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Biggest dissapointment in the 2013 Ardennes Classics

Who was the biggest disappointment in the Ardennes?

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Apr 14, 2013
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Some riders have been injured, other didn't race all three Classics, but the idea is that they didn't perform in the Ardennes as they should have given the initial predictions and expectations.
 

iZnoGouD

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Feb 18, 2011
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Gilbert finished excatly where i expected, outside top 5, he clearly is way off form compared to 2011, and probably won't get back to that level again

Big dissapointment for me is Valverde, he showed to be a big loser
 
Apr 14, 2013
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iZnoGouD said:
Gilbert finished excatly where i expected, outside top 5, he clearly is way off form compared to 2011, and probably won't get back to that level again

Big dissapointment for me is Valverde, he showed to be a big loser
What do you think is the cause for this?
 
Apr 14, 2013
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Pentacycle said:
Kreuziger. He was very good in South-Limburg, but crossing the border with Belgium took its toll. He simply sucked in the Ardennes.
Ok, but he took his win. Who cares what happened after that? He is like Ciolek this season, can be truly satisfied with what he did.
 
Mar 21, 2013
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For me Rigoberto Uran, specially because his 3rd place on Lombardia closing last year and becoming a more experience rider after a good 2012 season.
I was excepting this kind of performance from Gilbert, his very good but not brilliant anymore.
 
Knee-jerk reaction is Gilbert but when I think about it, he did close to what I expected of him. I thought he'd get on the podium in one of the races (probably 2nd or 3rd) and be top 10 in the other two races. IOW, close to what he normally does in the Ardennes. 2011 was an aberration and shouldn't be expected to occur again.

Gave a thought to Nairo but he's never done these races which makes it really hard to do well. Besides, I wasn't convinced that the Ardennes were good races for him anyway.

Voted Sagan based on Amstel as I didn't think there was any way he would be off the podium.
 
iZnoGouD said:
Gilbert finished excatly where i expected, outside top 5, he clearly is way off form compared to 2011, and probably won't get back to that level again

Big dissapointment for me is Valverde, he showed to be a big loser

Two podiums out of three in the Ardennes and he's a loser? You're certainly a tough critic unless it's regarding a certain rider with the initials "T. M.";)
 
Angliru said:
Two podiums out of three in the Ardennes and he's a loser? You're certainly a tough critic unless it's regarding a certain rider with the initials "T. M.";)

Agreed.

Cycling is not darts. Probably Phil Tylor not being the winner in darts WC could be called "failure".
Sure everybody expected much more from Gilbert, but to call 2/3 podiums in such unpredictable races "failure", is really very critical angle of view. There are hundreds of riders who should be there in the pool instead of him.
If we vote for team, yes, BMC is hot favorite together with Sky.
 
May 9, 2012
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Gilbert finished as good as last year. You can hardly call that a dissapointment, no matter how much you want to overrate him and what jersey he rides in. I don't expect Boyssen Hagen to podium, either. The biggest underperformer was undoubtedly Vanendert. This should be his season goal, and he was nowhere.
 
Feb 23, 2012
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Obviously Gilbert was a bit disappointing although he was not that bad in AGR. Vanendert was nowhere and I didn't see much from Uran, but Sky in general was disappointing again in the classics. Except for the nice wall climbing performance from Henao in FW.
Also worth mentioning is Astana, strong team with last year winners and what kind of result did they get?
 

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