Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[TommyGun]

Re: Re:

Im so sad tonight, I hate cycling right now. This is it, surely a defining moment in Contador's career.

My last hope is that this has something to do with the horrible team for which he has wasted a few years of his career (maybe he got zero support on and off the bike, this being the last year of Tinkoff and all, like they dont care about Alberto anymore). Can we hope for a last hurrah next year if he is surrounded by more competent people?

I certainly hope so. Without Alberto, and with Pinot disappointing, I find it difficult to enjoy cycling at the moment..

True dat, what a horrible summer it was! And don't even get me started with the British Cycling circus at the Olympics...

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

So much panic.

so much false hope from you.

So much purpose in this post

So much meta in this thread.

 

[hfer07]

Re:

anyway he said that on the 30% section he was up to 200BPM out of nowhere and his legs just disappeared, he doesn't know what the reason was, possibly the heat.

in all fairness- when Berto was with the Sky crew + Chavito at the bottom of the climb, I thought he looked ok, but then there was that image of him at the 20% slope going almost to an stand still- like the strength of his body just abandoned him there without mercy..... I even thought for a moment he misjudged the gear......

Bottom line is........... it does not look good at all

 

[Cance > TheRest]

The Vuelta is far from over yet. I agree with PremierAndrew, that an uphill finish this early in the race is not suitable for Alberto. A 1:20-deficit is not a lot of time to make up on Froomee, considering the huge amounts of time (was it 10 minutes?), that Froome lost in the last week of the Vuelta '12. To be honest, I'm mostly worried about the challenge from Quintana judging by todays performances.

 

[patrick767]

I searched today's results for Tinkoff riders after Contador. The 2nd best finisher on the team:
78 Yury Trofimov 0:04:23
Damn. Is that the sort of "help" he can expect in the mountains this year? I know people have been saying he's team is weak, but that's just terrible. Meanwhile Movistar put three riders in the top six and had Moreno as a 4th at 1:13.

 

[Miburo]

Tomorrow hell be better. People call me crazy but they say the vuelta is alredy over

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

There is no need to freak out. Only in Aitana and the TT a rider can recover 2-3 minutes if he is fresh. It is a long race.

If the work is there, it will show as the race progresses. If his preparation is insufficent, we will see it in Lagos.

Today is a bit like stage 2 in the tdf this year. The time loss isn't what's worrying his fans. I think he lost less than 30 seconds in that tour stage and although he is a bit more far behind this time he still could get this time back if he was in top shape. The problem is that todays stage simply showed that his shape is not good, just like the stage in the tour showed his is injured. If he had immediately been back to top shape after stage two in the tour, no problem, but he wasn't and lost time in the harder stages and at the end abandoned. I don't think he will abandon this time but there are 4 more uphill finishes before the first rest day and actually all are harder than todays. Maybe he gets into top shape in the 2nd week, but that doesn't help him if he has already lost 3 minutes in the first week. I don't write him off yet and I think he still has a chance but his chances became a lot smaller today

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

This was always going to happen. Surprised Quintana went so well, but with this parcours, the Tour boys don't have much chance. Contador lost time to Chaves on this Murito which was expected and gained time on Kruijswijk with MAL's GC challenge ending

Hes in a pretty good position

How was this always going to happen? He was second best here in 2012 and horrible today.

In 2012, Froome was already done by the time this stage came. This year, Contador was always going to struggle at the start and improve as the race went on. Not to mention that Contador hasn't been particularly good on super steep gradients for a while now

Ofc. TT's are a bit different but his strongest performances this year were imo the ITT in Pais Vasco, and the dauphine prologue, and both were on super steep climbs.

 

[jsem94]

He can still ride himself into form. This is just the first of many uphill finishes.

 

[Ataraxus]

I think Contador already has the form. Today he made his favorite mistake when trying to follow the crazy rhythm set by Movistar and eventually paid for it. Had he followed Froome's approach he should have finished with Quintana, Anton or thereabouts. Tomorrow will give us better indices.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

I think Contador already has the form. Today he made his favorite mistake when trying to follow the crazy rhythm set by Movistar and eventually paid for it. Had he followed Froome's approach he should have finished with Quintana, Anton or thereabouts. Tomorrow will give us better indices.

If history has taught us anything it's that he will make the same mistake again tomorrow.
Clearly, though, his form isn't great: his heartbeat was extremely quick

 

[Lexman]

From the team website :
A.C. :
“It wasn’t a good day overall but as I said before, the Vuelta is far from over and the time differences still aren’t very big,” Alberto told us after the stage. “I am not satisfied, but I feel that my form will improve in the coming days.”

Sport Director Steven De Jongh gave his thoughts on the day. “In the final Alberto didn’t have the power to follow but he really feels confident for this race and is motivated for the what's to come, so he’s not down after today. The rest of the guys rode well again today, and in the final we had Jesús [Hernández], [Ivan] Rovny, and [Yuri] Trofimov there until late on, so the team worked really well. We have to continue going step by step.

“Today it was crazy steep at the finish, but it was a hard day with the heat as well and a lot of people suffered – I saw lots of guys white with salt on the penultimate climb. Tomorrow is a shorter day but will also be quite hard, but not as bad as today.”

 

[filipepc]

Good night. I still not lost confidence, even if i think he isn´t at his best. If he was, even with that crazy rithym that movistar put, he would have be able to follow them. But it´s true that this isn´t a year where he is where he should be...
It was inside the 30 seconds i´ve said he could happen so, it´s not over... But, he should listen to his body... He can´t want to do what he did 5 or 6 years ago, so maybe he has to try put it easier in this climbs.

I can´t lie, and it was a little bit disapointment, but i´ll wait a little more before saying it´s over...

Many guys we thought it would be better, lost so much time... The point here, is that besides Froome, quintana, Valverde and Chaves, no more contenders left... And i Think Froome, Valverde and even Quintana are going to pay for the tour... Let´s wait... A little more, but i admit thing are black...

 

[Sciocco]

Contador 2016 Vuelta champion confirmed. It's to happen.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Contador 2016 Vuelta champion confirmed. It's to happen.

It's cruel to get people's hopes up like that.

Tell me when he ever looked this bad on the first meaningful stage and eventually won the race? The lack of shape is very evident and besides that he also has a large deficit to make up. At the end of the week he'll probably be 2 if not 3 minutes behind Quintana, Froome and Chaves. No, let's be realistic for once, unless miracles exist, this Vuelta can be written off.

 

[Sciocco]

Re: Re:

Contador 2016 Vuelta champion confirmed. It's to happen.

It's cruel to get people's hopes up like that.

Tell me when he ever looked this bad on the first meaningful stage and eventually won the race? The lack of shape is very evident and besides that he also has a large deficit to make up. At the end of the week he'll probably be 2 if not 3 minutes behind Quintana, Froome and Chaves. No, let's be realistic for once, unless miracles exist, this Vuelta can be written off.

He didn't look 2009-esque in every stage of the Giro last year yet he comfortably won that...
Nor did he look good on the first climbing stage of this year's Algarve, yet he dominated a couple stages later on a climb.
At this year's Dauphine he didn't go well on Vaujany but the following stages he got better and better.

I'll reserve considering the idea that he won't win the Vuelta this year until the first rest day. It's Contador.

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

Contador 2016 Vuelta champion confirmed. It's to happen.

It's cruel to get people's hopes up like that.

Tell me when he ever looked this bad on the first meaningful stage and eventually won the race? The lack of shape is very evident and besides that he also has a large deficit to make up. At the end of the week he'll probably be 2 if not 3 minutes behind Quintana, Froome and Chaves. No, let's be realistic for once, unless miracles exist, this Vuelta can be written off.

He didn't look 2009-esque in every stage of the Giro last year yet he comfortably won that...
Nor did he look good on the first climbing stage of this year's Algarve, yet he dominated a couple stages later on a climb.
At this year's Dauphine he didn't go well on Vaujany but the following stages he got better and better.

I'll reserve considering the idea that he won't win the Vuelta this year until the first rest day. It's Contador.

Same. I definitely think things look real bad, but it's a gt. Anything can happen.

 

[MatParker117]

Re: Re:

Contador 2016 Vuelta champion confirmed. It's to happen.

It's cruel to get people's hopes up like that.

Tell me when he ever looked this bad on the first meaningful stage and eventually won the race? The lack of shape is very evident and besides that he also has a large deficit to make up. At the end of the week he'll probably be 2 if not 3 minutes behind Quintana, Froome and Chaves. No, let's be realistic for once, unless miracles exist, this Vuelta can be written off.

He didn't look 2009-esque in every stage of the Giro last year yet he comfortably won that...
Nor did he look good on the first climbing stage of this year's Algarve, yet he dominated a couple stages later on a climb.
At this year's Dauphine he didn't go well on Vaujany but the following stages he got better and better.

I'll reserve considering the idea that he won't win the Vuelta this year until the first rest day. It's Contador.

The difference that Giro and this Vuelta is firstly he's wasn't a minute and a half down after the first uphill finish and there is no way in hell that he puts three minutes on Chris Froome in a time trial.

 

[warmfuzzies]

The notion of 'riding oneself into form' @ a GT is the exception rather than the rule. What is unusual about this Vuelta is the presence of the TdF winner. Frankly, having both Froome and Quintana in this race suggests the quality of Vuelta competition is rising. Contador needs some luck to win this year. 3 stages in and this is clear. Another indicator of a cyclist in decline. . .

 

[MatParker117]

Re:

The notion of 'riding oneself into form' @ a GT is the exception rather than the rule. What is unusual about this Vuelta is the presence of the TdF winner. Frankly, having both Froome and Quintana in this race suggests the quality of Vuelta competition is rising. Contador needs some luck to win this year. 3 stages in and this is clear. Another indicator of a cyclist in decline. . .

He looked like he was lacking that snap in his climbing this year.

 

[samhocking]

It's a real shame, because crashing out the Tour and then not doing the Olympics or Nationals suggested he was going to hit this first week in the form of his life. Maybe not of his younger life, but as good as he could be at least. Maybe this is as good as he can be though. I'd like to hope we're simply seeing a lot of riders with big races still in their legs who will fade and him riding into good form later in the race as he says he hopes to now.

 

[Jelantik]

there's no panic. It was just puzzling when on paper he should have been the most fresher leg compare to Froome, Quintana and Valverde. Yet, he got dropped by the 3times GT leg Valverde. He just didn't have the form that we expected he will. I don't write him off yet, but certainly his road to win Vuelta is getting harder and harder. First his team helped him to loose time, Second his own doing. If he said that his heart goes 200 and he lost power, what's that mean? did he suffer heat stroke? did he suffer a simple lack of form? or did he get what Quintana get on TDF? He was already grimacing half way on the climb. I thought, he would be done ... I have to give my hats off to Froome. He was dropped and he clawed his way back. With ITT favors Froome, Contador needs to stop bleeding time and start chipping the time.

 

[lenric]

Re: Re:

Contador 2016 Vuelta champion confirmed. It's to happen.

It's cruel to get people's hopes up like that.

Tell me when he ever looked this bad on the first meaningful stage and eventually won the race? The lack of shape is very evident and besides that he also has a large deficit to make up. At the end of the week he'll probably be 2 if not 3 minutes behind Quintana, Froome and Chaves. No, let's be realistic for once, unless miracles exist, this Vuelta can be written off.

He didn't look 2009-esque in every stage of the Giro last year yet he comfortably won that...
Nor did he look good on the first climbing stage of this year's Algarve, yet he dominated a couple stages later on a climb.
At this year's Dauphine he didn't go well on Vaujany but the following stages he got better and better.

I'll reserve considering the idea that he won't win the Vuelta this year until the first rest day. It's Contador.

Good point. However, his rival in the Giro was Fabio Aru. In this Vuelta, his rivals are Quintana, Chaves and Froome. Surely a lot can happen and Contador theoretically should be fresher than all of them, however he's the only one who's coming off an injury, he's the oldest rider (and the one who's probably more burned out from his long and successful career) and since 2014 he didn't show a top-notch climbing ability.

I know he's an unpredictable and competitive rider, but no way he's anymore the best GT rider of the world, at least with the margin he had 5 years ago.

It's wrong to rule him off after 3 stages, but it will be very hard for him to recover, since probably he'll lose more time in the next few days.

 

[KGB]

Re:

Tomorrow hell be better. People call me crazy but they say the vuelta is alredy over

Vuelta is over only for Contador.Not jet for Froome,Valverde ,Chavez etc.

 

[jilbiker]

Take a cue from Usain Bolt, 29yrs and one of the greatest athletes, he said after his 200m win "I really wanted to go faster, but my body was not responding, it must be age". And so we have the young man retiring at 29yrs but remember he has led the world scene in 100m and 200m for the last 9yrs. What he was saying was "I have peaked and I am done". Contador should take a cue. I still say he should have retired 2 yrs ago regardless of his 2015 Giro win, 2015 he was on reserve gas, shows you how great he is that he could win a GT on reserve gas. After that he is on borrowed gas. Is it the money? Or is it the pride? Bolt has made $36million this year before the Olympics but his pride is not so much that he does not know when to bow out.