Anyone else think that Erik Zabel should...

[Lion of Flanders]

...kick Mark Cavendish in the **** for quitting in the sprint in Stage 4?

The difference between sitting up and getting 12th and sprinting to the line and getting... oh say, 4th... is 10 points for the the Green Jersey.

Looks like Mark lost the Green to Petacchi by 10 points in the end.

11 freaking stage wins in two tours and no green jersey. I believe Erik won the Green Jersey six times and only had 12 stage wins in the process.

Time to start acting like a professional athlete, I think.

 

[barn yard]

cav only sprints for 1st

he will learn...

 

[nicholaaaas]

so did Mario... and guess what he was the best sprinter and most prolific winner of his generation. what was it 42 stages wins in the Giro?

 

[Anonymous]

...kick Mark Cavendish in the **** for quitting in the sprint in Stage 4?

The difference between sitting up and getting 12th and sprinting to the line and getting... oh say, 4th... is 10 points for the the Green Jersey.

Looks like Mark lost the Green to Petacchi by 10 points in the end.

11 freaking stage wins in two tours and no green jersey. I believe Erik won the Green Jersey six times and only had 12 stage wins in the process.

Time to start acting like a professional athlete, I think.

Yes.

However I think Cav grew up more in the last month than in the last 10 years. I predict he's going to be a little more mature from now on.

 

[Old School]

...kick Mark Cavendish in the **** for quitting in the sprint in Stage 4?

The difference between sitting up and getting 12th and sprinting to the line and getting... oh say, 4th... is 10 points for the the Green Jersey.

Looks like Mark lost the Green to Petacchi by 10 points in the end.

11 freaking stage wins in two tours and no green jersey. I believe Erik won the Green Jersey six times and only had 12 stage wins in the process.

Time to start acting like a professional athlete, I think.

+1...Spoiled brat..but dang fast.

 

[Angliru]

so did Mario... and guess what he was the best sprinter and most prolific winner of his generation. what was it 42 stages wins in the Giro?

...but if Cavendish seriously wants to win the green jersey he may have to risk the "embarrassment" of "losing" and coming 2-5th sometimes. It's almost like he doesn't want to view any still images of sprints with him not being the one with their hands raised at the end, but one of the one's looking dejected in the photo over having lost.

 

[**Uru**]

Cav's thoughts on sprinting can be summed up with the words of Ricky Bobby...If your not first, your last.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

so did Mario... and guess what he was the best sprinter and most prolific winner of his generation. what was it 42 stages wins in the Giro?

cipo won the purple jersey in the giro like what 4 or 5 times??

 

[The Hitch]

Time to start acting like a professional athlete, I think.

Or to put it in Cavs language - you race like amatreurs you get results like amateurs. Well lets change it slightly since he is the best sprinter in the world- if you dont race like a proffesional, you wont get the results of a proffesional.

 

[mr.biggles]

If he wants to sit out the green jersey race and let that actually be interesting that's fine by me. At least that adds SOME sort of uncertainty and drama to the sprints =/

 

[mycenos]

...kick Mark Cavendish in the **** for quitting in the sprint in Stage 4?

The difference between sitting up and getting 12th and sprinting to the line and getting... oh say, 4th... is 10 points for the the Green Jersey.

Looks like Mark lost the Green to Petacchi by 10 points in the end.

11 freaking stage wins in two tours and no green jersey. I believe Erik won the Green Jersey six times and only had 12 stage wins in the process.

Time to start acting like a professional athlete, I think.

Monfort said afterwards that Cavendish had a problem with his chain. Watch the video of the sprint again, and you'll see Cav look down several times like he's trying to figure out what's wrong.

 

[spanky wanderlust]

...kick Mark Cavendish in the **** for quitting in the sprint in Stage 4?

The difference between sitting up and getting 12th and sprinting to the line and getting... oh say, 4th... is 10 points for the the Green Jersey.

Looks like Mark lost the Green to Petacchi by 10 points in the end.

11 freaking stage wins in two tours and no green jersey. I believe Erik won the Green Jersey six times and only had 12 stage wins in the process.

Time to start acting like a professional athlete, I think.

he's actually got 15 wins in 3 tours, averaging an astonishing 5 per tour! holy jeepers!

yes, he should have gone for the jersey this year. and yes, i think when he looks back on it, with the guidance of older and wiser men, he will kick himself a bit for his shortsightedness.

the good news is he is young and has plenty of time to win several greens.

 

[Silhouette]

I saw an interview with Zabel after this sprint, and he was asked what they were going to do. Zabel replied that the most important thing they could do was to let Cav know that the team supported and believed in him 100%.

Zabel knows how a sprinter's mind works, and looking back that was exactly the right course of action.

 

[El Pistolero]

Well, Zabel did some pretty stupid things during his career as well.

Milan-San Remo 2004. Enough said.

 

[Pharazon]

didn't he have a chain issue or a gear selection problem or something?

 

[Big GMaC]

Actually, Cav has 15 in 4 tours

 

[nicholaaaas]

...but if Cavendish seriously wants to win the green jersey he may have to risk the "embarrassment" of "losing" and coming 2-5th sometimes. It's almost like he doesn't want to view any still images of sprints with him not being the one with their hands raised at the end, but one of the one's looking dejected in the photo over having lost.

that's my point. he want's to win... sprints. if the points jersey comes with it great; if not, he ain't sprinting for second

 

[nicholaaaas]

cipo won the purple jersey in the giro like what 4 or 5 times??

3 times... but did he ever sprint for minor placings?

 

[jazzcyclist]

3 times... but did he ever sprint for minor placings?

I don't ever recall Cipo sitting up when he couldn't win and in 1997 he came into the Tour prepared to bring the green jersey to Paris, and was sprinting against Zabel for the intermediate sprints, only to crash out of the Tour on the stage to Bordeaux. I also remember Cipo doing domestique work for his team's GC contender on the mountain stages in the Giro. And also back in the day, Zabel did domestique work for Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich during the Tour on mountain stages. I don't see Cavendish ever doing domestique work for anyone, ever if the second coming of Eddy Merckx was on his team.

 

[abbaskip]

Actually, Cav has 15 in 4 tours

I think this was understood. But the poster was talking about the last two tours, and saying how even with 11 stages in those 2 tours (huge strike rate), Cav is without a Green Jersey.

To be fair, you could say the crash in stage 1 also cost him the green jersey. Petacchi picked up points every sprint? The first year, I still think his relegation was unfair, and he would have pushed Thor hard had it not been for that.

They are excuses, but legitimate ones.

 

[Nick C.]

I think this was understood. But the poster was talking about the last two tours, and saying how even with 11 stages in those 2 tours (huge strike rate), Cav is without a Green Jersey.

To be fair, you could say the crash in stage 1 also cost him the green jersey. Petacchi picked up points every sprint? The first year, I still think his relegation was unfair, and he would have pushed Thor hard had it not been for that.

They are excuses, but legitimate ones.

On the other hand on the stage into Spa Cav was already dropped before they had all the crashes, Thor was in front and Petacchi was shown on the side of the road post-crash. If they at least sprinted for the places Thor gets 2nd or 3rd.

 

[Train in Spain]

Cav is a sprinter that wants to win races, he wants to rip the legs off his rivals and he wants to do it at every opportunity. I would think the team and the sponsors are delighted with that arrangement and I personally think he gets more satisfaction from that than wearing the green jersey.

The sponsors must love it, photo after photo of Cav with arms in the air with Thor and co. eating dust behind him. Plenty there to build a marketing campaign around. From the other side, building a campaign around the green jersey winner who can't win a sprint head to head with Cav seems a bit of a tougher ask.

I suppose in the next year or two he will win the green jersey, if only to prove he can. But I can't see him taking much pleasure in going away in long break aways to hoover up intermediate points and then struggling to blast everyone apart at the end. Where's the fun in that?

 

[oldcrank]

If Cav had not abandoned the 2008 Tour (after winning, I think, four of the
first fifteen stages) to prepare for the Beijing Olympics, he possibly would
already be the only rider to win three in a row on the Champs.

In my opinion, five or six stage wins in a single tour is just as prestigious as
as a Green jersey and one or two stage wins.

 

[nicholaaaas]

I don't ever recall Cipo sitting up when he couldn't win and in 1997 he came into the Tour prepared to bring the green jersey to Paris, and was sprinting against Zabel for the intermediate sprints, only to crash out of the Tour on the stage to Bordeaux. I also remember Cipo doing domestique work for his team's GC contender on the mountain stages in the Giro. And also back in the day, Zabel did domestique work for Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich during the Tour on mountain stages. I don't see Cavendish ever doing domestique work for anyone, ever if the second coming of Eddy Merckx was on his team.

the only time i ever remember seeing him sprint for intermediate sprints is when he was going for seconds trying to get in yellow

 

[jazzcyclist]

the only time i ever remember seeing him sprint for intermediate sprints is when he was going for seconds trying to get in yellow

Go and look at the results of the first week for the 1997 Tour and you'll see that he wore yellow for four days and was sprinting at the intermediate sprints with the yellow jersey on, in anticipation that he would be in green when the race hit the mountains. Cannondale even sent him a special green bike that he was supposed to ride after he swapped the yellow jersey for the green jersey.

One thing I just thought about is the possible change in attitude that Cavendish might have if the Tour organizers brought back bonus seconds for the stage win and the intermediate sprints, especially with the prologue being replaced with a 180K sprinter's stage next year. Would he be able to resist an opportunity to grab the yellow jersey, and if he got it, would he try and hold onto it until the race reached the mountains?