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Cervelo team manager - Sunstroke?

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C

Columbus

Mar 10, 2009
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What do we know about him? IQ etc...

In todays stage 15 (Giro d Italia) Pauwels obviously got orders to sit up and wait to support Sastre. Carlos was already in a fast group of 10-15 riders that was catching Basso easily.

Was the initial team order changed? Suddenly Pauwels was in the group between the leader and the GC-leader group (where Sastre was). Now again trying to catch the leadere of the stage that he initially let go.
He easily won the sprint for 2nd place. Was the initial team order changed?

Who is the brains behind this disaster?
Pauwels, please leave the Cervelo crap team asap.
 
J

jmnikricket

Apr 28, 2009
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While watching the stage, I was sure a deal had been made since Cervelo had taken yesterdays stage. Thinking about it a little more, it's possible Pauwels was ordered just to sit up, not necessarily to help Sastre today, but to conserve energy to help tomorrow. It's no secret that Cervelo is riding for Sastre and Sastre is targeting mondays stage to gain time.

Pauwels, obviously frustrated, rebelled by keeping with the chase group and contesting the sprint for second in a kind of "I told you so" move. Pauwels has my sympathy if this is the case, but based on that, I'm not so sure Sastre can count on Pauwels as a team player in tomorrows important stage.

btw I'm a Sastre fan, and I realize opportunities don't come up often like this for domestiques, but if it helps Sastre get on the podium, then I think it's justified.
 
J

Jasper

Apr 3, 2009
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From the stage 15 thread:

Jasper said:
It seems it was Sastre who asked his DS to tell Pauwels to wait for him at the top of the last mountain, because Sastre was isolated (Gustov crashed apparentely) and had to close the gap on Basso. Van Poppel has no television in his car, so he could not properly read the current race situation and made his unfortunate decision.
Click to expand...

This comes from an interview that the belgian tv had with Van Poppel, during the race. After the race they also interviewed Pauwels, who was shockingly cool about the whole thing, like the perfect domestique. He said that the initial team orders - after Basso's breakaway - were for him to sit in Bertagnolli's wheel without doing any work. Then they told him to wait for Sastre at the top (when the gap with Basso kept on increasing), but he somewhat refused to do so (that part was a bit blurry). In the descent they finally convinced him to wait for Sastre, so he let other breakaway riders pass him. By then Basso and Garzelli had been caught again by the Sastre group, so Pauwels got clearance to ride again for the victory - which was already far gone by then.
 
J

Jasper

Apr 3, 2009
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jmnikricket said:
While watching the stage, I was sure a deal had been made since Cervelo had taken yesterdays stage. Thinking about it a little more, it's possible Pauwels was ordered just to sit up, not necessarily to help Sastre today, but to conserve energy to help tomorrow. It's no secret that Cervelo is riding for Sastre and Sastre is targeting mondays stage to gain time.

Pauwels, obviously frustrated, rebelled by keeping with the chase group and contesting the sprint for second in a kind of "I told you so" move. Pauwels has my sympathy if this is the case, but based on that, I'm not so sure Sastre can count on Pauwels as a team player in tomorrows important stage.

btw I'm a Sastre fan, and I realize opportunities don't come up often like this for domestiques, but if it helps Sastre get on the podium, then I think it's justified.
Click to expand...

Honestly, you can't say Pauwels was a bad team player in all this. He was strong today, and said he was rather surprised to find out he and Bertagnolli ended up alone on the climb. He just found himself in that difficult position, and let Bertagnolli do all the work, just as the DS ordered him to do. Eventually he did fall back, just as they asked him to do. While I think that in this case, there are many riders who would have said "Screw it, I'm not passing on this unique opportunity" and stay ahead, regardless of what the DS yells at at you through the headset. Afterwards Pauwels was very cool and relaxed about the whole thing, putting it into perspective and wholeheartedly conforming that the whole team has only one goal: helping Sastre win the Giro. Every other personal goal is irrelevant, even when it comes to winning a stage. Of course he sounded disappointed, but he never did anything to discredit his team, his captain or his DS. Heck, he even thanked them for getting the opportunity to ride this Giro, being the young an insignificant rider he is. Which is pretty remarkable, 'cause he had every reason to badmouth his team.
 
A

Aguirre

May 19, 2009
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van poppel...

well, i think it was a disaster,something you don't see in professionals very often. I saw on basque Tv and commentators were like "should someone explain this tactique"?
really crap, poor guy. In a situation like this you don't drop never unless your boss is in real danger, and the boss being the maglia.
but being sastre 6 in general, having denis, di luca, levi and the rest in the group having the help of quick step and caisse and basso and garzeli only 30 seconds ahead, YOU NEVER STOP a rider that can win a stage.

van poppel should apologize publicly. By the way we saw a very poor tactic for whole cycling, menchov must be happy the rest are riding for him (specially LPR)
 
ElChingon

ElChingon

Mar 10, 2009
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From the way it looked to me, the DS's paid to not have the Cervelo rider tag along. I'm not saying which one but I think its obvious. Anyother explaination is just so impossible it must be true.

Yea, I know weird logic but what happened can't be sanely explained anyother way.
 
180mmCrank

180mmCrank

Mar 11, 2009
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Cervelo have had a pretty amazing year really - not sure if Van P has been calling all the shots but if he has he's done a great job.

Today looked like a miscalculaltion for sure - and the way it played out looked really silly. May not have looked so bad if Pauwels had actually been needed at some point!

Maybe Sastre was concerned about being left - say if Pellizotti had a go as Basso was pulled back...don't know ... but I am thinking they are pretty confident that Sastre can do something in the GC and I think that's where there attention was drawn.

It's going to be fun tomorrow :)
 
A

adam__

Apr 6, 2009
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Cobblestones said:
Team car? So what. He could've ripped his earpiece out in disgust and never looking back.

Ah well, no balls no glory.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a smart comment. How about "all balls, no job next year"?
 
Escarabajo

Escarabajo

Apr 16, 2009
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Aguirre said:
well, i think it was a disaster,something you don't see in professionals very often. I saw on basque Tv and commentators were like "should someone explain this tactique"?
really crap, poor guy. In a situation like this you don't drop never unless your boss is in real danger, and the boss being the maglia.
but being sastre 6 in general, having denis, di luca, levi and the rest in the group having the help of quick step and caisse and basso and garzeli only 30 seconds ahead, YOU NEVER STOP a rider that can win a stage.

van poppel should apologize publicly. By the way we saw a very poor tactic for whole cycling, menchov must be happy the rest are riding for him (specially LPR)
Click to expand...
Totally disagree. If you are 6th in the GC does not mean you still can not win the Giro d'Italia. Besides had Sastre had a mechanical or needed some help to pull any attacker the strategy would not had been so stupid after all.
 
H

hulkgogan

Mar 18, 2009
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Escarabajo said:
Totally disagree. If you are 6th in the GC does not mean you still can not win the Giro d'Italia. Besides had Sastre had a mechanical or needed some help to pull any attacker the strategy would not had been so stupid after all.
Click to expand...

Saying you can still win the Giro is not the same as saying it is highly probable.

I guess it comes down to how you calculate the risk/reward. Looks like Cervelo is taking an absolute approach, Sastre finishing on the podium is orders of magnitude more valuable than anything else.

Others might take a more expected value approach:

What is the probability Sastre is going to finish on the podium? How does Pauwels dropping back improve those odds? What are the odds of Pauwels winning the stage? What are the expected values of the various decision trees?

Personally I think a high probability stage win has an expected value quite a bit higher than the incremental increase of dropping back, but then I doubt they're making these calculations on the road.
 
K

kjetilraknerud

Apr 28, 2009
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By the way... This reminds of a story from the Tour de France in 1990 which always is told on Norwegian television during the TdF. Atle Kvålsvoll, Hushovd's coach, was on team Z with Greg LeMond. On stage 17, Kvålsvoll and a team mate were in a break, looking good for a stage win. Then LeMond punctured on a descent in the peloton, the result being that his two team mates had to stop riding, so they could help LeMond back to the peloton.
 
ingsve

ingsve

Mar 12, 2009
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Rosedale said:
The business with Pauwels yesterday only goes to show that cycling would benefit greatly if radios were banned
Click to expand...

The opposite can be said too. It believe that I read that Van Poppel didn't have a TV in his car so he couldn't see the situation in the race. If he had had one then he would have seen that they were gaining time on the break and that they had just about given up on their break so he could have reassured Sastre that everything was OK. Now he couldn't so he decided to support their captain who was asking for assistance.

I'm not saying that taking away radios wouldn't be good but there are two sides to every coin. I think it's important to take a wide look at a situation and not draw biased conclusions.
 
M

maniek

May 25, 2009
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Van Poppel should go back to run woman's team !:)
What the disaster for Cervelo.
But then again justice was done ! I would hate if Serge Pauwels was just siting in and then outsprinted Leonardo Bertagnolli at the end after all the work has been done by Leonardo. Can not stand wheel seaters. Team tactics or not.
Leonardo Bertagnolli deserved the stage win more than Pauwels ! He done all the damage in the break.
 
A

avantage

May 25, 2009
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Well, it looked bad on TV, that's for sure.
But tv watchers are no cycling experts, so if an experienced ex-pro make a decision he must have had good reasons.

Perhaps it was a deal with Diquigiovanni, that they'll help Sastre today, if needed. Is that so improbable?
 
N

Norman

May 25, 2009
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The Cervelo explanation from their website doesn't make sense to me. It's one thing to have your domestique drop out of a 14 man break to go back and help the team leader, but it's another thing to have him drop out of a two man break that has 2-3 min on the field, when you KNOW that one of those two guys will win the stage. Hulkgogan is right: "Personally I think a high probability stage win has an expected value quite a bit higher than the incremental increase of dropping back, but then I doubt they're making these calculations on the road." But I don't buy the excuse. They should be making those calculations on the road - isn't that exactly what the DS is paid for?

What really ****es me off is that in their website explanation they blaming Pauwels for not immediately doing what the DS told him, by claiming it all would have made sense if Pauwels had dropped back immediately. I don't think that Pauwels should have refused - he's a domestique and his job is to do what he's told. But the DS should have at least accepted some responsibility - it was a stupid call even if Pauwels had followed orders immediately. Anyone can make a mistake, but when you do, the honourable thing to do is admit it, not to blame someone else.

I was really enjoying Cervelo's unexpectedly good season - a great season so far, relative to expectations. But this incident, especially blaming the rider rather than taking responsibility, really ****es me off.
 
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