and easy riding the whole week. He's old enough to take on several high intensity training, but what immediately takes its toll on him, is taking it easy. He just can't do that.

Look at what he did after Catalunya in 2014.. he trained HARD, he smashed everyone in PV on the 1st stage, it's not hard to understand.

 

[rick james]

Re:

If this was 2014, Alberto would have been the winner by about 10-15 seconds today I'm guessing. He doesn't have the same reserves of strength that he could call on in 2014.

What has that got to do with the race right now?? Stop going on about past years it does his current form no favours at all.

 

[Matteo.]

Is not better to stop following him until the Tour?
You will live more serene
u_u

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Re:

It's over for Pais Vasco, he'll put on attacks on Arrate and Landa and a few others are gonna suck his wheel easily. That's exactly what's gonna happen. That's PV out the window today, his form is not good enough to make a difference in the TT either.

His main rivals ain't no TT aces.