Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[perico]

Re: Re:

Contador fans again at it. LOL. Contador did the right thing, especially with his late history of crashes. Live to fight another day.

No it was a real shame to see Froome take it to him and his rivals on the gutts plane. Sky put 4 riders in the top 10. It's only first stage. Now go and take back 42 seconds on him. There is a differnece between prudence and disingenuousness. If Froome gains any more time in the mountains, it will be written he won the race on stage 1.

AC didn't want to have to win on a feat? Now that's just what he needs. Can't be considered the right thing.

If AC is on 2014 form like he insinuated he will have his chances. Froome wasn't spectacular yesterday, but raced with panache missing in the other favorites and deservedly gained time. He didn't light up the TT, only when compared to other GC riders.

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

After Bertie's experience with falling down in the last couple of years, I would take the 40 secs. It is very important that he finishes this TDF standing up. He (and us) have to know if he is still good, or if others are better, or if team strategy has changed. If he finishes 5 minutes behind in this TDF with no crash, i will take it. He can safely say i gave it my best, guess I am all done, I can no longer compete with today's cycling. If he finishes 5 minutes ahead, he can also say, i am done.

How poetic. Well, at 34, if he isn't willing to dive bomb the wet turns in a 14 k TT against Froome, then he should say "I'm done."

WTF is wrong with you? All GC contenders except Froome were cautious. Losing 42 seconds is better than being out of the race on the first day. Especially because he is 34. This is his last TDF, one more chance to show what he's got. He can't do that if he's at home with a bone fracture.

Porte and Berto took it extra cautious, which is not good. I don't think Aru, Nairo, Bardet, Yates were that much more careful than Froome as the time difference were about the level to be expected, maybe max 5-10 more.

Conti loosing to i.e. Nairo in TT sounds almost a bad joke to me.

I agree in the way what some people say here... you can't really win Sky-train with being "cautious" in difficult racings days. Lot can still happen to Froome, but they do have Thomas to compensate and getting +1m back on him will be almost equally difficult should Froome fade/crash away.

This could very well be 1st and 2nd Sky if they want to go for it.

Is the first 14kms of the Tour going to be the difference between winning and losing ? Probably not. Porte and Contador had every reason to be cautious when you look at their recent history in the Tour and even if they had finished maybe 10 or 20 seconds behind Froome it's still unlikely to be the difference in winning and losing. Valverde is usually a very good bike handler so are most of the other riders that fell. There is always luck involved in such conditions and Porte and Contador preferred not to push theirs.

The problem is that 42 seconds was in just 14k. That's an abyss, however one wishes to see it. Now let's say, optimisticly, that most of that defecit was owing to caution, rather than form (although this doesn't seem to be a fair assessment). In the next mountain stages he needs to gain time in each race, to then not lose in the last TT.

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

 

[arvc40]

Anyway, I'm loving this OPEN race. :lol:

 

[Jspear]

From the CN tracker.

John Degenkolb told letour.fr: “It was fantastic to start the Tour in Germany. It's the chance of a lifetime and something I'll keep with me a long time. I'm here to support Alberto [Contador], not to do sprints. I haven't had a sprinting season so I don't have sprinting ambitions this year. It's a long three weeks so if a chance comes ups I'll seize it.”

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

his DS was just on TV and said that Froome was terrific yesterday but Alberto is right up there with the other favorites, so it wasn't that bad.

 

[Leinster]

If performances in the Marseille TT match performances in Düsseldorf across the board, it will mean most of the GC riders in the race will have lost 1:30 to 2:00 to Froome in the course of all the TT kms in the race. If anything, that's level with or below what they've given up to him any other recent year, including 2015 when there was only one opening day ITT.

It's hard to see a given stage where other riders can put 2 minutes into Froome in one day, and piecemealing it in chunks of 15-20s is going to take a pretty phenomenally consistently excellent error free ride for every day for 3 whole weeks, but realistically everyone/anyone who seriously entertains hopes of actually winning this race was going to have to find a way to do that sooner or later anyway.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Home safe

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

wait, did we just have a stage where there was a mass crash that did not involve AC?

 

[TomLPC]

Berto didn't crash!!!

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

wait, did we just have a stage where there was a mass crash that did not involve AC?

I'm shook

that was a heart in throat moment

 

[Carols]

Re:

Home safe

Home safe with no time loss, best result we could hope for today!

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

his DS was just on TV and said that Froome was terrific yesterday but Alberto is right up there with the other favorites, so it wasn't that bad.

Right up there with the other favorites? What does that mean? He's 42 secs. behind.

 

[infeXio]

Re: Re:

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

his DS was just on TV and said that Froome was terrific yesterday but Alberto is right up there with the other favorites, so it wasn't that bad.

Right up there with the other favorites? What does that mean? He's 42 secs. behind.

Not that hard to figure out that he meant he's about equal to the likes of Porte, Quintana and Aru.

 

[bajbar]

Re: Re:

wait, did we just have a stage where there was a mass crash that did not involve AC?

I'm shook

that was a heart in throat moment

The irony is that he was quite far back when the crash happened and avoided it on the other side of the roundabout. Didn't spend any unnecesary energy either

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

his DS was just on TV and said that Froome was terrific yesterday but Alberto is right up there with the other favorites, so it wasn't that bad.

Right up there with the other favorites? What does that mean? He's 42 secs. behind.

Not that hard to figure out that he meant he's about equal to the likes of Porte, Quintana and Aru.

And...it's not too hard to figure out they are all in a s-h-!-t position. My point was there is no consolation that Contador is about "equal with the others." If this is the rational then the race is already over.

 

[SeriousSam]

Re: Re:

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

his DS was just on TV and said that Froome was terrific yesterday but Alberto is right up there with the other favorites, so it wasn't that bad.

Right up there with the other favorites? What does that mean? He's 42 secs. behind.

He's right up there with the other riders in his tier: Aru, Fuglsang etc

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

For this reason, I said he really failed to deliver the goods. 20 seconds would have been acceptable. I'm sure his DS feels likewise.

his DS was just on TV and said that Froome was terrific yesterday but Alberto is right up there with the other favorites, so it wasn't that bad.

Right up there with the other favorites? What does that mean? He's 42 secs. behind.

He's right up there with the other riders in his tier: Aru, Fuglsang etc

As apposed to Froome and Thomas I'm sure. What a Sky world.

 

[LaFlorecita]

what a mess

 

[TheYouyou7]

Honnestly it's a miracle that he didn't crash... glad for now

 

[LaFlorecita]

what would be an acceptable result tomorrow?

 

[Sciocco]

Not bleeding time to bulk of GC contenders? Yea one or two may get away from the rest but the GC group would be good. I believe it'll be more for the Sagans and Gilberts anyway.

 

[TheYouyou7]

Re:

what would be an acceptable result tomorrow?

IMO there's nothing to draw from tomorrow. He either doesnt crash and will finish ST or he does and the Tour's over.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

what would be an acceptable result tomorrow?

IMO there's nothing to draw from tomorrow. He either doesnt crash and will finish ST or he does and the Tour's over.

there could be gaps on the final hill. Could lose up to 10-15s if too far back and caught behind a split.
I'm a little worried because he hasn't been explosive all year.

 

[Red Rick]

First bit being the steepest makes gaps somewhat unlikely.

 

[TheYouyou7]

Re: Re:

what would be an acceptable result tomorrow?

IMO there's nothing to draw from tomorrow. He either doesnt crash and will finish ST or he does and the Tour's over.

there could be gaps on the final hill. Could lose up to 10-15s if too far back and caught behind a split.
I'm a little worried because he hasn't been explosive all year.

No no. The only possible issue for tomorrow are crashes/punctures... he will never get dropped in the final hill.